Question....

[AlanHo]

The morning paper yesterday headlined "England Footie Fans Staying Away from Match in Droves" because they are disenchanted with the team.

I thought a drove was a large mass of people moving or acting as a body.

Since the absentees are hardly likely to be congregating into a large mass - is not the newspaper headline totally inappropriate. I can understand them staying away - but not in order to enroll in a drove.

This raises a second question - what is the relationship between a drove and a drover.

If a drover is someone who drives sheep - is the newspaper subtly inferring that England fans - by joining a drove, which presumably has a drover - are a load of sheep.

I am sure catgate will have an explanation....even if a bit woolly?

[-pops-]

My first reaction to the headline was: where is Drove?

[andsome]

Cattle also come into the equation it seems. So could all this be a load of bull?

DROVER

[Watchful]

Quite right Alan. It conjures up a picture of a drove of footie fans standing at the gate and collectively deciding...'No, we won't bother going in.'

A drover only manages a drove of livestock so, as long as they were alive, I suppose they could have been herded there by a drover who had lost his flock and, seeing a drove of ex-fans, couldn't help wielding his stick

[andsome]

You need more money than sense in any case to even think about paying the exorbitant prices for football matches these days. :D

My first reaction to the headline was: where is Drove?

Its a veterinary hospital pops.

DROVE

[catgate]

I felt I could do no better than AllenHo in explaining this most odd situation with regard to droves, until I realised that droving has its origins in an offshoot of Kearning.

Some years ago I did a study of this and put together a short treatise on the subject:-

KEARNING FOR PROFIT AND PLEASURE

"The amateur need not go in fear of kearning." This has been said on numerous occasions I am sure, but it has never been truer than it is today.

The advent of modern methods and techniques, to say nothing of the advance in modern materials and equipment has laid out a veritable pleasure garden before the most demanding of kearners. It would indeed be a very pernickety fellow who could not be contented with today's possibilities.

The first concern of the newcomer to kearning is the collection of the most suitable equipment. This is where the first mistakes can be made so very easily. When the newcomer looks over the equipment and materials gathered over the years by the master kearnsman, he can quite easily think that it is necessary to possess dozens of pleens and box after box full of various sizes of pladget. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact for very many years I did all my kearning with just six pleens ( two no. 1s, a small A, a thick C, and an adjustable no. 7), and five pladgets (1/8, 3/16, 3/8, a small wilver and a home made spadger, made from a broken aluminium teapot lid) . One thing, however, is an absolute must both for the expert and the beginner alike and that is a large, substantial, well mounted kearning horse. It is folly to try to "make do" just to save money on this most necessary of items.

One of the great joys, to the majority of kearners, is to be present at the annual feast of St. Chaval, the patron saint of kearning and firewatching, for it is on this day, and this day alone, that the Royal and Ancient Worshipful Companie of The Queens Kearners are allowed to frangle though the streets of central London woggling the Great Kearning Horse of State. It is indeed a wonderful sight and a reminder of the long and noble history of the "wolesome and rite gennery", as Johnson called it, art and craft of kearning.

I once knew a man, in his late 40's, who really had enough experience of the kearners life to have known better, and who, instead of using his own horse, which was a Murgatroyd and Westfield " Express No. 10", (the Rolls Royce of kearning horses), used a small and well used gravellers oval. Well the resulting mess had to be seen to be believed. He spoiled one of his favourite wilvers and utterly ruined three spadgers, not to mention the loss of valuable materials, in the shape of two davits of pliable fors and a pound and a half of traddle.(This was before traddle was subjected to the indignity of metrication!) So, as the old time kearners used to say, "spare the horse and spoil the traddle".

The selection of the horse needs careful thought. Where will it be situated in relation to the light? What is the most comfortable personal working height? Will an electricity supply be used at a later stage? Would a smaller step be an advantage at some time in the future? Do future plans include a rocking arbor?

When these and other questions have been answered then we can study the matter of the mounting. Many workers have found, over the years, that a simple mounting is often best, however you will have to decide if the type of work you are likely to get involved in will require a metal mounting or possibly a more resilient natural rubber scarfing.

