Traveller - Clothes Peg Making
Traditional willow clothes pegs, fastened with tin metal
A traditional occupation associated with Gypsy Travellers has been the production of clothes pegs. Pegs were traditionally made from willow, a material which was plentiful and easy to work. The bark was removed, the branch was cut to size and a band was placed around the top before the willow was split. The split willow kept the clothes on the line.
Below is a transcript of Ben Smith talking about making traditional clothes pegs. You can listen to the audio by clicking play on the audio player on the right
Transcript
We used to make pegs and all that to get a living, you know peg don’t you, clothes pegs that you put on the line.
What were they made of?
Hazel wood and also used to get old cocoa tins open them up cut the strips of tin off about quarter of an inch wide. Sometime not a quarter of an inch wide and we used to have a block and what we used to call bradawl, and wrap the tin round and make the hole with the bradawl with the hammer, right then used to tack with a tin tack. When we had done a gross of them they were only 3 bob a gross that was twelve dozen that was a lot of money in those days and then when we made them there we used to cut down the middle turn the knife around and mouth them, you know what I mean, so they would go on the line.
