Welsh Border Fan - from Bedford, November '74

Last week, I stumbled across this curious thing at a local charity shop.




On the back it says 'Welsh Border Fan', Bedford, November 1974.




I cleaned it up a little and oiled the frame.

I find it very beautiful.

It reminds me of a time (before my time), when wheat grain was still beaten out by hand, and there were these straw bundles piled up on the fields - as I would have seen them on images in schoolbooks.

It also reminds me of flying the kite that my sister and I had built together, going out onto the freshly mowed wheat fields, wheat stubble poking our feet.

Then I thought about the year that the fan was made - my birth year. The grains were ripening at the same time as me!

Popular Posts