The Murgatroyd and Westfield range was, for many years, unsurpassable, however in recent times there have been some very well made and competitively priced horses and mountings coming out of the near east. It is therefore in the best interest of each kearner and budding kearner to shop around thoroughly before committing any sum of money to the purchase of these items just on whim and fancy alone.

There are throughout the country several well known and old established kearn chandlers and forsmen who will only be too pleased to help and advise the beginner. Here is a short list which is by no means comprehensive:-

The Happy Earner.....High st Oxford

Ye Olde Kearnerie..........Milton Keynes

Kanny Earner...... ......Kilmarnock

Just a Davit.....................Leeds

Wilvers and Pleens........Preston

Spadgers Unlimited.......Sunderland

Kapital Kearning.............London

Kearn-U-Like...................Brighton

Horses for Korses..........Newbury

Having successfully obtained our horse it is now time to obtain the most suitable materials for use upon it. The pliable fors is probably the trickiest of all the materials to get right at the outset of a kearning career. After a while its selection become almost as second nature, but as we are not yet at this stage a few pointers may be necessary.

Do not be fooled into thinking that since it is called pliable fors it is necessarily better the more pliable it is. Some of the old time kearners would go out of their way to find a supply of pliable fors that was only slightly kedge. In the beginning it is probable better to practice on material that is fairly kedge but in the learner state avoid fors that is excessively kedge. Great disappointment awaits the unwary for the careless choice of fors.

DO NOT over stock on pliable fors. Only acquire sufficient davits for

the work in hand. There are two very sound commercial reasons for this. The first is that, because of the peculiar international fiscal policy towards the producers of fors, the price fluctuates violently in fairly predictable cycles. The second is that, due to the fact that as yet no directive from the EEC has been issued and no British or European Standard exists, the kedge drift from lot to lot is quite unpredictable.

This drift will continue in storage no matter what precautions are taken with regard to vacuity and prollity.

Traddle, on the other hand, is a much more amenable material. Very little need be said on this since providing the price is right and the number of seams is within reason, no real problems should be encountered. Perhaps some of the Bolivian imported is not just as

good as it could be, but even this is adequate.The only other thing that need concern us on the materials front is the matter of storage.

"Store in haste repent at leisure", is indeed a kearning truism that must be remembered if tragedy and heart ache are to be avoided.

Always store pliable fors at least 7.7m (14ft.7in.) away from traddle. It does not matter how kedge it is it will sooner or later suffer a drag. It is obviously permissible to bring them into close proximity for relatively short period such as when actually working with them, but extended periods must be avoided.

So much for materials. Let us now turn our attention to tooling proper.

Historically too much emphasis has been placed on the design of the handles and also of the heels. Over the last fifty years it has been proved over and over again that providing the handles and the heels are adequate then the design, as it should be, is a matter of personal taste. I have a personal preference for Arabic handles combined with "drifter" heels. Unfortunately this combination is only available in certain sizes of pleen and very rarely, if ever, in pladgets made after the end of the nineteenth century. I have therefore modified quite a number of modern ones from "Aitcheson" heel to "drifter" heel. The only time that this conversion is noticeable is when one is doing an inverse hardwick, and even then only a time served kearnsman would be aware of the subtle difference of thrist.

Let us first of all examine the salient requirements of a good pleen. It goes without saying that it must be comfortable on the hip and come readily to hand. The smaller the size of the pleen the greater the size of the quoin needed to fettock it. And herein lies the essence of all pleen work. Sir Malpas de Grippen, the eighteenth Noble Grasper of the Royal and Ancient Worshipful Companie of the Queens Kearners , always proclaimed that ,"Yon gurter quoin is seen, wem fettock teeny pleen". This is probably one of the most telling rills in the whole of kearning lore and should always be borne in mind when studying the rudiments of fettocking. This of course, in turn, has a bearing on the size and style of pleen used, particularly on underhand throws.

Pladgets come in a wonderful array of colours, sizes and styles, but it is only through experience that one realises that the only true worth of colour is in rapid recognition of "the right pladget" in emergencies. In about 1787 Norbert Threep, an independent kearner of Stoke Poges, had just firmed up a first throw on a fresh davit of pliable fors when in through the open window flew a large raven with something in its beak.For a moment he was startled and a little non-plussed. Then he realised that this was precisely the sort of situation for which rapid recognition of the right pladget was invaluable. From then on he memorised all the colours that he could, not just the shade but also the depth and in little over four years he could not only "see", but could also describe in great detail, over forty three different colours.

