Seasons on Harris (12 page)

To give him his due, he put up a long and loquacious defense of the industry and insisted that “a buyer will definitely be found and no jobs should be lost. I'm talking to a group from Turkey next week. There've been twelve other bidders too and I've reduced the price quite significantly, so I'm quite optimistic.”

Unfortunately, the look of wariness in his eyes didn't seem to reflect the optimism of his words. Finally his exasperation broke through:

“We've all tried so hard! The government and the European Union have helped us retool the industry, bring in the new double-wide looms, develop lighter blends of tweed for the designer markets. But everything seems to be against us. Even our own weavers sometimes. Some were not so keen to use these new machines. But the biggest problem is that no one's wearing jackets anymore! And…”—he gave a cynical chuckle—“even if they do, one Harris Tweed jacket'll last a lifetime anyway! And then there's the British pound—it's too high. Kills exports. And tariffs—especially those in the USA—they can stop trade so fast.
And too little promotion too—there's a lot of competition out there nowadays. And false labeling—we've seen far too much of that, especially in Asian products. And that's our key lifeline—our ‘Orb' mark. And China—China's really turning on all fabric makers. Underpricing everyone.”

We cut the meeting short. It seemed unfair to question Derick about the future at a time when, from his standpoint, there was no future. At least, not for him.

“Oh—I keep hearing rumors y'know. Companies want to use Harris Tweed for handbags, upholstery, golf bags, baseball caps…but nothing ever seems to come of them. We've been on a slide now for too long…and there's nothing worse than having all this hanging over our factory workers and our weavers. It's terrible for them.”

 

“D
ERICK'S A GOOD MAN,” INSISTED
cheery-faced Robert Ferdinando at his Celtic Clothing store on Bayhead Street in Stornoway. “A very good man. He's given everything to that company and what's happening now is hurting him so much…I actually worry about him. It's almost too much for one man…he
is
Harris Tweed. Although he doesn't own the actual Orb label, almost all the fabric produced here comes through his two factories and his home weavers.”

Despite his decidedly non-Hebridean accent and his family's ancient origins in pre-seventeenth-century Portugal, Robert has a deep affection for the islands and all the pomp and pageantry of Scottish traditional dress. Here, in his small tartan-and tweed-crammed store, he sits weaving meticulous bird's-eye fabrics on a gleaming modern double-wide loom while his wife, Kathleen, a bespoke tailor, coordinates the production upstairs of elegant silver-buttoned jackets, tartan vests, and those meticulously box-pleated kilts particularly popular with bagpipe bands.

“For a little over a thousand dollars you can walk out of here in full Highland dress,” said Robert proudly. “The kind that Queen Victoria virtually invented for her own staff and the military—Argyll jacket, vest, shirt, tie, kilt, buckled belt, sealskin
sporran
-purse, hand-knitted socks complete with a wee dirk-dagger—a
sgian dubh
—stuck into the right
sock, and beautiful, sparkling-black, patent leather shoes, or
ghillie brogues
. Oh, and we can even provide the underwear—despite all the jokes, underwear is rather essential! Or y'can rent the whole outfit for a day or two and see how you feel.”

For a moment—just a moment—I was tempted. Anne saw the look in my eyes and tried to convince me how cute I'd look as a traditional bagpiper.

Robert overheard her remark. “Yes, and isn't it nice to become a completely different person once in a while!”

Being somewhat of a proponent of Walt Whitman's “I contain multitudes,” “multiself” concept, which encourages us to become as many different selves as we, in actuality, are, I was tempted by Robert's suggestion. And as we chatted with him we realized what a kaleidoscopic, peacock's-tail range of personas he'd become in his own reasonably young life. “Oh—I've morphed around quite a bit—a rather protean eclectic life as a musician, driving instructor, teacher, airline pilot…and a few other selves I'm not quite so proud about!”

“But it looks like you've settled down now…it says on your brochure that you've been here for twelve years.”

“Yeah, that's about right. We came up from Newcastle for a vacation and never left!”

“And got yourself one of these expensive double-wide looms.”

“Yes—and they are expensive. Price of a small car! That's when Derick made himself a bit unpopular too…trying to get weavers to invest in these things. Many considered it to be the death knell of the traditional weaver—said that the ‘new' tweed didn't have that ‘old tickle,' and ‘famous fearsome hairiness.' Also, they often had to rebuild their loom sheds to get it inside! Bit of a difficult time…for everyone, 'specially as the industry declined from around two thousand workers and weavers and over seven million yards of tweed a year to less than five hundred and barely a million yards nowadays.”

“So—what's the future? Will tweed just become a quaint craft hobby for a few older weavers?” I asked.

Robert gave a hearty belly laugh. “Well, no, not if Donald John MacKay has anything to say about it!”

“Who?”

“Donald John. Of Luskentyre. And his wife, Maureen. Y'mean no one's told you about Donald? He's our tweed hero! Should get a knighthood or something for everything he's trying to do to keep the weaving alive…ah, y'must go and see him. He'll put a smile on y'face. Obviously Derick didn't, so why don't you visit Donald instead!”

I was reluctantly leaving Robert's shop, still eyeing his kilt kits and beautiful tailored tweed jackets, when I was struck by a spontaneous urge.

“Darlin', I've decided what I'd like for my birthday present. It's time for me to do my bit for the Harris Tweed industry.”

And so I walked away from the shop in a beautifully cut gray-blue and olive-green herringbone tweed jacket, which indeed possessed just a touch of the “old tickle.”

Robert called out a farewell—and a blessing. “May you enjoy it, wear it, and live until you find it in shreds and tatters”—the implication being, I assumed, that as my jacket would never wear out, neither would I.

Then came Donald John MacKay.

