SAVING A LOST CRAFT
100 | July• 2019
TIGER TALEPolice in Scotland were called by a farmer in Aberdeenshire who
believed that a big cat had invaded his cow shed. They ended
up in a 45-minute standoff with a large stuffed tiger.
Police thought they had the tiger by the tail when they were
deployed to a farm, sending in a number of units, including an
armed response team. The authorities eventually realised it was
a toy. The farmer, who was having a party at the time, claimed
that he was “stone cold sober”.APfrom production forests and does
not affect the tropical rain forest or
climate change.”
He takes the group into the storage
rooms where workers, mostly women
and children, used to prepare the cot-
ton rags and cut them before further
processing. It is a live illustration of
19th and early 20th century labour
conditions. The children are unan-
imous in saying they prefer to be in
school.
The miller himself was only margin-
ally better off than his workers. The
status of the miller, as a craftsman,
was barely above that of a tenant
farmer, and the pay was minimal.
Today, professional millers are
mostly employed by private associ-
ations. Such income as is produced
through the sale of product flows
back to the foundation. Turnover is
never enough to run a mill on a viable
commercial basis, says Dolman.
But what has improved is the sta-
tus of the miller. In 2017, UNESCO’s
World Heritage Committee officially
declared the profession of miller on
a windmill to be part of the cultural
heritage of the Netherlands. Although
no material advantage was linked to
the committee’s decision, Dolman
says it is extremely important for the
survival of the Dutch windmill.
“There are now only three people
alive who remember that they once
worked on windmills that were viable
economic operations. We still run the
risk of gradually dissolving, but the
UNESCO decision clearly embeds our
profession in society. And in a practi-
cal sense it helps show all that is part
of our work. We have received money
to preserve our knowledge in a book.”
The publicity surrounding the
UNESCO decision has raised interest
among millennials. Says Suurman,
“To be fair, most of us millers and
other volunteers are middle-aged and
older. Thanks to the publicity, we’ve
seen some fresh, young blood coming
in. And that is good if we want to keep
the mills running for the rest of this
century. Windmills are cool.”