Peter Teal: A Life of Industry and Innovation

摘要

Peter Teal, my father, made a considerable contribution to the world of handspinning, but one that came about by chance. He set up as a wood-turner in the early 1960s, after moving his family to Exmoor from Manchester, where he'd worked as a press photographer. We moved into a seventeenth century water mill, equipped with semi-derelict outbuildings including a rusting water wheel, and he restored much of that on his own, despite some very hard winters. Armed only with his training as a tank fitter during WWII, I believe he was a natural engineer, always coming up with creative solutions. These included hauling huge rocks out of the wheel pit with a block and tackle; removing the rust that had eaten into one side of the stationary wheel axle to make it run smoothly, and eventually running his woodworking workshop via belt-drive.