“Aye, come in, come in—close the door. There's a nasty blast off the sound today. C'mon here and stand by mi'heater. I'll turn the radio off, otherwise I'll not be hearin' a word you're saying.”

So far we hadn't said anything except a brief hello as we peeped our heads into Donald John's workshop at the side of his bungalow-home overlooking the magnificent sweep of the Luskentyre sands. At first we thought we'd stopped at the wrong place. Despite a small sign confirming that this was indeed the location of the Luskentyre Harris Tweed Company, Donald John's well-loved and well-respected business, we expected to see something a little more impressive than your standard minute metal-walled loom shed.

“Maybe there's another building at the back of the house,” whispered Anne as we walked up the muddy, rock-strewn path.

There wasn't.

This was all there was to the great Donald John and Maureen MacKay empire.

“Aye, it's cozy, isn't it,” said Donald John, his elfish face and mischie
vous eyes gleaming, and his handshake, viselike in strength (hardly surprising, with fingers as tough and grained as the keys on a Wild West honky-tonk). He spoke in rapid staccato sentences, his mind apparently whizzing along faster than his voice could keep up. “Well now, what would you like…oh, some tea, would you like a cup…ah, no, no, Maureen's out isn't she and I'm hopeless in the kit—Anyway, so this is my loom and over there…you'll have to go in the other door if y'want to see all my different tweeds. Is that what you…shame about the tea…I like to have tea with visitors when…so where are y'from…are you stayin' on island or…?”

Finally his zip-zap monologue ceased and he sat grinning at us, waiting for some kind of response.

We described our ongoing odyssey through the island world of the “tweed people” and he listened, still grinning, as we explained that from what we had learned so far, it appeared he was going to be the only one with anything positive to say about the future of this poor beleaguered cottage industry.

He nodded understandingly and spoke now a little more slowly.

“Well, yes, yes, it's a difficult time indeed. And poor Derick. He's in a real bind. Been trying for years to get more trade for us all. But you know, there's only so much one man can do…”

“Well, according to some, you're now that man!” I said.

Donald John gave a kind of spluttery chuckle of bashful modesty. “Me. Is that what they're sayin' now? Well—I must admit it's not been a bad year or two for us. Some nice orders from the Japanese and whatnot. But it's not really what y'could call a ‘revival.' No, I don't think so yet. And if Maureen was here she'd possibly put it a lot more bluntly too!”

“Does she work with you? On this loom?” asked Anne, pointing to one of the most well-used, fluff-flecked, greasy-looking Hattersley foot-pedal looms we'd seen so far on the island.

This time Donald John gave a real belly laugh. “Maureen!? On this thing? Oh no—no—you'd never see her on this. Have y'ever tried one of these things? I should let y'have a go. It's a killer on the legs. These foot pedals need a lot o' push to keep 'em working right. No, I don't think my Maureen would enjoy it very much at all. But! But she's a
wonder at the computer! That's what she does and she does it very, very well. In fact, if there's any reason I'm still here after all these years, it's because of her gettin' on the Web and the e-mail and all that stuff and somehow gettin' the world to come over and visit us and—if we're lucky—place orders with us. And we've been pretty lucky. Some good orders from Norway, Taiwan, Kathmandu, Germany—and even a bunch of cowboy types in Tehachapi, California. They ordered a whole lot to make special waistcoats for themselves! Oh, and also, we got some from some of the big fashion names too—y'know, people like Donna Karan, John Galliano, Valentino, and Jimmy Choo. Not huge orders, but they like my patterns and the fact that I still work as close to tradition as y'can these days. Not the dyein' and the spinnin' and things like that of course, but the weavin' itself. I think they respect that. And I think they respect the fact that I won't—I can't—compromise. I won't mess around
mixing in these new yarns and crazy colors. That's not the Harris—that's some other kind of mix—others can do that off-island. I won't.”

Donald John MacKay—At the Loom

Donald John paused as if a little surprised by his own spirited outburst. “Y'see I was born here in Leverburgh into a weaving family, very strict principles, and very hard work. I remember m'dad used to tell me when I didn't feel like fillin' the bobbins for him: ‘No bobbins—no brose and no bannock cakes!' That was a good way to remind you of principles—and I'm still proud to keep 'em…”

He paused again for a moment and his face became a little forlorn. “But…y'know what I think is saddest…most of all…I get visitors here from all over the world and I've had lots of school groups from Ireland, Italy, Norway, and other parts of Scotland and Britain, but—well, y'can hardly credit it really can ye—I've yet to see any of our own children from the local schools here come and visit and watch what we do…what hundreds of us used to do. Proudly…”

There was silence for a while and then Anne asked, “Can we watch what you do?”

Donald John's face lit up with undisguised pleasure.

“A' thought you'd never ask! I'll show you what this old thing can do, all right—she's over thirty years old and still good for another thirty. Forget y'double-wides, I'm sticking with this beauty. An' I'll tell y'another thing too. Don't be writin' off our Harris Tweed yet. Not by a long way. We've had our bad patches before and we're in a bit of a sticky mess at the moment but…well, if Maureen and me have anything to do about it, we'll find something to kick-start all the looms again. I promise you—it won't be long before you'll be hearing this sound again all over the island.”

And with a straight back and proud shoulders, Donald John sat down at his tweed-covered bench (actually, just a plank of wood). Within seconds his old loom creaked and groaned into action. And the rhythmic, almost railroadlike clickety-clack, clickety-clack of the gears and wheels and bobbins began, and the weft yarn scuttled backward and forward between the warp threads as he worked the sturdy iron foot pedals, and his body swayed slowly from side to side with the noise of the wheels and the smell of the yarn wool and the beautiful, smooth, blue-gray her-
ringbone-patterned tweed cloth emerging on the loom, inch by magical inch…