So what of styles and sizes? Well as with many things it is not just the size that matters, rather what you do with it. Handleability is of greater importance than aesthetic appearance. It is no good having the most handsome pladget this side of the river Tigris if its ability to flume is no better than a cork lemming.

As I mentioned above fewer really good well thought out pladgets are better than a gross of flim-flam. Get a pair (a left hand and a right hand) of first class no. 2 clams, a similar pair of no. 6 gayners, one really good spadger (with additional side pocket) and a continental wilver on a rosewood base, and you have got yourself the start of a first class selection. Quite obviously as you gain in skill your skill will increase and be in greater demand, and that is the time when you may find it necessary to invest in new and more refined pladgetry. However it should be borne in mind that, so far, no one has ever heard a poor tool blaming its kearnsman.

So much for equipment, now for the doing of the doing. It is first necessary to bring together, on the kearning horse, the appropriate amounts of pliable fors and traddle. These can be held in place temporarily by the use of nubian quonce wax. This is usually obtainable locally at very reasonable prices and a few ounces go an awfully long way when made up properly with equal amounts.

Select the pleen of your choice and decide from which direction to approach the work . It is usual for a right handed person to work from the left, and a left handed person to work from the right, when doing an outside run. When doing an inside run it is usual to work the other way round, but it has not always been viewed in this way. In the middle ages much of the religious kearning was approached, of necessity, from below. This proved to be quite successful and as a result many a good kearnsman worked in this way on all his work. It was not until the renaissance that the old ways started to come back into vogue. Now there is no wrong way and that, of course, means that there is no right way either. Once more it is personal preference and what feels right. Danfoss the Dane, who held the post of Krufnig Korner (Chief Kearner) at the court of Ulbert the Unreliable in 1232, said of personal preference," Feith tobau bogwold nar sleif bon throw," and I suppose that more or less sums the matter up quite nicely, and also shows that Danfoss felt it quite incumbent upon him.

Having got the direction of approach sorted out it now becomes a matter of which strickles to flay. The inverse hardwick has almost become the standard starting off point. However this need not be so since there are several more, quite attractive, primary strickles, such as the reverse lambda, the othello, Mrs. Carruthers' underhand Bishop, the italian lean, King Arthur's pendragon and many more. All these, and others can be found in "Kearnings; Ancient and Modern" price £2.95 from most good stockists. The important thing, as always, is that you must feel comfortable with it, which ever one you chose.

Secondary strickles are less obvious but, strangely enough, more important, and therefore more demanding of time, both in selection and execution.

Just as the primary is, to some extent, overlaid by the secondary, so one would imagine the tertiary would overlay the secondary. This is not automatically so and it is controlled more by choice of secondary than tertiary. Hence the care needed in its selection. Go for a bold statement rather than a whimper, but be prepared to back up. Try not to do an out where there should obviously be an in. Try to feel your way into its nature, without necessarily feeling diffident. Try to remember the words of Omar Kyham when he described the empty fullness within.

Having selected the secondary strickle the tertiary will follow almost automatically, and so here are several helpful formulae to help.

k = p*(s+q)/n These are to be used

with the Norse bias and

s = q(n^+q^)/d with the Sephenson

nomenclature.

T = q^(d-l)p

These are only valid for kedge values in the normal range and at the top of the wardrobe.

Finally what of the finish. Since kearning began the obvious choice has always been eastern light ghee. However since the closing of China in the Opium wars it has been very expensive, when obtainable, and as a result much work has been done on a substitute. The best of these todate being comminuted pig withies, and this is what I recommend.

©

If it is of any interest I could post the appendices.

[-pops-]

Bluddy 'ell!

[Thos]

Thanks for that. I spent an enjoyable 20 minutes having a good chuckle at what I suspect is a serious subject. Did you seek advice from the Ministerial Under-Councillor for Kearning (MUCK for short) who should be able to spread his expertise.

Thos. :D

[andsome]

Bluddy 'ell!

