Free The Brendan Voyage by Tim Severin Page B

“That’s probably the biggest single leather-working job of the century,” he said. “If you get it done, you’ll be able to teach others something about stitching.”
    The task was truly daunting. I was under no illusion that without constant advice and supervision, George and I and any amateur helpers were likely to make a shambles of the work. It was immensely frustrating. Here we were with the materials and the enthusiasm, but we lacked the expert to guide us through the job. But where could I possibly find him? The men trained in heavy leather work were a vanishing breed. Fifty years ago most villages in Ireland had a man who repaired bridles and made harnesses; most country towns might have had a saddler. But these craftsmen had all but vanished, gone into limbo with the farm animals. Only a handful remained; there were probably less than a hundred trained saddlers still at work in the entire British Isles. Such men were eagerly sought after. They made saddles for the export market and were kept permanently busy. Even if I could find one with free time, I could not see how I could possibly afford to pay him.
    From the very beginning of the project, I had been visiting saddlemakers in London and Birmingham. I had driven the length andbreadth of Ireland to every saddlery firm on my list. Everywhere I had asked if they could spare a man or tell me where I might find one. Everywhere I was told politely but firmly that it was impossible. Every good saddler, and there were desperately few, was needed at the saddler’s bench. My only compensation was that I earned a first-hand impression of fine leather work. I met the deft craftsmen who still handled tools that had not changed for centuries: the awls and punches, the pincers and scribers, the half-moon knives, crimpers, and edge-shavers. The saddlers’ benches smelled richly of leather and beeswax polish; and the saddlers sat in their leather aprons, bent over their work endlessly stitching away with their huge strong hands and powerful shoulder muscles, developed by years of pulling taut the double-handed thread with a snap that still made good hand-sewn leather far stronger than any machine stitch. I learned why English saddles were considered to be the finest in the world; why Australian racing stables would wait four years for a light saddle from a top maker; and how the Shah of Iran had placed a legendary order for six sets of harness for his state coach at his coronation, every piece of harness to be made in blue leather. I learned too that the premier firm of English saddlemakers had closed down when its owner died, and its team of saddlers and harness-makers—perhaps a dozen men—had scattered to other firms, while the Royal Warrant as Saddlers to the Queen had passed to a rival firm. Sad-dlemaking was such a tightly knit world that the top men could recognize their own handiwork across the width of a room and tell you the names of most of the other craftsmen in the same line.
    I never failed to ask a saddler if he could recommend a colleague to me, but the bench workers themselves could not help, except once. At the saddlemakers who now held the Royal Warrant, one of the saddlers told me of an Irish harnessmaker who had vanished from the world of leather-working. His name was John O’Connell, and my informant told me that no one knew where he had gone. John O’Connell had worked on harness for the royal stables, and he had been one of the quickest, surest harnessmakers in the trade. “Always laughing was John O’Connell,” the saddler told me, “and if you find him you can’t miss him. He’s about the same around the middle as he is tall. Built like a barrel. And a great one for the girls. He married a girl from Ireland, and I believe he decided to go back home, and I’ve never heard fromhim again. Find John O’Connell,” he added, “and you’ll have found one of the best harnessmakers in Ireland.”
    Of course I mentioned John O’Connell’s