Knitting for a Living

I used to be a knitter. Actually, I worked for a knitting yarn manufacturer for thirteen years but, for nine of them, I was a Hand Knitter / Maths Checker. I'd come out of nursing and I later went into computer programming but the knitting was nice, and unusual. People assumed we used knitting machines but it was the kind of knitting you get in women's magazines: knitting by hand. Once two guys from the local CID (Criminal Investigation Department) came to talk to me [over a mix-up with my bus-pass; I don't mix with all those secret agents, murderers and pirates, anymore] and. when I told them I was a Hand-Knitter, they asked how I managed to fit in all the fingers. Well, you know cartoonists generally draw only three.

So, you want to know what it was like:

There were thirty of us in a room like a classroom, with a supervisor at the front. We all had proper wooden three-drawer office desks with a lifting flap. We had a tea towel on the desk, to protect the knitting from contamination, and another to protect our clothing from shed yarn. We weren't supposed to talk loudly enough to spoil the Compilers' concentration (but the Compilers only stopped talking long enough to complete tricky calculations). Occasionally, the supervisor changed the layout of the desks or moved everybody round, just like a teacher in school. My friend and I sat next to each other and talked all day long so the supervisor moved us to opposite ends of the room, but she had to move us back because we shouted to each other, across all the intervening people. All the knitters and compilers were women. So were the designers. All the managers were men, and the manufacturing, warehouse and clerical offices were mixed. We were the prestige department and all the tours came through our room, including a coachload of Japanese Craft Shop owners.

We were allowed to read while knitting, and write shopping lists, because it kept us quiet. I wrote letters, quite a few poems and a couple of stories. As long as I kept the pad under the corner of the cloth, the supervisor couldn't catch me and, as long as I produced the work (and kept quiet), she didn't want to. We had to have a pad, to keep track of rows and stitches, so it was easy just to keep another pad next to it for story notes, etc.

So, I hear you ask, what were we doing as our paid job? Well, all those sweaters you wear, the good quality ones, have to be designed and knitted. Knitting yarn manufacturers pay designers to design them, Compilers to write the instructions, Maths Checkers to check that the instructions work and Knit Checkers to check that the garment will come out like the designer's sketch. The completed garments were photographed for the cover of the instruction leaflets. And the whole Publications section existed to encourage people to buy our knitting yarn rather than that of a rival manufacturer.

We didn't just knit, and it wasn't all garments. There was a six-month training period because we had to learn how to do all the different types of plain and fancy knitting stitches and fabrics, different types of shaping, different methods of joining the pieces together, as well as crochet and some embroidery. It was apprentice training, although without recognition, and our work was classed as semi-skilled manual labour.

It was a good environment; friendly and free, with only occasional time-pressure, and I sometimes miss it. One day, I hope there will be recognition for the skill which goes into this work, and certficates to prove it has worth. After all, people will always need clothes and some people will always want to make them.

I can't knit a jumper for a man with a 46 inch chest in under a month and, these days, I wouldn't want to start one. But I can knit anything I want and adapt commercial instructions to suit my needs. Four Christmases ago, I knitted a glove puppet which every kid recognised as Pikachu (using instructions for Postman Pat's cat). I still learn new stitches when I want to. And I intend to develop a course to pass on this knowledge, just like craftsmen always used to.

Knitting allows expression for our creative side and, if anyone was offered a paid job doing a task they'd choose as a hobby, it wouldn't take too much thought to decide whether to take it.