WHEELS OF INDUSTRY

New Zealand Listener, Volume 7, Issue 161, 24 July 1942, Page 12

WHEELS OF INDUSTRY

Modern Women Toil and Spin

twentieth century middens some five thousand years from now -may have their carefully worked out hypotheses somewhat upset by the discovery of rotted remains of spinning wheels among rusted motor-car engines, can openers and burnt-out electrical fitments. "Was not this the Machine Age?" they may ask each other, "And does not History teach us that the spinning wheel flourished about the time when fairy tales were born?" Perhaps an especially brilliant historian will one day produce a little monograph on "Twentieth Century War Work," and the interested will learn that almost halfway through the century, women who up till then had depended on powerdriven machines to transform fleece into yarn formed themselves into little groups and learnt to spin, using wool and wheels that had changed little since the Fates first spun the thread of life. Socks for Seamen I visited such a little group recently. Five women were quietly busy, sitting framed in the large window at one end of a hall-like room, just as their ancestors | must have sat a thousand years ago at one end of the long rush-strewn hall. And as they sat, the buzz of conversation rose above the whirring of the wheels, much as it must have done many | thousands of years ago. But here all resemblance must end. The window looks out over the trafficked streets and tall buildings of a twentieth-century city instead of over the wooded glades of Saxon England, the conversation’ is about the prorogation of Parliament tather than the dealings of the Witenagemot, and the product of the whirring wheels will be knitted into garments for the Merchant Navy instead of being woven into tunics for the members of the household. It’s to-day, I am forced to remind myself, and any resemblance to any other period is entirely coincidental. "These are some of the things we’ve finished," said my mentor, briskly, rescuing me from my preoccupation. I gazed at mufflers, stockings, mittens, gloves and polo-necked pullovers which were not so aggressively modern that one could not imagine them protecting the person of Alfred the Great as he hid in the marshes. And that they would have been very suitable for the purpose A ents who dig in

is borne out by my guide’s next remark. "They're almost completely waterproof," she explained, "because they’re knitted from unscoured wool. A large percentage of the lanoline is left in." I felt them gingerly, but they were not greasy to the touch. And the wool was beautifully soft. More Wheels Needed "We usually get black fleeces given to us, because they’re not of much use to the farmer," the convener pointed out. "However, somebody recently donated us a bale of white, so we’re able to use them separately or mix them and get all.these in-between greys. But home-spun, unscoured wool garments are best for men on ships, because they’re warm and they don’t get waterlogged." We moved to the large table. Here, behind cartons of- raw wool, black and white, an elderly lady was busy teasing. "Fresh from the sheep," she remarked as she held up a piece of brown wool speckled with biddibid. All this had to be removed before carding could begin. "Do you keep to the same job all the time?" I asked. "Yes, I’m not game enough to start learning to spin, I prefer my own job," she confessed. "Nonsense," said the convener firmly. To me she explained: "We all shift round as far as possible, as long as the wheels are kept going. We have only the three and we can’t really extend our circle until we get some more. At present I’m carding." She showed me the two heavy wooden implements, studded with spikes like a fakir’s resting place, with which the wool is straightened out and combed into a "rolag" ready for the spinning. "Try it," she said. The carders were heavy, and by the time I’d made my first presentable "rolag" my wrists ached. "You get used to it" was the convener’s comment as she demonstrated deftly. "The next ee is the spinning." Three sets of nimble fingers fed ‘inlet from the "rolag"’ into the revolving "flyer" and three feet rhythmically trod the treadle. The wheels made a sleepy whirr, but the workers had urgent matters to discuss and did not heed its invitation to reverie. "After a while spinning becomes a purely mechanical business like knitting," said one of the workers to me. "You can spin and do other things at the same time."

"Yes," said the third spinner, "it isn’t exactly hard work. That’s why there’s the distinction between toiling and spinming. "They toil not neither do they spin.’ Would you like to try?" I tried, concentrating fiercely on my rolag. But in spite of my concentration the flyer whirled too fast for me and the thread broke. I re-threaded the flyer and tried again. This time I manjaged to feed through four inches of elongated lumpage before the threads finally parted. "Keep on with it, you’re improving," the spinners encouraged. But I had visions of a seaman’s jersey disintegrating before his astonished eyes in the very hour of his greatest need, and rose resolutely from the wheel. The original proprietress sat down again. "Tll show you how we make two-ply wool," she said. She took a reel of light and a reel of dark yarn and turned her wheel in the opposite direction, spinning the two threads together to form a marled effect. "Then when the spool is full," she explained, "we wind it off in skeins, wash the skeins in two lots of soapy water (this takes most, but not all, of the grease out) then roll it into balls and start knitting." She busily trod the treadle, and the light and dark threads ran together. It was time to go. My imagination was once again getting the better of me, bearing me back into the world of Snow-White and the Sleeping Beauty, of Rowena, of Alfred and the cakes. Lost in the maze of history I stepped out of the door and into the street. There was a shriek of brakes and a reproachful toot, and my mind jerked itself abruptly back into the twentieth century.

M.

B.