Weaving Tradition: How Tweed Keeps a Community’s Heritage Alive | Short Film Showcase

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I'm Rebecca Hutton, and I'm a single Harris Tweed Weaver. My granny used to weave back in the day, and my great granny. Everybody used to weave; there was a weaving tradition at practically every household when I was growing up. The Harris Tweed was great; there was a lot of weaving, and then it crashed. Now, you get anything and everything in Harris Tweed, which is good.

So, it's all supportive. Even if one side of it dips a bit, the rest will keep it going. Everybody needs each other. I rely on the mills for yarn and finishing; they rely on weavers to actually make the cloth to sell. It's this cooperation that you need, but then that's a big thing in the islands anyway.

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Traditionally, I'm Mar Henderson, and I'm a Harris Tweed Weaver. My dad was a weaver, and I was three when we gave that up, you know, at the bad times in the 70s and everything. So, I can feel that there's a bit of history in it, but I just love working with tweed. I love the feel of it; I just love how raw it is. I employ a lot of people in the community.

We've gone back to tweed being a stable employer. It hadn't been that for quite a long time. Harris Tweed can only be woven in the Outer Hebrides, you know. All these regulations mean it can't be taken anywhere else. We can't lose it. Other people can try and do it, you know; they can make something that looks kind of like Harris Tweed, but it'll never be Harris Tweed. It has to go through the mills, and it has to get that stamp on it to be part of tweed.

You might have a hard day at work; you know things might be going wrong and everything else, but it's still a pretty big job to be doing. I just love the history that goes with it. I love the processes that go with it. I love seeing the whole process from beginning to end.

You know, I mean, my dad had sheep, always had sheep when I was younger, and you would see him shearing and everything, but you never knew really what happened to the wool after that. Then, you see all the processes that the wool goes through, and then it goes all over the world. I love that, you know; something that we make goes somewhere, and someone does something with it.

You know, it's going to be somewhere; it's going to have a story to it sometime, and it'll be around still in years to come.

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My name is Callum George McAn. I'm a third-generation Harris Tweed Weaver, and it's because of Harris Tweed we were able to move back to this fragile community I'm from. I'm a crafter too; I've got a hundred pride in use, and the seas beside us, you know. A lot of our sheep are in the islands, and we practically live in boats at this time of the year. It's an open Atlantic out behind the islands here; the next stop is America, really.

Being in a community, you have to get involved in a lot of different things. I help from grave digging to whatever people come here to ask for a hand with whatever. That's how it always was.

There's more young people now getting into it, especially with the downturn in the oil industry. Oil workers who are paid off have gone out and bought new looms. A lot of people think you just jump on the loom and pedal away. I'm afraid it doesn't work out like that. It takes a while to get your confidence up.

It can't be taken off these islands; it's part of the heritage here. We're on the crest of a wave at the moment; it's good—very, very, very proud—and long may it continue. The Harris weaving is part of our heritage, and we're proud of it—very proud of it—and just trying to keep the old traditions going while we're able to.

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