DITTO! :)

[gordythegouge]

I felt I could do no better than AllenHo in explaining this most odd situation with regard to droves, until I realised that droving has its origins in an offshoot of Kearning.

Some years ago I did a study of this and put together a short treatise on the subject:-

KEARNING FOR PROFIT AND PLEASURE

"The amateur need not go in fear of kearning." This has been said on numerous occasions I am sure, but it has never been truer than it is today.

The advent of modern methods and techniques, to say nothing of the advance in modern materials and equipment has laid out a veritable pleasure garden before the most demanding of kearners. It would indeed be a very pernickety fellow who could not be contented with today's possibilities.

The first concern of the newcomer to kearning is the collection of the most suitable equipment. This is where the first mistakes can be made so very easily. When the newcomer looks over the equipment and materials gathered over the years by the master kearnsman, he can quite easily think that it is necessary to possess dozens of pleens and box after box full of various sizes of pladget. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact for very many years I did all my kearning with just six pleens ( two no. 1s, a small A, a thick C, and an adjustable no. 7), and five pladgets (1/8, 3/16, 3/8, a small wilver and a home made spadger, made from a broken aluminium teapot lid) . One thing, however, is an absolute must both for the expert and the beginner alike and that is a large, substantial, well mounted kearning horse. It is folly to try to "make do" just to save money on this most necessary of items.

One of the great joys, to the majority of kearners, is to be present at the annual feast of St. Chaval, the patron saint of kearning and firewatching, for it is on this day, and this day alone, that the Royal and Ancient Worshipful Companie of The Queens Kearners are allowed to frangle though the streets of central London woggling the Great Kearning Horse of State. It is indeed a wonderful sight and a reminder of the long and noble history of the "wolesome and rite gennery", as Johnson called it, art and craft of kearning.

I once knew a man, in his late 40's, who really had enough experience of the kearners life to have known better, and who, instead of using his own horse, which was a Murgatroyd and Westfield " Express No. 10", (the Rolls Royce of kearning horses), used a small and well used gravellers oval. Well the resulting mess had to be seen to be believed. He spoiled one of his favourite wilvers and utterly ruined three spadgers, not to mention the loss of valuable materials, in the shape of two davits of pliable fors and a pound and a half of traddle.(This was before traddle was subjected to the indignity of metrication!) So, as the old time kearners used to say, "spare the horse and spoil the traddle".

The selection of the horse needs careful thought. Where will it be situated in relation to the light? What is the most comfortable personal working height? Will an electricity supply be used at a later stage? Would a smaller step be an advantage at some time in the future? Do future plans include a rocking arbor?

When these and other questions have been answered then we can study the matter of the mounting. Many workers have found, over the years, that a simple mounting is often best, however you will have to decide if the type of work you are likely to get involved in will require a metal mounting or possibly a more resilient natural rubber scarfing.

The Murgatroyd and Westfield range was, for many years, unsurpassable, however in recent times there have been some very well made and competitively priced horses and mountings coming out of the near east. It is therefore in the best interest of each kearner and budding kearner to shop around thoroughly before committing any sum of money to the purchase of these items just on whim and fancy alone.

There are throughout the country several well known and old established kearn chandlers and forsmen who will only be too pleased to help and advise the beginner. Here is a short list which is by no means comprehensive:-

The Happy Earner.....High st Oxford

Ye Olde Kearnerie..........Milton Keynes

Kanny Earner...... ......Kilmarnock

Just a Davit.....................Leeds

Wilvers and Pleens........Preston

Spadgers Unlimited.......Sunderland

Kapital Kearning.............London

Kearn-U-Like...................Brighton

Horses for Korses..........Newbury

Having successfully obtained our horse it is now time to obtain the most suitable materials for use upon it. The pliable fors is probably the trickiest of all the materials to get right at the outset of a kearning career. After a while its selection become almost as second nature, but as we are not yet at this stage a few pointers may be necessary.

Do not be fooled into thinking that since it is called pliable fors it is necessarily better the more pliable it is. Some of the old time kearners would go out of their way to find a supply of pliable fors that was only slightly kedge. In the beginning it is probable better to practice on material that is fairly kedge but in the learner state avoid fors that is excessively kedge. Great disappointment awaits the unwary for the careless choice of fors.

