Wick (John Macleod II): Week 9 – 6th March

I came across a great Winston Churchill story this week. Churchill was famously informal, and frequently turned up to meetings in a silk dressing gown embroidered with dragons or his famous boiler suit “onesie”. He used to dictate letters in the bath and once speculated that President Roosevelt was the only head of state who’d seen him naked (at which I expect the President, a literate, naval man, exclaimed, like the Sea Captain in The Simpsons, “Yar! That’s going to replace the whale in my nightmares!”) Well, one day after breakfast he was sitting in bed having a lengthy telephone conversation with Field Marshal Alan Brooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, concerning weighty matters of strategy. To one side was his secretary, Grace Hamblin, listening in and making notes. And on the bed was his cat, Smokey. Grace herself tells the story:

Backyard snowdrops

“The prime Minister’s telephone conversation with the C.I.G.S. was long and anxious; his thoughts were far away; his toes wiggled under the blankets. I saw Smokey’s tail switch as he watched, and wondered what was going to happen. Suddenly he pounced on the toes and bit hard. It must have hurt, for Mr. Churchill, startled, kicked him right into the corner of the room shouting “Get off, you fool” into the telephone. Then he remembered. “Oh,” he said, “I didn’t mean you,” and then seeing Smokey looking somewhat dazed in the corner, “Poor little thing.” Confusion was complete, the C.I.G.S. hung up hastily and telephoned the Private Secretary to know what was happening…”

Wick Harbourside

In parish notices, we’ve got two splendid ganseys to share with you this week. The first comes courtesy of Sigrid, who has used the Wick Fergus Ferguson pattern to create a very fetching blue cardigan with a stand-up collar. She’s amended the pattern creatively with narrower plain stripes between the zigzag lines, small braids of 2 in the yoke and another small zigzag at the end of the sleeves. As Sigrid points out, you can only see the big tree of life at the back because of the V-neck, but that’s par for the course with modern shaped collars, you lose the top of the centre panel (it’s a price worth paying for me as I don’t prefer loose necklines).

Choppy sea

The other gansey comes from Rose, who’s also been creative with a very impressive blend of Grimsby, Humber and east coast patterns. It’s for her husband (who stylishly models it in the photos; note the initials above the welt), and is also knit in blue, in 4-ply yarn. Many congratulations to Sigrid and Rose, and many thanks to both for sharing.

As for Churchill, he had another cat which he named Nelson. One day during an air raid the cat, frightened by the siren, fled under the bed. Churchill knelt down to remonstrate with it: “Think of your namesake,” he told it. “No one named Nelson slinks under a bed in a time of crisis!” Though in my experience, most cats are so unheroic you might as well name them Brave Sir Robin and be done with it…