What a thatcher knows about weather
with Gwen Trask · 47m
Enova Studio
1 min read
Gwen Trask can tell you what Thursday will do and has never once looked at a forecast. She has been thatching in Somerset for thirty-one years.
The forecast tells you about the county. I need to know about this roof, on this hill, on Thursday.
Gwen Trask
In this episode
- 02:40 Reading a sky, described as precisely as she can manage.
- 13:10 Water reed against combed wheat, and the twenty-year argument.
- 24:55 The apprentice she turned down, and why.
- 35:20 On roofs she will not live to see replaced.
- 42:00 Forty more years.
Mentioned
- The Thatcher's Craft, 1960, still the standard text
- The Somerset Levels reed beds
- A spar hook made by her father
Recorded in a yard near Burrowbridge, in light rain.
What a thatcher reads in the sky
Gwen Trask can tell you what Thursday will do. She has never once looked at a forecast.
