Mr. WILFRID ROBERTS
(Newcastle Programme)
THIS MORNING Wilfrid Roberts will discuss the craftsmen of his moorland district, both those of today and those of yesterday. The blacksmith is still to be seen in his forge, but his sons are probably mechanics with an eye on the motor industry that is creeping in year by year. The younger generation ride their own motor cycles maybe, and prefer the smell of petrol to that of singeing hoof.
Potters still exist. Like gypsies, they are a distinct class in Cumberland, but they are not gypsies. They all deal in everything from scrap iron to feathers ; and in horses, too.
But the fame of the villages for hand-loom-weaving is a thing of the past. Few people remember it, though many, curiously enough, indirectly suffer from it. For in the old days the ground floors of houses were sunk below ground level with the object of keeping the raw material for weaving moist. Today, though the atmosphere is no dryer, people insist on inhabiting these below-ground rooms, despite threats from rheumatism and medical officers.
Another craft that is no more than a memory is that of violin making, for which Brampton, Wilfrid Roberts home town in Cumberland, will always be famous. Here William Forster was born in 1739, whose father and grandfather had made spinning wheels and violins and taught him the trade. William came to London to win renown as the first violin maker of his day, and later on, as the publisher of Haydn's music.
Wilfrid Roberts will say something, too, of the craft of making grandfather clocks, which once flourished in his district, and of the art of water divining which is practised to this day ; of the clog dancers that have gone, and of the few strolling musicians who still haunt the moors.