Fisherman Sweater

Fisherman sweaters have been part of fishing communities around the world for centuries. They're knitted with wool, often with unique and intricate designs, and can take more than a hundred hours to make.

In episode seven of Torn, Gus Casely-Hayford sets out to discover if it's possible for traditional clothing to live on in a world where machines manufacture clothing at record speeds and record low prices.

The story begins in the early 1900s off the Isle of Lewis in the Scottish Hebrides with two fishermen clad in traditional woollen sweaters known there as ganseys, and continues in the present day with their descendant Alice Starmore who is the only person to have documented local knitting patterns in a published book.


Gus discovers that the tradition has come under the spotlight over the decades thanks to celebrity pizzazz. In 1950, the fashion magazine Vogue photographed Grace Kelly sailing, decked out in a cream cabled Irish fisherman sweater. Recently, Adam Driver wore a chunky white cable knit in the Hollywood movie House of Gucci, and the sweater worn by Chris Evans in Knives Out was a viral sensation. Yet the tradition of knitting fisherman sweaters is being lost as fishing communities die out in towns such as Filey on the coast of Yorkshire, where Margaret Taylor is one of very few people still able to knit them.

Presenter: Gus Casely-Hayford Executive Producer: Rosie Collyer Producers: Tiffany Cassidy, Janieann McCracken Assistant Producer: Nadia Mehdi Production Coordinator: Francesca Taylor Sound Design: Rob Speight

A Novel production for BBC Radio 4