Old Betty Nitty

Betty loved knitting, always had done. Learnt to knit when she was small, round and round the Cornish way, 5 needles mind, not two.

Summercourt maid, she knitted to keep the farmers and labourers warm, none of those fisherman’s ganseys for her. She knitted jumpers, she knitted socks, mittens, vests, hats, scarves, she even knitted knickers, her needles were always busy, clickety clack.

Her neighbour span the wool, shorn from the back of sheep that grazed the fields round the village. Another neighbour dyed the wool, soft colours from the plants that grew in the hedgerows, and Betty kept knitting. Some woolly wonders she made for her family, some for farmers and fieldworkers, some she saved to sell on her stall at Summercourt Fair, the best and biggest fair in Cornwall.

Sheep are escapologists, like to wander and explore, and munch what they shouldn’t, but the Summercourt sheep were kept in the fields by strong hedges built long ago with stone wall bases and trees and wild flowers and trees growing atop, Cornish hedges. Some say the hedges were built by giants, but Betty’s husband Bert was a hedger, repaired the stones, laid the trees in winter, and he certainly wasn’t a giant. When a way was needed through the hedge for folks to walk to church or to market  Bert built a stile, strong stone steps in a gap in the hedge.

Knitters like to chat, knitters like to gossip, but there weren’t any knit and natter groups in Summercourt in Betty’s day. Betty was lonely. Her cousin came to visit from Polperro, told her how the knit frock knitters there knitted on the cliffs chatting, knitted on their doorsteps gossiping, so Betty thought she would give outdoor knitting a go.

She went and sat by a hedge near where Bert was working, by a stile called Lunnon Brown. Folk passed by climbing the stile on their way to the village, passing the time of day with Betty as she knitted in the shelter of the hedge. Betty liked it there, knitting in the open air, she knitted jumpers, she knitted socks, mittens, vests, hats, scarves, she even knitted knickers, her needles were always busy, clickety clack.

Sometimes when she couldn’t sleep she went down to the stile for a bit of night time knitting, rhythm of the needles soothed her and she would soon go home to dream.

Betty knitted her whole life long, grew old knitting by the stile, and at last passed away.

Her ghost kept knitting by Lunnon Brown stile, clickety clack. People didn’t like to pass by the stile after dark, on their way home from church on a dark winters night, on their way home from the pub. They were afraid of the ghost, scared of the sound of needles knitting, clickety clack, clickety clack. They walked the long way home instead.

In time the hedge and Lunnon Brown style were scat, heard there’s a big road there now, A30. But if you’re stuck in a traffic jam there and the din of the road goes quiet, listen, shhh, you might just hear the sound of knitting needles, clickety clack, clickety clack,

Old Betty knitting still.