'Knit one, post one' volunteers needed

We have launched the 'Knit one, post one' volunteering project, asking volunteers from around the country to knit and post a Ewan McColl inspired bobble hat.

MI5 first picked out the seventeen year old Communist Party member, Ewan MacColl (then Jimmy Miller), due to his role in the organisation of the 1932 Kinder Mass Trespass; a direct action stunt in which nine thousand radical ramblers asserted their right to walk in the British countryside. Ewan MacColl owned a knitted bobble hat which has been on display with some of his prized posessions. Bobble hats have since become a symbol of the rambling movement, a movement which celebrates the fight for access by the common people to some of the country's most beautiful countryside.

Ruth Ewan is an artist interested in social history, rights and protest. For a 2018 exhibition at Sheffield Museum, she sourced Ewan McColl’s bobble hat and created a pattern to create a replica.

If you would like to be involved in this project, please contact deborah.webster@nationaltrust.org.uk to find out more. Or use the pattern below and 'Kint one, post one' to:

FAO Deborah Webster

Longshaw Estate Office

Longshaw

Nr Sheffield

S11 7TZ.

Knit one, post one pattern (PDF / 0.2MB) download

We can't wait to receive your bobble hats which will be on sale to the public throughout the People's Landscapes project, the proceeds from which will be used to look after the Peak District National Park for ever, for everyone.