Wool textiles man sets out to catch a few customers

After years in the doldrums, wool prices at auction reached a 25 year high last summer, with the wool clip value more than three times that of 2008, and the rise has continued.

A combination of reasons has contributed to the change in wool’s fortunes. Sheep numbers across the world have reduced significantly – by 40 per cent in the UK since the year 2000 – and so there is a much reduced level of wool available to the textile industry.

The revival of wool fortunes has been helped by promotions like the British Wool Marketing Board’s LoveWool UK campaign.

The board’s Bridgette Kelly says: “The events showed there is countrywide enthusiasm for wool. From an organised sheep run down the high street in Glastonbury to a solitary wool lover knitting socks for Christmas on the beach at Robin Hood’s Bay, the public love it.”

The Campaign for Wool has also had an impact. At its launch the campaign’s patron, the Prince of Wales, outlined an apocalyptic view of what the future of wool might hold unless something was done. Without a thriving wool industry, and grazing by sheep, the physical appearance of UK landscapes like the Yorkshire Dales, Pennines, the Lake District and Scottish mountains could change forever.

Jon Wall applauds all this. You could probably call him a dyed-in-the-wool Yorkshireman, since he has spent almost 30 years working in the local wool industry and has served as the president of the Bradford Textile Society.

Jon lives in a Victorian terraced house in Baildon, to the north of Bradford, and grew up in a textile-making family. At the age of 19, he started work in his father’s small weaving company where, he says, he learned the business inside out before leaving to widen his knowledge with a couple of the region’s biggest textile manufacturers.

Later he took the plunge and ran his own weaving company, and after it was taken over by a larger firm he became an employee again.

It was while looking for prospective new customers at the Great Yorkshire Show in 2010 that he got into conversation with a couple who ran a small countrywear business called Cambrian Ratcatcher, which had its origins in Wales back in the 1970s. They wanted to retire and he decided to buy their business, keeping only the Ratcatcher part of the brand name and designing a new range of wool fabrics.

He has the textiles made for him in the village of Delph on the Saddleworth Moors, using only British wool.

The main marketplace for the clothes has been at country shows. This year he’s hoping to attend more than 30.

“The personal contact is important,” Jon says. He likes the thought of British farmers who’ve spent their lives producing wool now buying British wool products. “They’ve produced the wool and they’re effectively bringing it back home.

“The revival of wool’s fortunes is important on lots of levels, not least that wool helped to create the many towns and cities of the Pennines.

“I like to think I’m carrying on a great tradition by producing timeless, classic styles from British wool.

“They are not just for wearing out in the moors and dales, because a lot of people like to show they have an affinity with the countryside even if they’re working in the town or city.”

Why wool is on the rebound

British Wool Marketing Board’s Love Wool UK campaign last year organised a special Wool Week programme of more than 650 events in libraries, galleries, museums, schools and other venues

The Campaign for Wool has raised the profile of wool in the face of threats from man-made synthetic fibres which were taking the place of wool in fashion, carpets and insulation.