traditional crafts on Radio 4 Farming Today

Rural crafts are being featured this week on Radio Four's Farming Today Program and for those who are not up at 6am to listen you can listen online using BBC iplayer
Just click the link then drag the slider to 9.25 when the feature starts.

We hear quite a lot of press on good stories in the traditional crafts at the moment though most are in conservation or building crafts. The Heritage Lottery Fund has put nearly £10 million into these crafts over the last 5 years through their bursary scheme.

HLF is a reactive rather than proactive funder and in part it has been the fault of the smaller traditional crafts themselves not having an organised voice to campaign for support that has led to them being left out. We look forward seeing support and promotion for the basketmakers, potters, weavers and urban crafts such as Sheffield cutlery in the future.


Thanks to my blog Reader and HCA supporter Julian for pointing this one out to me.