DO NOT over stock on pliable fors. Only acquire sufficient davits for

the work in hand. There are two very sound commercial reasons for this. The first is that, because of the peculiar international fiscal policy towards the producers of fors, the price fluctuates violently in fairly predictable cycles. The second is that, due to the fact that as yet no directive from the EEC has been issued and no British or European Standard exists, the kedge drift from lot to lot is quite unpredictable.

This drift will continue in storage no matter what precautions are taken with regard to vacuity and prollity.

Traddle, on the other hand, is a much more amenable material. Very little need be said on this since providing the price is right and the number of seams is within reason, no real problems should be encountered. Perhaps some of the Bolivian imported is not just as

good as it could be, but even this is adequate.The only other thing that need concern us on the materials front is the matter of storage.

"Store in haste repent at leisure", is indeed a kearning truism that must be remembered if tragedy and heart ache are to be avoided.

Always store pliable fors at least 7.7m (14ft.7in.) away from traddle. It does not matter how kedge it is it will sooner or later suffer a drag. It is obviously permissible to bring them into close proximity for relatively short period such as when actually working with them, but extended periods must be avoided.

So much for materials. Let us now turn our attention to tooling proper.

Historically too much emphasis has been placed on the design of the handles and also of the heels. Over the last fifty years it has been proved over and over again that providing the handles and the heels are adequate then the design, as it should be, is a matter of personal taste. I have a personal preference for Arabic handles combined with "drifter" heels. Unfortunately this combination is only available in certain sizes of pleen and very rarely, if ever, in pladgets made after the end of the nineteenth century. I have therefore modified quite a number of modern ones from "Aitcheson" heel to "drifter" heel. The only time that this conversion is noticeable is when one is doing an inverse hardwick, and even then only a time served kearnsman would be aware of the subtle difference of thrist.

Let us first of all examine the salient requirements of a good pleen. It goes without saying that it must be comfortable on the hip and come readily to hand. The smaller the size of the pleen the greater the size of the quoin needed to fettock it. And herein lies the essence of all pleen work. Sir Malpas de Grippen, the eighteenth Noble Grasper of the Royal and Ancient Worshipful Companie of the Queens Kearners , always proclaimed that ,"Yon gurter quoin is seen, wem fettock teeny pleen". This is probably one of the most telling rills in the whole of kearning lore and should always be borne in mind when studying the rudiments of fettocking. This of course, in turn, has a bearing on the size and style of pleen used, particularly on underhand throws.

Pladgets come in a wonderful array of colours, sizes and styles, but it is only through experience that one realises that the only true worth of colour is in rapid recognition of "the right pladget" in emergencies. In about 1787 Norbert Threep, an independent kearner of Stoke Poges, had just firmed up a first throw on a fresh davit of pliable fors when in through the open window flew a large raven with something in its beak.For a moment he was startled and a little non-plussed. Then he realised that this was precisely the sort of situation for which rapid recognition of the right pladget was invaluable. From then on he memorised all the colours that he could, not just the shade but also the depth and in little over four years he could not only "see", but could also describe in great detail, over forty three different colours.

So what of styles and sizes? Well as with many things it is not just the size that matters, rather what you do with it. Handleability is of greater importance than aesthetic appearance. It is no good having the most handsome pladget this side of the river Tigris if its ability to flume is no better than a cork lemming.

As I mentioned above fewer really good well thought out pladgets are better than a gross of flim-flam. Get a pair (a left hand and a right hand) of first class no. 2 clams, a similar pair of no. 6 gayners, one really good spadger (with additional side pocket) and a continental wilver on a rosewood base, and you have got yourself the start of a first class selection. Quite obviously as you gain in skill your skill will increase and be in greater demand, and that is the time when you may find it necessary to invest in new and more refined pladgetry. However it should be borne in mind that, so far, no one has ever heard a poor tool blaming its kearnsman.

So much for equipment, now for the doing of the doing. It is first necessary to bring together, on the kearning horse, the appropriate amounts of pliable fors and traddle. These can be held in place temporarily by the use of nubian quonce wax. This is usually obtainable locally at very reasonable prices and a few ounces go an awfully long way when made up properly with equal amounts.

