Cut out for the forge
Jeff Wiggins is a skilled, artisan bladesmith.
Rob Hawley went to see him at his atmospheric workshop in Otley. Main picture by Simon Hulme.
He was basically given a masterclass in the ancient craft of knife-making. It was a defining moment in his life and soon the typical sounds surrounding Jeff ’s home in the Yorkshire countryside – the cries of curlews, the bleats of lambs – were joined by the clink-clink from the forge he set up at the bottom of the garden. But it was to be a long journey before Jeff became the creator of the fashionable blades we see today.
Despite his passion for knife-making he didn’t think he could make a living out of it and had already set his stall out for a career in the Royal Marines. He applied to join when he was just 15 but was told to apply again when he was a few years older, which he did. “When I finally did join, a badly damaged ankle put paid to my army career. So I took up with what I really knew and understood – the countryside. I became a gamekeeper over on the North York Moors, with 6,000 acres to guard.”
It’s hardly surprising that rural life would be where Jeff felt most at home. Having been brought up by the banks of the River Wharfe, a mile or so outside Otley, he had ample scope to learn country skills. The Wharfe is, after all, a salmon stream which also abounds with wild brown trout, giving endless opportunities for people to try their hand at fishing.
All around Jeff ’s home, verdant pastures rise up to heather moorland. Young lads like Jeff would know these fields and copses like the back of
mob-handed, intent on clearing a wood of all its deer. I was the man paid to stand in their way.”
Jeff learned much as a gamekeeper. But eventually his creative side forced itself to the fore. His homespun forge drew him back to the world of craftsmanship. He returned to Wharfedale and became a bladesmith.
“I feel a real kinship with the folk of bygone times. The inhabitants of Wharfedale in the very remote past – the neolithic hunters and gatherers – were people I can identify with. It’s the same with the Celts and Saxons. They were craftspeople who made superb tools to help them survive in their environment. When I make a knife, I’m making something similar. I like to think I’m connecting with them.
“They knew that design and purpose are really the same thing. You have to make something to be used. I’ve got no time for fancy blades that won’t serve a practical end. A practical object is by definition well designed, so it’s bound to be a beautiful object too.”
Watching Jeff make a knife is a thrilling experience. From the moment the process of annealing – heat treatment – begins, to the process of cutting and shaping, to the act of bevelling, or making a cutting edge, Jeff is a man in his element. As the sparks fly around him, he hunches across his vice and it’s a sight that takes you back in time and is one we rarely see these days.
The blacksmith at his smithy is a popular image in folklore. Vulcan was the blacksmith of the Roman imagination, and Jeff strikes me as a figure akin to Wayland, the Saxon hero who forged magical objects, cunningly wrought in his smithy.
It’s a persuasive image. “You have to know your stuff to make one of these,” Jeff smiles, handling the Damascus blade again. “The heat treatment, the quenching, the tempering. And the handle is important too. I use antler, or elm, oak or beech. The money is in the blade, but the handle often sells the knife.”
Jeff ’s customers are certainly a discerning bunch. They know quality when they see it. He looks thoughtfully into the gleaming blade, and chuckles. “It’s strange how fate works. It’s been quite a journey. But bunking off school that day was the best decision I ever made.”
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