1921.] 



Besom-making. 



439 



BESOM--MAKING IN DERBYSHIRE 

 AND NOTTINGHAMSHIRE. 



Helen FitzRandolph, 

 Institute for Research in Agricultural Economics, Oxford. 



Small rural industries are often hereditary in their nature. 

 Providing little more than a bare subsistence in return for 

 long hours and exacting work, they do not attract youth from 

 elsewhere. Boys learn from their fathers because they are 

 surrounded by the tools and the jargon of the trade from their 

 infancy upwards, and because the father presses the boy into 

 it as soon as possible : even a child's help in handing tools, 

 preparing material and other small matters will lighten a 

 man's work. The trade connections, both for the supply of 

 raw materials and the distribution of goods to the customer, 

 make an easy niche into which the boy can slip, and unless 

 he feels active dislike of the work and has an enterprising 

 nature into the bargain, he is likely to settle down to his 

 father's trade. Many young people continue a hereditary 

 industry for negative reasons of this sort, but there are some 

 who carry it on in a positive way. Love of the work and 

 aptitude for it are bred in the bone, and pride of family and 

 craft mingle to give working life an interest and a meaning 

 that can only be obtained for most people through the pur- 

 suits of their leisure time. An eight-hour day is only neces- 

 sary for the man whose work is uncongenial, and who must 

 have leisure in which to follow out that part of his life in 

 which he can truly live. 'Men who work from 5 a.m. to 

 10 p.m. are not entirely legendary, but are always to be 

 found among those whose work satisfies every side of their 

 nature. ^NFen carrying on hereditary crafts may possibly be 

 included among these. 



Forest products provide much material for small rural in- 

 dustries, and writers on social conditions have often noted 

 the variety of occupation and comparative prosperity of even 

 the poorest villagers who live within reach of woods. A modern 

 example of a small but flourishing industry that depends on 

 woods or forests on the one hand and heather moors on the 

 other is that of besom-making. 



Materials. — ?^Fany besom-makers are found around Chester- 

 field and at isolated places on or neai* moor? — Dore. Darley 

 Dale and Bamford in Derhvshire. and near Alansfit'ld and Ollerton. 



