Swann Song
There’s an autumnal bite in the air. Feels like snow in the Ruahines Ranges. Autumn is coming for sure. My friends in England have been bemoaning the fact there’s been snow there for ages, my friend Sarah loosely regards her cat Felix (sometimes referred to as Fatso) as her official ‘bed-warmerer’ and because he’s an exceptionally well-kept cat he doesn’t mind in the least where he sleeps. Under, over the duvet/doona he’s pretty flexible Felix!
Here in New Zealand, like Felix, there’s a tried and true way that New Zealanders have been keeping warm and dry for years. It’s our swann song if you like. Colloquially-speaking it’s the Swanndri, “a trade name for a range of popular New Zealand outdoor clothing. It’s usually and widely worn by farmers but in recent years its popularity has spread and it has become something of a fashion item. The Swanndri Company now also produces a range of more urban-focussed garments.
William Henry Broome, was the first man in New Zealand and indeed the world, to produce the rugged, weather proofed bush-shirt that would stand up to all the rigors and demands of a outdoor working life and become as iconic in this country as an All Black jersey. William Henry Broome was born in Leek, Staffordshire, England in 1873, the fifth child of a shoe manufacturer. He arrived in New Zealand aged 21 and settled in New Plymouth.
In 1913, with nothing on the shelves to keep bush men and farmers warm and dry outdoors, he came up with a sturdy, all-weather woollen over-shirt that was weatherproofed using a secret formula and that is how the Swanndri was born. In an interview, his grandson pointed out that, “He never claimed them as waterproof. They were weatherproof but not like oilskin because they were made of wool, they shed water, though eventually they’d get wet.”
The formula was kept a pretty close secret in the family and even his grandson Bob Bowler, didn’t know the details. Only some of them, because he used to help his grandmother. The more obvious ones, I knew.” Bob suspects his grandfather may have had the formula with him when he stepped off the immigrant boat.
Once, while staying with friends, Bob perused their bookshelf for something to read and picked up a book called Fortunes in Formulas and Facts. Inside, he found a recipe for weatherproofing. “This formula certainly had some of the same ingredients,” he said. “It was the 42nd edition so obviously it was a long-standing book. “Fortunes in Formulas and Facts was used in North Yorkshire and had been for a long time. I’m sure he tinkered with the formula and adapted it but how much, I just don’t know.”
Bob Bowler lived with his grandparents from 1940 to 1958. He originally went there because one uncle was overseas and one worked in the shop in town, so it was up to him to mow the lawns. Later, because of a changing school bus route that often dictated which school he attended, Bob moved into the Doralto home for good. It was to avoid all the to-ing and fro-ing.
His grandfather had the shop on the corner of Devon and Liardet Streets. He used to have the upstairs part of the building where his Swanndris were made. It was there that the woollen fabric was rolled out and expertly cut by a Mrs Minne Landers before being stitched into the increasingly popular bush shirts.
After the shirts were sewn, they were sent to Doralto Road to be immersed in water and the secret formula, six at a time, in a large concrete tub more than 2 metres long but Broome’s method of waterproofing, that was, leaving them to soak for two days meant the garments shrank unevenly. They didn’t always shrink to the same size so he couldn’t cut to fit, as it were. It was one-size-fits-all.
The wet garments were put on the line to dry, once dry they’d be bundled into parcels of three and be sent to the post office for posting. During the late 1920s and early 30s, Broome regularly exhibited his garments at New Plymouth’s annual Winter Show, next to a Swanndri suspended in a water-filled crate. It would take four days before the water got through. For many years, in all weathers a Swanndri-wearing tailor’s dummy stood proudly outside his shop to show durability.”
But that’s just half the story. Join me tomorrow as we bring the curtain down on this great New Zealand Swann song. See you then.
