Sheep

The reindeer mistress gave me a book about English sheep for Christmas. Perhaps she had me mixed up with Wesley the Sheep. But it made me think.

She never knew my dad but he was a wool buyer and an expert on the wools of Australia South Africa and New Zealand and their special qualities in the manufacture of felt. Felt is apparently one of the oldest fabrics and is not woven. The mill where dad worked manufactured mostly industrial felts for filters and the like and also for use as floor coverings before the days of fitted carpets.

He bought wool from samples often brought to him by salesmen and he could work out the quality from touch and sight using his office extension with the skylights, a bit like a mini greenhouse, which overhung the river next to the mill.

This was my first contact with South Africa and it is therefore fitting that England should be playing cricket there this week. Port Elizabeth and the Cape were the wool exporting centres and Merino sheep the favourite wool producers just like in Australia.

He would have been scratching his head at the thought of being able to watch the play ball by ball on TV as well as having the chance to listen to the game on the radio through TMS. But Geoffrey Boycott on TMS would have been the most flummoxing of all!