They Made the Paper at Tuckenhay Mill

An intimate record of traditional papermaking at Tuckenhay Mill, drawn from interviews with workers active from the interwar years to its closure in 1970. Capturing techniques, roles, and the elusive ‘vatman’s shake’, it preserves a vanished craft through vivid firsthand accounts and rare archival images.

A self-taught hand papermaker, Peter Thomas became interested in knowing how apprentice-trained hand papermakers working in production hand papermills made paper. He especially wanted to learn the ‘vatman’s shake’, the series of motions that papermakers used to form their sheets of paper. This desire circuitously led him and his wife, Donna to Tuckenhay, near Totnes, Devon, in England, and beginning in 1988, they recorded several hand papermakers, returning to make others in 1990 and 1994. The book begins with a short history of Tuckenhay Mill, followed by the story about meeting the papermakers and recording eight interviews of men and women, some of whom worked in the Mill from between the World Wars until it closed in 1970. All of the papermakers are now deceased, but the stories in their own words remain an extraordinary, entertaining and timeless record of their lives and work. The interviews include fascinating and enlightening descriptions of the everyday practices of various people working in a paper mill: raw-material processors, vatmen, couchers, layers and salle workers. This new edition includes additional images of the interiors of the Tuckenhay Mill, taken in about 1900, courtesy of Peter Bower from his photographic collection of English papermills.

Introduction; History of Tuckenhay Mill; Why the Interviews Were Made; The Interviews: Sam Cox, Kitty Cox, Cyril Finn, Joyce Finn, Harry Glanville, Ron Eden, Tom Wakeham, Pearl Wakeham; bibliography.

• By (author) Donna Thomas
• By (author) Peter Thomas