Glass eyes, traditional sieves, sails… Specialist makers are working hard to keeping these unique skills alive. By Chris Broughton
Back in my early 20s I had a car accident and needed lots of treatment, which made it hard for me to hold down a job or pursue the career that I’d intended – I had a degree in drama. Between treatments, I started teaching myself how to work with rush, using a book I’d found. With the help of a business loan, I set up theI bought my materials from a chap called Tom Arnold. His family had been cutting rush along the River Ouse since the early 1700s.
We’ve made rush flooring for heritage houses and we did a lot of work for Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London. I’ve made props for films, too. When I talk to people who have to work from home and look at a screen all day I just think, “Crikey, I couldn’t do that.”‘I used to be one of three glass-eye makers in the UK, now I’m the only one’: Jost Haas.Is my job unique? You could say that. I used to be one of three glass-eye makers in the UK, now I’m the only one.
The whole process takes two or three hours, though sometimes I’ll have to make a couple of eyes if the first one doesn’t turn out as well as it should. Some of my clients have been coming for decades – I consider them friends and look forward to them visiting so we can catch up. In the olden days, the finest riddles had a mesh of an eighth of an inch. I haven’t quite managed that yet, but I am down to a quarter of an inch. It’s incredibly fiddly work. Apparently, Mike could make a riddle in 23 minutes – I’ve still no idea how he did it.
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