Page 26 - ASSESSMENT OF ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

1. I wonder what you would like to be when you grow up. (Hear from some of the
children.) You have told me about different types of work, different ways of
serving other people.

2. Did you know that God is a Worker? He created the heavens and the earth, and all
that is in them. That was work.

When he made Adam and placed him in the Garden of Eden, he gave him work to do.
Adam was to look after the garden and care for the creatures. He was to do this
with God’s help. This was a good thing. It was a privilege.

Jesus, also, was content to work as a carpenter for many years, before it was time
to go around proclaiming the Kingdom of God.

3. Now there are many different kinds of work for people to do. You have told me of

some of the ways people can serve others. In Witney, about fifty to a hundred
years ago, many people were involved in making the same sort of thing. (Blankets)

4. We do not know exactly how it all started.

x Certainly the land around Witney has always been good for rearing sheep,
and many people have kept sheep here. For many years in the wintertime,
when there was less work for people to do out-side, men and boys would sit

carding the wool. This was a bit like brushing it to get the fibres all lying
the same way. Then the women and girls would spin it on spinning wheels.

x The yarn (woollen thread) was collected from people’s houses and taken to
a house or shed where there was a weaver’s loom, so that it could be

woven into cloth. The woollen cloth was loose, rough and oily, and not very
good as a blanket yet.

x The next thing they did was to put it in a river or a big tank of water, and
beat clay through it! (fulling) This removed the oil and made the blanket
shrink, leaving fewer holes in the weave.

x After this the blanket was fluffed up by brushing it with teazles, and
stretched out into its final shape.

x Blankets were then taken to London, where they were sold. Some blankets
were even sold to Red Indians in North America. They traded animal furs

for blankets, and they especially liked the indigo, yellow, red and green

(Changing World, Unchanging God) 24