fisherman's gansey

This gansey once belonged to Norfolk fisherman Jimmy Paris West and was knitted for him by his Mother Augusta West. Made using size 16 needles and 5 ply worsted wool (also known as fisherman’s iron’) it was worn by Jimmy when he was stationed at Scappa Flow in World War One, he commented that the local Scottish women could hardly believe it was handmade as it was so finely knitted. Making a gansey was a labour of love and the preserve of women in a fishing community; it could take around 100 hours to make each one. They are knitted in one piece and thus contain no seams making them less liable to tear along a weakness. Each top is tailor-made to be extremely tight fitting which, along with the closely packed fibres, works to ‘turn the water’ making them as wind and waterproof as possible. The patterning is the same front and back making it reversible, a design which helps to spread the wear on high stress areas such as the elbows, the bottom of the sleeves are kept plain allowing it to be easily unravelled and re-knitted, this gansey shows signs of multiple repairs.