RURAL CRAFTS

Timaru Herald, Volume CLVII, Issue 23113, 30 January 1945, Page 3

RURAL CRAFTS

Revival In Britain

Useful Part In War Production

Britain’s ancient rural crafts, many of which were dying out a few years ago, have had a wartime revival, and traditional industries all over England are now playing a quiet but useful part in war production. So great, indeed, has been the call on the skilled services of blacksmiths, saddlers, and carpenters that some farmers’ organisations took steps this year to launch local recruiting drives for them. The shortage of hand workers in iron, leather, and wood was affecting farm production. There is need for new blood if some of these old crafts are to flourish again. It has been estimated, for example, that nearly half of the Suffolk smithies have closed down during recent years, and the rest of the industry is in ageing hands. The average age Of the blacksmiths of East Anglia is said to be nearly 60. A general drive to encourage entry into the rural crafts began last year, when it was realised that in 50 years the numbers of blacksmiths, saddlers and wheelwrights had fallen by about two-thirds.

The National Farmer’s Union £ft)d rural community councils supported the' drive with the advocacy of organised craft training, apprenticeship schemes, financial aid to enable craftsmen to establish their own businesses, and a plan to modernise workshops and train craftsmen for modern needs. Work of this kind has actually been going on for some years. The Rural Industries Bureau, under the Ministry of Agriculture, has organisers, mostly resident in the districts concerned, to look after the craftsmen of England and Wales. The bureau passes on to them the latest technical information, on which crafts are gradually being converted to modern needs.

For example, Instructors in equipped vans travel about to blacksmiths and wheelwrights teaching oxy-welding and arc-welding, and installing small machines like drills, lathes, grinders, and punchers, bought through a loan equipment fund. More than £30,000 worth of machinery has been bought this way without any bad debts. The bureau has also a clay industries section, under which come the ancient potteries, some on the same sites since Roman times, which are now making agricultural earthenware. Many closed brickyards have reopened and are producing farm drainpipes. Village basketmakers are also making a contribution to wartime agriculture. There have been no supplies of baskets from Germany, Holland, or Belgium for five years. The demand from the fruit trade alone had weavers working at top speed soon after war began. Most of the old basketmakers went out of business 12 years ago in the face of foreign competition, but training centres have now been set up. Apprentices receive two years’ instruction free, and the trade is thriving again along the picturesque river valleys of Anglia and Somerset. . Centuries-old hand-spinning wheels, once sold by antique dealers as ornaments, are back in commission, the drive for knitted comforts and the rising costs of cloths having stimulated the demand for spinners and weavers. Wood-turners of the old beechwoods, who worked with primitive pole and treadle lathes, are making tent pegs for the Allied forces. Before the war they turned out chair legs for the furniture industry. Hurdle-making and thatching, once threatened by a lack of willing apprentices, have taken a new lease of life. For example, the Kinnard families of Clapham and Patching, adjoining villages outside Worthing, became extremely busy even two years ago under the stimulus of the agricultural drive. They have been making hurdles and other wood products in the same villages for 300 years. Their, wartime output includes hurdles for sheep, spars, and pegs for thatching, feeding cages for cattle, bullock cribs, and tomato canes. The last-named is a new industry, all canes having been imported before the war. Nowadays landgirls are taking lessons in these and similar crafts from old countrymen. It is hoped that under the stimulus of organisations like the National Farmers’ Union, most of these ancient trades will be placed on a permanent basis of post-war prosperity.