The sun has turned the bay indigo, and in this hazel hedgerow above the sea, you can almost hear the sap rising. The first buds are forming, and the catkins send puffs of lime green pollen into the air as I brush through the branches in search of hazel to cut.
English thatching is unimaginable without the hazel tree. Its wood is used to make spars – pointed staple-like fixings that hold the wheat or reed in place. For the last two decades, spars have mostly been imported from Poland, due not to a lack of English hazel, but to cheaper Polish labour costs.
Though there is a long thatching tradition in Poland, spars have never been used there, so Polish workers had first to be trained in spar-making. Meanwhile, in England, the skill has waned, as thatchers like me have become reliant on ready-made imports.
This winter the supply of Polish spars temporarily dried up, as a result of shortages of both labour and materials in Poland. And so English thatchers, suddenly sparless, have had to sharpen our billhooks and head once again for the woods.
At least, most of us have. I have been fortunate enough to be kept in spars by the retired master thatcher Alan Prince, who taught me for the first year of my apprenticeship. Being cut in the winter when the sap is down, the spars he has been making will be more durable than those from summer-cut hazel.
I push my way through the hedge in search of straight stems for a roof I am repairing up the road. I will use them to make not spars but liggers, rods of split wood that hold the wheat of the ridge in place. For a fiddly porch above the front door, I need the liggers to be as supple as possible, so will bend the hazel in place today, when the wood is greenest.
The sun filters through the bare branches, and the first bumblebees bump through the hart’s-tongue ferns at my feet, drowsy in the warming air. I find the first straight stem, unfold my pocket saw and begin to cut. Apart from anything else, there is something satisfying about gathering materials with your own hands.
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