Last of the Line: Traditional British Craftsmen

by Tom Quinn, Paul Felix

4to landscape. A good copy with minor bumping to cover corners and slight shelfwear to illus dw.

160 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Kathy]

Written in 1999 this book interviews craftspeople who are still working in obscure and mostly forgotten traditional crafts. Many of these skills have a line of knowledge going back centuries and often produce goods of much better quality than you'd get via modern factory methods. The book is a reminder of how clever people can be and how easily both knowledge and skills are lost. How many of these people have managed to train someone else since this book was written is unknown and some of these skills may now be extinct in the UK. The book covers the following crafts:

* The cowskin boatman
* The Bark tanner
* The Bee-skep man
* The boot-tree man
* The Bow maker
* The cane rod builder
* The single Gloucester cheese maker
* The clay pipe maker
* The Master coppicer
* The hand fan maker
* The kipper smoker
* The legal wig maker
* The Peat cutter
* The Pole-lathe man
* The pub sign painter
* The Putcher fisherman
* The rake maker
* The Rubarb forcer maker
* The ships figurehead carver
* The swill basket maker
* The brick maker
* The Charcoal burner
* The lobster-pot man
* The Irish bagpipe maker
* The freeminer
* The wooden oar maker
* The Trug maker
* The balloon basket maker
* The flint knapper
* The reed cutter
* The arrowhead maker
* The golf club maker

If you are interested in traditional crafts or these fading skills this is an interesting book to read and combines both interviews and photos of the craftspeople and how they make the items.