I started the week determined to turn a “SECRET BOX” which I had the privilege of learning from a woodturning legend: Mr. Allan Batty.
After I was done with it, I realized how lucky I was to have spent time with the only living woodturner to go through an apprenticeship in England. I am sure all of us when we finish turning a piece, we have that incredible sense of accomplishment. We might even catch ourselves saying: "Man... I'm awesome! Look what I've done. I must confess that I caught myself saying: "Man... I still got it".
When I came upstairs to show my wife, I had an encounter with reality. There sat in my bedroom, one of the most gorgeous pieces of woodturning I have ever seen in my life. Allan Batty's Spinning Wheel.
Perhaps this might have to be a DOUBLE POST, because of the gorgeous pictures I have. The Spinning Wheel given to us as a gift was made out of an English Yew Tree which according to Allan was approximately 300 years old. The tree was purchased in Scotland, planked and seasoned. The wheel is 18 inches in diameter. In those days (as you can see by the plaque) Allan signed his work as Allan McNair.
Humbled by this vision of perfection, I decided to postpone the results of my secret box. Instead, I would like to share with all of you some of my experiences and communications with this phenomenal woodturner.
I don’t know for sure when Allan was born, but I know that he lost his father at an early age. Most of his life he was raised by his mother, who according to Allan always told him at an early age that “his word was the most important thing in his life”. YOU MUST KEEP YOUR WORD ALWAYS AND NO EXCUSES she would constantly tell young Allan. He always tells me that he remembers his “MUM” with the greatest affection.
He also mentioned that one day he came home from school crying because he had a “good hiding” at school (please keep in mind that I am reading some of his expressions and accounts from our emails to each other). His mother then said: “Front room now boy!” According to Allan, if you were called to the front room that meant you were IN SERIOUS TROUBLE. She then threw at him a pair of boxing gloves and said: “Put those on boy” and she proceeded to knock him around the room and said: “You have no Dad to fight your battles for you… that’s the way you defend yourself. NEVER come home crying again.
“She had a heart of gold my mum, Allan wrote me. She was brought up as a tough “fisherwoman”. She was doing what she thought was right for a fatherless boy. She was a lady of integrity and that was important to her. When I served my apprenticeship 58 years ago says Allan, (I can’t believe I am that old), we were considered one step above a Laborer. In fact when I was younger and went to dances, I would invite a girl to dance, but I would never admit to her I was an apprentice woodworker. I discovered this never impressed them.
If my father were alive, he would have never believed I would finish traveling the world as a woodturner. I have this imaginary conversation with my father, writes Allan. If he had lived I would never have been allowed to go to the trade, but the company he worked for had a duty to start me as an apprentice because of his death.
When I left school at 15 as I had his tools I exercised that right and went to the trade as an apprentice. I never dreamed in my wildest dreams I would travel the world teaching my trade and the friends I would meet on the way, my dad would have been Gobstruck.
I also remember another thing we did. If the tradesman received “no pay” if they went sick, in the UK, I was given by my MUM a food parcel to take to their family. This way they had the basic essentials of life. How sad that too has disappeared. We were a community in those days.
As a working foreman, I knew a tradesman never parted with his tools…even in retirement. So, if I got word that one of the men was selling his tools in the workshop, I always tried to have a word with him in private, as I knew that he had a drink problem and he was selling tools to maintain his habit, so I needed to prove myself a friend to him, as he is no use to himself, me or the company. The most important thing was that I needed to establish TRUST with him, and find the root of the problem and together we could overcome it. And I never shared that with others, otherwise trust had just gone out the window.
Allan Batty is a great source of information of a period which most of us have NO IDEA on what woodturning was all about. So, instead of trying to relate his stories, I hope you can read this PDF document which I compiled. I am sure you will be fascinated by the depth of his knowledge as well as some of his personal life stories... not counting the incredible pictures of this fantastic piece. Please forgive the double post!
Hope you enjoy!
Paulo Marin
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Originally Posted by mike ash
" as I call them. In this day and age, where technology moves so fast, we quickly forget how people did things in the past and what we can learn from it.