Select the pleen of your choice and decide from which direction to approach the work . It is usual for a right handed person to work from the left, and a left handed person to work from the right, when doing an outside run. When doing an inside run it is usual to work the other way round, but it has not always been viewed in this way. In the middle ages much of the religious kearning was approached, of necessity, from below. This proved to be quite successful and as a result many a good kearnsman worked in this way on all his work. It was not until the renaissance that the old ways started to come back into vogue. Now there is no wrong way and that, of course, means that there is no right way either. Once more it is personal preference and what feels right. Danfoss the Dane, who held the post of Krufnig Korner (Chief Kearner) at the court of Ulbert the Unreliable in 1232, said of personal preference," Feith tobau bogwold nar sleif bon throw," and I suppose that more or less sums the matter up quite nicely, and also shows that Danfoss felt it quite incumbent upon him.

Having got the direction of approach sorted out it now becomes a matter of which strickles to flay. The inverse hardwick has almost become the standard starting off point. However this need not be so since there are several more, quite attractive, primary strickles, such as the reverse lambda, the othello, Mrs. Carruthers' underhand Bishop, the italian lean, King Arthur's pendragon and many more. All these, and others can be found in "Kearnings; Ancient and Modern" price £2.95 from most good stockists. The important thing, as always, is that you must feel comfortable with it, which ever one you chose.

Secondary strickles are less obvious but, strangely enough, more important, and therefore more demanding of time, both in selection and execution.

Just as the primary is, to some extent, overlaid by the secondary, so one would imagine the tertiary would overlay the secondary. This is not automatically so and it is controlled more by choice of secondary than tertiary. Hence the care needed in its selection. Go for a bold statement rather than a whimper, but be prepared to back up. Try not to do an out where there should obviously be an in. Try to feel your way into its nature, without necessarily feeling diffident. Try to remember the words of Omar Kyham when he described the empty fullness within.

Having selected the secondary strickle the tertiary will follow almost automatically, and so here are several helpful formulae to help.

k = p*(s+q)/n These are to be used

with the Norse bias and

s = q(n^+q^)/d with the Sephenson

nomenclature.

T = q^(d-l)p

These are only valid for kedge values in the normal range and at the top of the wardrobe.

Finally what of the finish. Since kearning began the obvious choice has always been eastern light ghee. However since the closing of China in the Opium wars it has been very expensive, when obtainable, and as a result much work has been done on a substitute. The best of these todate being comminuted pig withies, and this is what I recommend.

©

If it is of any interest I could post the appendices.

I suppose it's a bit pedantic of me to mention but....."kearning with just six pleens ( two no. 1s, a small A, a thick C, and an adjustable no. 7" I have to point out that you've been rather careless with your pleens as you've obviously misplaced one of them... and I see that the (S)pleen appears to be missing!? Now ....I don't wish to castigate you in any way... but we really can't have missing (S)pleens in the public domain. (I shall shorten the (S)pleen to Spleen to make things simpler.)

Now unless you can find your missing Spleen in short order....I really can't see much future for you in proper kearning society. Master Kearners, the length and breadth of the country, will have turned pale at the thought of a kearner missing his Spleen! So with that light admonition...I leave you to your search...as a missing Spleen is not to be shrugged off easily! Good hunting! :lol:

[Gandalph]

[Watchful]

That's the short one is it? :0

[AlanHo]

I am a more than a little upset at some of the responses to my thread. I did my best to explain my dilemma - but I have to say that it is only catgate who has addressed the problem with purpose and clarity. All other contributions have made light of my problem - especially those that resorted to profanity to try and make a point.

Surely we have forum members who are able to throw some light on the problem - as opposed to making light of it.

I suspect that you have gathered in droves to avoid making a meaningful contribution.

[Tankus]

the real sheep buy right wing orientated papers and thinks that because that they consider themselves well informed .. thars know's whats ..best for you ....!

I want to be the mushrooms ......

[Devanski]

Droves

Aparently there are droves of droves :D

[gordythegouge]

the real sheep buy right wing orientated papers and thinks that because that they consider themselves well informed .. thars know's whats ..best for you ....!

I want to be the mushrooms ......

Bearing in mind the growing conditions for mushrooms.........I think there's quite a few of us who come under the mushroom umbrella! :lol: