When I was preparing to go to the Scottish Wool Producers Showcase in April, I came across the website Caithness Yarns, listed as a vendor for the event. That website sent me down a rabbit hole, reading Graeme Bethune’s essays on sheep farming and the business of producing yarn. These were originally published in The Knitter. I’d seen the magazine before, and had read some of his articles, so it was wonderful to be able to read through the entire group and also put a face to his words.
What you first notice about Graeme is his warm smile. It’s a lovely one when he’s interacting with people, but even more expressive when he’s talking to or about his sheepies.
Graeme Bethune wearing a Brioche-knit cowl designed and knit by his friend, John Glen. It is thick and very warm — designed for those days that it’s snowing sideways, and is big enough to pull up as a hood if need be.
Graeme had warned me that he might still be heavily occupied with lambing (he schedules the season for mid-April and it lasts into May), but I was welcome to visit anyway. It was an amazing afternoon, and a real privilege to also meet and talk with his parents.
Ballachly Farm in the Caithness district of far north Scotland, isn’t found on any map. It is close to Dunbeath, but tucked into the countryside, identified when you reach it, only by the many North Country Cheviot and Castlemilk Morrit grazing on the land.
Bruce and I were met at the gate by Graeme’s parents (George and Nan seen above left) who proceeded to give us a crash course in Caithness history, the herring fishing industry in the region, and the story of the Scottish Clearances of the 1800s. Mixed in were yarn and knitting with beautiful sweaters knit by Nan, and a special gansey knit by John Glen for Graeme (below left).
George’s grandfather, captain of the Robin Hood is pictured here in his fisherman’s gansey; a simple, but elegant design. During his time it took both the work of the croft and of the herring boats to craft a living.
There is much to tell about Graeme, his family croft, his sheep and their yarn, and if you enjoy reading about the life of a sheep farmer, I urge you to explore his writings from The Knitter, found on his website.
Like many of the others I’ve spoken about from this trip, Graeme sort of backed into crofting after he reached a real level of unhappiness doing his post-graduate work. He returned home to the farm to recover, and discovered that farming and sheep gave him the balance he craved.
He has a million ideas about how to grow his business and get the kind of return for the value of his hard work. He works with his neighbors to accumulate the xtra amount of fleece he needs to make excellent yarns, and markets it at a fair price on his website (and through Etsy).
The foundation of his business is the firm belief that his yarns should produce a living wage for him, and that the market price should be set by him, rather than dictated by the commercial wool market. He mashed those two concepts into Living Value, and this approach has allowed him to do well. He is getting a steady following, and if you read through the reviews of his wool on Etsy, you’ll begin to see what I mean.
As we walked into the fields to see his sheep, we discovered that this ewe had just given birth to her lamb. Graeme tries to get them into shelter quickly so that the ewe can get to food to make milk for her lamb (in the run-up to lambing, she has no room for food in her belly, and can become quite weak). This mother is quite anxious about her lamb being moved, so it’s a slow walk, with many breaks for the ewe to sniff her lamb and be reassured. Once inside, she gratefully dives into the food while her babe is given the once-over and his tummy swabbed where the umbilical cord had been. I had a huge lump in my throat watching this. It was at once both a reaffirmation of the fundamentals of life, and the empathy and engagement we have for the natural world. In a world choked by difficulties, these small acts give me hope.
Caithness Yarns may at some point establish its own mill to save shipping huge bundles of fleece away for processing. Other ideas are to develop a string and baler twine business using the second quality fleeces, and use the discards to make soil. As he says, ” It’s part of full utiliszation of all of fleece for valuable purposes.” And this is what’s meant by ethical farming. Yes, it’s a business, but in this kind of business, it will never be all about the money. It’s about love, and peace, and being able to appreciate the fruit of his hands. “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”*
We took a peek at another group of sheepies — Graeme’s so-called Gentlemen. These are males who have no other function in life than to produce wonderful fleece. For that, they get to graze and walk about, appearing fully content and happy with their lot in life. Because he spends so much time interacting with his flocks, these normally shy guys cluster around him to get his attention and seemingly to let him know that he’s been missed since his last visit (which was probably no more than a few hours earlier).
Another project mentioned was a partnering with his friends John Glen and Gordon Reid to plan a festival (and book?) around the ganseys from Caithness, like those pictured in the Wick Society’s collections. I would love to see where this leads. The gentlemen from Caithness are not short on ideas and ambitions!
As we were leaving, Graeme pressed a ball of creamy 5-ply yarn into my hands that was so soft, I nearly swooned. I will absolutely be adding more to my stash when we meet up again in Perth at the yarn festival in September. It would seem that gansey knitting is in my future.
*Mark 8:36