No 211. Pirn Whatnot.

No 211. Pirn Whatnot.

No 210
. Pirn Whatnot.

Nothing was ever wasted on a croft, so what to do with a wooden pirn when the thread was finished. As boys we cherished them and whittled them into very useful spinning tops, each pirn making two by cutting with our pocket knives into the centre.
At Kirbister Farm Museum in Birsay in Orkney there is an example of crofter’s shelving using pirns as decorative spacers. Different pirns, different colours, different styles. A couple of short bits of driftwood planks off the beach did for shelves. With a hot poker bore holes in the wood, pinch some fisherman’s twine for the hangers. Different thread maker firms made many different styles of pirns, works of art really. Coates of Paisley comes to mind, Patons, many others. Shelves were not the only things made, and the artistic bent of many a crofter found expression in many imaginative ways.

So too did his wife. No piece of cloth or knitting was ever “done” and thrown away. A knitted woollen garment would be patiently unravelled, the wool wound into a ball and reknitted into something else. A worn elbow or wrist or neck would be re-knitted. I got my favourite 40 plus year-old Norwegian ganser re-done by a very patient and generous retired lady in Thurso who un-did and re-knitted the worn cuffs, under-chargeing me by a mile for her work!! . Better than new, she used a very heavy thick black wool to match the old. New leather patches sewn onto the worn elbows too

Quite proud of it I am, and it is still my favourite garment. Great and extremely comfortable for travelling round the World, which it has done a couple of times.

While wearing it in the Auckland Museum in New Zealand in December 1993 I was accosted by a charming lady who asked me in Norwegian which I do not speak if I came from Norway. I really thought my luck had turned!! She was actually a Hollander but had spent many good years in Oslo in Norway with her husband who was in the Dutch Diplomatic Service.
The silent secret of ganseys was in their infinite patterns which allowed recognition of the wearer when many miles from his home village, even sadly a fisherman who might be found drowned who had been lost in some disaster at sea.
Though his remains would many a time be unrecognisable his family pattern ganser would survive and tell who he was or from which fishing village he had come.
The old Viking and Icelandic name was and still is “ganser”, so perhaps the name “gansey” really is of Nordic origin. The Channel Island of Guernsey reputed to be the origin of Gansey - which I do not hold - was peopled by Normans of Viking ancestry anyway, so what’s in a name. A jersey that opened all the way down is called a “troike”.
I discovered this when I held open a lift door for an elderly gentleman on crutches in the Park Hotel in Voss in Norway where our sister has lived long time, since January 1959 actually. I spoke to him in English which almost all Norwegians speak fluently so no language problems. He was one of four brothers who had gathered from all over Norway for their mother’s 100th birthday. Good company.
On a very fast and large pasenger catarman on the way South from Bergen to Haugesund I also met an Icelandic couple who verified the name as ganser, used by them in Iceland too.

Rag rugs come to mind. Bits of cloth or old knitted garments were cut and stiched into a rag quilt or blanket, very warm and long wearing. They could be extremely attractive, a stylish pattern emerging as bits became available and were woven or stitched into the whole. Took some time too. When a crofter’s wife came to the door asking if there were some worn or old garments she could get, she was not begging in any way. It was the times we lived in long since, nothing wasted or thrown away which was anathema to our forebears. Cuffs were turned, collars too if attached to a shirt. Dungarees patched time after time, patches on top of patches sometimes.
The throw-away society had not yet been invented where we dump more than we use.

I remember some bits being put aside in case old Betsy might call sometime.
If you went to her house she would always have something or other doing, never idle.. Knitting, stitching, mending socks, paring tatties for tomorrow, washing clothes in the old tub, ironing, hard at work from morn to night.
Making mash for the hens, tatties peeled for tomorrow, boiling tatties for the pig, scraps for the dog. And bringing up the bairns too!!
It is in retrospect a miracle how these crofters lived, but they did.
And many a one lived a long life with never a day at the doctor.