Poldark a double-edged sword for the scything trade

POLDARK, the hit BBC show, misleads people about scything because gardeners worry they won’t be muscular enough to try it.

Steve Tomlin, a scything instructor, said the series, which featured in one much-discussed scene a lean and topless Aidan Turner as Poldark scything, has been a “mixed blessing”.

“There has been a steady growth in sales of scythes and numbers on our courses,” he said. “Poldark got the scythe into the public eye but it was a mixed blessing. I had a lot of people contact me after Poldark saying they would like to learn to scythe but were

‘I had a lot of people contact me saying they would like to learn but were worried they might not be strong enough’

worried that they might not be strong enough.”

Chris Riley, who with Mr Tomlin runs courses for the Scythe Association of Britain and Ireland, said: “Poldark was a double-edged sword because it is set 200 years ago and shows a fit, strong man getting tired from scything.

“It made viewers think scything was something back-breaking that happened in the past.”

There has also been a recent surge in women attending scything courses and they now make up half the students. The success of the courses has also in part been attributed to Monty Don, who advised gardeners in one of his books to use the “extraordinarily effective” scythes rather than lawnmowers to trim their grass.

Don advised: “Trust hand tools and physical labour. We have forgotten how mountains can be moved by hand.”