Tom Daley invited to Shetland as Fair Isle community left 'shocked' over knitting row
The crafts enthusiast has come under fire over ‘misrepresentations’ in his TV show
Olympic diver Tom Daley has been invited to Shetland after becoming embroiled in a row over Fair Isle knitting.
The well-known crafts enthusiast hosts Game of Wool: Britain’s Best Knitter on Channel 4, which has come under fire for misrepresenting the island tradition.
In a letter to Channel 4’s interim chief executive, Jonathan Allan, Liberal Democrat MSP Beatrice Wishart, who represents Shetland, highlighted a series of concerns.
These include coverage of a decision by a contestant to ‘cut’ his knitting. The episode framed the choice as risky and a factor in the contestant’s failure to complete the challenge, despite this being a well-known Fair Isle knitting technique.
Ms Wishart also highlighted the misuse of the Shetland word ‘peerie’, a blurring of the distinctive Fair Isle pattern with other types of colour work, and the use of the phrase ‘the Shetlands’ to describe the Shetland Islands.
A Channel 4 press release was also criticised for spelling Fair Isle as ‘Fair Aisle’.
Ms Wishart said: “It would be great to see Tom Daley and the Game of Wool team come to Shetland to seriously engage with the skilled and creative Shetland knitting community.
“Wool and knitting have a long history and cultural significance in Shetland and it was a great shame that there were misrepresentations in the show.
“A public acknowledgement by the Game of Wool team I am sure will be welcomed locally, not least in Fair Isle where true Fair Isle is made.
“Fair Isle knitting has for too long been misrepresented the world over. It makes it especially frustrating that a TV programme for a UK audience made by a Scottish production company would fall into a similar pattern.
“Even simple things like misspelling the isle’s name shows a lack of attention to detail for a community far from Edinburgh, Glasgow and London.
“Lots of people have a passion for knitting and there was a sense of excitement and optimism about this new show which was sadly dashed on its first outing.”
Channel 4 has been contacted for comment.
Shetland’s Organisation for Knitters was among those groups critical of the programme’s errors.
In a social media post, the organisation said it had been left “shocked and saddened” by how Fair Isle knitting was portrayed in one of the show’s episodes.
Terri Leask, a founding member of SOK, told Shetland News: “The main thing folk were up in arms about was the terminology they used, which was either misused or mispronounced Shetland words. When we watched it we were just like ‘what is happening?’. The mistakes were so clear.”
Ms Leask added: “The term Fair Isle is going to be lost. Fair Isle is being used when what they are making is not Fair Isle. It’s appropriation.”
Helen Barwick, who runs Shetland Stitch Club, said: “You have to remember that this is a huge industry up here, and traditionally a way for Shetland women to earn a decent income, that has been killed off by fast fashion which labels designs as Fair Isle when they don’t stick to the tradition of even using Shetland wool.”
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