A HARRIS YARN by Alice Starmore

Part 3

Part 2 of this Harris yarn concluded with the police going out to Carloway Mill to issue an official warning over an obscene and threatening fax sent from the mill premises. Because of their obscenities, and their conviction for the equally obscene pollution of the Lewis landscape, the Carloway Mill companies are now known locally as the Ob Mob. Remember that the obscene fax was hand-written: in the same handwriting as that on the Companies House forms registering Gilpin, BB and Bain Investments as new shareholders in the Ob Mob.

Part 3 begins with a reminder that reality always beggars fiction. The hand that penned the obscene fax was mangled in the Carloway Mill machinery on Saturday 1st October 2005. The hand belonged to Stephen Mackay: production manager, company director and shareholder in the Ob Mob, and the usual signer of legal or threatening letters. Well, just like his right hand, his signing days have been severely curtailed. You really could not make this up could you?. If you put this into a novel you would be accused of laying on the symbolism with a large trowel.

To make matters even more astounding, on the very day before fate took a hand, in the Edinburgh Court of Session the presiding judge Lord Nimmo Smith said the following of Reid, the Cunninghams, Mackay and company:

I have the impression that the first to third respondents and Mr Mackay have sought to sail as close to the wind as they can do. If they do that, they must expect the occasional jibe. (For the full story see NEWS: HARRIS TWEED AUTHORITY WIN THEIR CASE AGAINST CARLOWAY MILL COMPANIES)

Sailing close to the wind! Spot on! That is precisely what they have done from Day One of this Harris Yarn, which I will now bring to a conclusion. You will recall how in 2004, the Ob Mob released Hunter of Brora liquidation stock which they touted as Harris Shetland. On the back of this came the advertising campaign for Rowan Harris Tweed that sparked the HTA legal action. In the campaign we learned of:

The New Harris Tweed Collection ... Shorelines by Di Gilpin Featuring the new Harris Tweed yarns. 15 designs reflecting the textile traditions of the Western Isles, but with a contemporary twist. A fresh and innovative look at knitting and design, creativity and colour.

Our unique textile tradition in the Hebrides is the weaving of the world-famous, trademarked and protected, Harris Tweed, so this was fascinating news for us here. Gilpin was going to come up with some original and spectacular designs based on our weaving tradition, with contemporary and modern twists as well. Move over V Westwood.

When the publication finally appeared there was much anti-climax and even more hilarity in the Hebrides to find that we are "hung like a skein of yarn". Really Ms Gilpin! Oh pity us and our poor, inadequate menfolk. She also claimed that she and the Ob Mob were knitted into the fabric of the Hebrides. Eh? That's not how I would put it. Burned into the fabric of Stornoway Sheriff Courthouse is more like it. Of our textile traditions there was no sign. It was however liberally plastered with references to Rowan Harris Yarn.

Some time after the burning and endangering of our landscape, the Rowan Harris Tweed yarns did indeed appear. Examination showed they were made from wool of bog-standard quality and of equally standard knopped construction, made up into doughnut balls. They were typical of the type of yarns in Rowan's Tweed range. They were definitely not entirely constructed by the Ob Mob as Carloway Mill did not possess either the necessary range of skills or machines.

What was interesting from my point of view was the fact that a few colours in the range were poor attempts to copy our shades. There was even called one Machair, although it was slapped on a shade that bore no relation to that rare and localised miracle of nature (for a description of Machair see HEBRIDEAN COLOUR STORIES on this site). Previously, the only other knitting yarn to carry that colour name was our Hebridean Machair, designed with care and much thought by us. Of all possible names it is simply not credible that Rowan - who can't even distinguish Lewis from Harris - could come up with Machair co-incidentally. I bet they couldn't even pronounce it properly. Why, once more, the determined desire to link to the Hebrides?

I instantly remembered that Stephen Mackay stated in a letter to my lawyer, 3rd April 2004, that:

customers have asked if we can supply the same colours as Alice Starmore's.

He then went on to mention colours such as "Starmore Red". All this talk of colours and customers had no relevance whatsoever to the subject of correspondence, and both my lawyer and I were deeply puzzled at the time. Suddenly, in retrospect, all became clear. The hand-knitting industry has no shortage of characters who try to get their snouts into any trough that they perceive is profitable. They had obviously besieged Carloway Mill with attempts to get their paws on our VY product, unaware that Donald Macleod had left the mill that he founded - taking his skill and experience with him - and was now making our yarn elsewhere. The Ob Mob do not have a single grain of his ability but this did not stop them from scenting an opportunity to dip their polluting snouts. They attempted to copy our Hebridean Yarn Concept, lifting an entire section of our website in the process. Not content with that, they then proceeded to filch the name of Harris Tweed: one of the most famous British trademarks in existence.

Sailing close to the wind is an understatement for the behaviour of the Ob Mob, who are now established as liars, infringers on a massive scale, and convicted criminals. In the textile sphere they are also completely haunless. This good Scottish word literally means handless, but idiomatically it means inept or useless. The degree of their haunlessness is staggering, for look what they have achieved in their attempts to copy our concepts. They have produced so much waste that they burned and endangered the moorland and earned themselves a conviction for environmental pollution. They have infringed so seriously that a large sum for legal costs has been awarded against them. Finally, to set the seal on their activities, their so-called production manager is now haunless in the literal sense and not just the metaphorical. What a twist in the tale.

And what a bunch of disparate characters and events the tale has unearthed. We have D Reid making false allegations and statements about me to the BBC. We have D Gilpin getting in on the act and calling the BBC to make a lengthy and vicious personal attack on me until told to desist. She is asked by the journalist to explain herself, and when cornered, then drops the Barrister Boyfriend Bombshell, clearly thinking this will send us natives scurrying to the hills to hide quivering under our plaids. We have His Barristerness intoning to the BBC: "be very,very, very, cautious", which is rich considering that his woman was just off the phone after very, very, very recklessly screeching about me to a bemused Beeb journalist.

We have court cases in both Stornoway and the capital. We have the Carloway Mill marketing and PR machine exploding into criminal obscenity. I can only hope that Reid does not preach this practice at Abertay University, although it is an option I suppose: a course called Expletive Faxing for Fun and Profit perhaps?.

And finally, here endeth this Harris Yarn - with a piece of symbolism that seems to have strayed from a Victorian melodrama but is straight from real life. I have a few further musings on Rowan's role in the saga and on the general state of the hand-knitting industry, but I will place these in an epilogue.

Until then ... Happy Trails. Or should that be Happy Trials?