Men of war who took to the art of knitting
SIR – Eleanor Steafel’s feature on the rise of the male knitter (October 13) reminds me that, in the late Forties and early Fifties when my father was commuting by train to his work on the Naval War Diaries at the Admiralty, he often shared a compartment with Winston Churchill’s private secretary Sir John (“Jock”) Colville.
They would pass the long and tedious journey with needlework such as knitting and tapestry, which was my father’s hobby.
Hew Goldingham
St Leonards-on-sea, East Sussex
SIR – My father, the neatest knitter in the family, born in the 1880s in rural Kent, was taught to knit by his sisters while walking miles to school. They knitted socks.
He became a professional soldier, served in the Horse Artillery in the First World War, and was not the only knitter among the men.
When I was growing up, his speciality was finely knitted winter vests, using two-ply “baby” wool and Sylko sewing thread to make them easily washable.
Patricia Courtney
London E11
SIR – A large, florid middle-aged gentleman with fingers like sausages once cornered me at a boozy party and told me in his Etonian accent at great length about his hobby – petit point.
When I rang my hostess to thank her for the evening, she told me my captor was a very eminent eye surgeon, who did indeed do beautiful and intricate needlework to keep him nimble for the minute stitching his profession demanded.
It is believed that the first knitters were fishermen, extending their skill of mending nets – and they weren’t sissies. Keep up the old tradition, macho men.
Janice R S Sinclare
London N12