A HARRIS YARN by Alice Starmore

Epilogue

You would think that the extra-ordinary events described in this Harris Yarn would induce astonishment fatigue. Not so: there is always room for another twist. VY staff recently heard from a group of US knitters coming to Lewis to seek what they called a "factory experience". They wrote:

We also plan to visit a yarn factory on Lewis to see how yarn is produced. The Rowan Yarn people gave me a number to telephone on Lewis to a factory that makes their "Tweed Yarns."

A factory experience? I suppose you could apply that phrase to impromptu amputation without anaesthetic. Here we have Rowan directing people to visit the Ob Mob, who, in addition to their other transgressions and infringements, have severe Health and Safety concerns. But perhaps Rowan do not mind. After all, they became infringers themselves by misappropriating the Harris Tweed trademark. They were also so desperately keen to cut themselves a slice of the Hebrides that they piled gaffe upon gaffe and established themselves as ignoramuses prepared to spout any old rubbish so long as it suited their purpose. How did it come to this? Let us step back and look at what Rowan once was.

In 1995 I found myself a creditor of the original Rowan Yarns Limited when they went bust. As a result I was sent all the insolvency reports from the Official Receivers - a firm with the wonderful name of Hore & Hinds. Their reports were invariably well-written and made interesting breakfast reading. One of them stated that Rowan Yarns "established a reputation for premium quality and innovative design". It was further stated in the report that efforts should be made to sell the business as a going concern since "if the business were to be closed then the brand name would disappear and the stock would have minimal value". The Rowan brand was duly sold to Coats. Are Coats not wondering what exactly they bought? What happened to the innovation? Why should an innovative company link up with a bunch who are copying what someone else is doing? Why go on to peddle the product under a filched trademark?

Stephen Sheard - founder of the original Rowan Yarns - sent an e-mail to me at VY, so they knew full well about the Hebridean Yarn Concept which is detailed on this website. It is also inconceivable that anyone in the textile industry did not know that Harris Tweed is a very famous brand. I am acquainted with Stephen Sheard and I vividly remember how vigorously he defended Rowan concepts. He once waved under my nose a mock-up cover for a knitting book that he had picked up at a trade fair. I had never heard of the publication and was therefore amazed when he accused me of copying a Rowan idea about an arrangement of photographs on a page.* Not the contents, please note, but the method of placing the pictures. Since Rowan concepts were so well-guarded, I assumed that they treated the property of others with equal respect. Well, it's changed days it seems. All now appears to be grist to the Rowan mill, even if it is a trademark protected by Act of Parliament. As for the vaunted Rowan innovation, that has also disappeared up its own fundament, since the story that launched Rowan's Harris Tweed yarn had a decidedly inverse Star Trek quality about it - to boldly go where others have gone before.

Rowan's Harris adventure smacks of a poverty of original ideas that bodes ill for the hand-knitting industry. What does it say about the state of that industry when one of the largest players in the game stoops to being a parasite on others? They have been forced to back off from Harris Tweed and have now widened their remit to Scotland generally. Their stuff is now branded as Scottish Tweed. Perhaps they will be adding Whisky and Haggis to the Porridge and Thatch in their comically cliched colour names. I would suggest that in order not to confuse it with genuine Scottish Tweed (as in cloth products of Scotland) it should be referred to as Skittish Twaddle.

The whole Ob Mob-Rowan escapade is symptomatic of a deep malaise endemic in the industry. I am frequently asked how to develop a career in hand knitting design, and I now have to say - don't even waste precious time thinking about it. If you are original and talented then your work and sometimes your very name will be ripped-off backwards, forwards and sideways by the snout-in-trough brigade.

I have never known of a genuinely creative person who is confined to a single field of expression. That is not the way the creative mind works: never has and never will. If original creative work is abused by those seeking a free ride, then the creators simply turn to some other medium. Those who support and collude in such abuse can only expect to be becalmed in the dull doldrums of plagiarism and ersatz design values.

It will probably be of some comfort to the Ob Mob and their ilk to learn that having to shovel their foul-smelling pile of clarts has been a complete pain in the posterior. I would have much sooner been knitting. It has also been deeply depressing to witness such behaviour coming from my native island. We have our renegades it is true, but it is also true to say that the Hebrides has one of the lowest crime rates in the world. A Hebridean can expect to go from cradle to grave without ever being called for jury duty, and this is something that the vast majority of us are very proud of. The crime rate is so low that the past few years have seen a notable wave of incomers settling here, especially from the midlands and northern counties of England - including Yorkshire. They come partly for the space, the peace and the unique beauty of our islands, but just as much to escape a rising tide of crime and vandalism. How ironic that the islands have thrown up such a saga of gutter ethics. It is even more ironic that Rowan - of Yorkshire - managed to wend its way north, sniff out some of our rare bad apples, and become a part of the whole sorry yarn.

* In fairness to Stephen Sheard, I should add that the cover in question had ALICE STARMORE emblazoned right across it, which explains why he felt a righteous need to point his finger at me. My response to him was - if you are scandalized, how on earth do you think I feel? I don't know what he did about his photographic arrangement, but it was certainly not the last time that my name was to be brazenly misappropriated.