Roman

It is always a great joy to hear directly from readers and this week I have received a handwritten note from someone saying how much they enjoyed my dogs book. More importantly they provided me with some extra information, which I wish I had had at the time of writing.My correspondent, a person of some distinction and not a youngster (the letter was handwritten because they do not use a computer) recalls a time when her mother, living in Somerset during the 1930s, owned a working poodle. She informs me that the practice for working poodles then was to tie a ribbon to a tuft on top of the head, so that they were not shot by mistake while in the water. Poodles were used traditionally for duck hunting. Presumably from certain angles and in certain light a tufted Poodle can bear a resemblance to the rear end of a tufted duck.She further relayed that a former neighbour in Wiltshire (now deceased) had told her that, during the 1940’s and 1950s, all working Poodles wore a ribbon in the hair.In my book I had ventured the oft-cited notion that different coloured ribbons on a Poodle’s topknot may have originated in the hunting field as a way of distinguishing one dog from the other. This may still also be true but it is undoubtedly supplanted by this primary function of identifying them as dogs in the water.So much of our everyday, social history comes down to us orally. However it is a fragile resource. It is no longer common for Poodles to be working dogs. A notable exception are the superb hunting Poodles of Louter Creek kennels in Georgia, USA – where I visited for the Water Dogs chapter of the book. At Louter Creek they are pioneering a renaissance of the Poodles’ traditional role. However because it is no longer common for Poodles to hunt ducks, the memory of old customs starts to fade, as the generations pass. What was once commonplace knowledge becomes lost. I am therefore indebted to this wonderful old countrywoman for sharing her recollections.I searched the internet in vain for an image of a working Poodle with a ribbon tied to its topknot but what I found were too saccharine to share. So instead I share an image from my book of me and two of Louter Creeks wonderful dogs. I am equipped with a crossbow because that was the primary means of shooting ducks in the 16th century and contemporary writers talk about the dogs retrieving the hunter’s bolts when he missed. These dogs retrieved my bolts with diligence, ignoring any others sticks on the water and bringing them to hand without crushing the feathers and without so much as a tooth-mark on the shafts. They also retrieved a duck with similar efficiency, albeit it was a duck that had been taken from the freezer earlier that day, not one that I had shot. For the book I had a policy of only simulating or substituting hunting activities because I want this book to be accessible to everyone, whatever their personal views on hunting. It is important to me that the dogs’ story gets told and I didn’t want any distractions. ...

There is so much information in this little corner of a 19th century sail. Just look at the detail and the design, the craftsmanship and the art. A sail was the means by which several tons of ship was hauled against the drag of the ocean by the power of the wind. The points at which a sail attached to the yards, booms and masts of a ship were subject to enormous stresses. If it were to tear at this juncture, the ship may be imperilled. Here the metal eyelet is re-enforced with rawhide but also with an ingenious matrix of stitching (not dissimilar to the style of stitch used on some medieval textile armour). It is exquisite work for an everyday object and helps us to appreciate the art of the sailmaker. The thread is hemp. Hemp is an exceptionally strong fibre and unaffected by salt water. Hemp was also used for bowstrings. Hemp, of course, comes from the cannabis sativa plant. As well as making extra-strong thread, hemp was the fiber of choice to make the canvas for the sails. In fact the etymology of the word ‘canvas’ is rooted in the word cannabis – canvas was made from cannabis (hemp) fibres. ...

Roman

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