We travel to the Eccleshall area to meet a master Saddle maker and find out what it takes to be award winning.
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00:00Hi my name is Kate Hart I'm a master saddler I'm working on side saddles
00:05building side saddles and refurbishing side saddles. Kate you've just had some
00:09recent success with this saddle here just fill us in on what the competition
00:13was and how you placed. So Society Master Saddlers holds an annual competition in
00:18London at Saddlers Hall in February every year and there is a class for side
00:23saddles so I've spent many months making making this and was thrilled to to win
00:31the class and get first place. Well done well done and there's a resurgence in
00:36side saddles we were just having a little chin wag it's but it's kind of
00:39the interest in the tradition of it and it's kind of more popular again now.
00:43Yes definitely so a lot of people want to have the old the original side
00:50saddles but they're a hundred hundred twenty years old now so there is
00:54definitely need for new side saddles because when people want to jump and do
01:00cross-country then don't really want to be doing that on a saddle that's that old
01:04but I still do work on old side saddles and make them go as long as possible.
01:09So how did you get into the world of saddle making? I wanted to be a saddler when I
01:14left school so I was lucky enough then to become an apprentice for several
01:18years in Utoxeter and then had a change of career and came back to saddlery some
01:26years ago starting my own business and then took up went to more courses and
01:32gained more qualifications and worked through my saddlery skills that way.
01:37And we kind of know Walsall as being a hotbed for saddle making have we got the
01:43best saddle makers in the world in this country? Of course we have. I was scared you were going to say no for a second.
01:50No I think so. Yeah and is it a business that you can I mean you know you said
01:57yourself how much time you've had to put into making this are people out there
02:01willing to pay what it's worth? Yeah if somebody wants a traditional side
02:05saddle then and they want a new one then there are people out there that want to
02:09pay the money for that yeah and the problem that we had for many years was
02:16the the framework that a saddle is built on is called the tree and there was
02:20nobody making side saddle trees anymore and then a few years ago people started
02:25to develop side saddle trees so now we're looking at this only a couple of
02:31companies in Walsall that are making side saddle trees because it's so
02:34expensive and time-consuming to make in comparison to a stride trees and saddles.
02:40Yeah so what is it you're so proud about with this particular saddle why is it
02:45it got the first I mean we should say there are two ways of making it is a
02:48traditional way and there's a not so traditional way and this was the the
02:52more labor-intensive traditional way there the grafting way. That's right
02:55there's again a movement towards looking at saddles in a different way side
03:00saddles in a different way and a more modern method of making them which is a
03:06lot quicker and but this is the way I've been taught which is totally
03:12traditional so everything here is hand stitched stitching 12 stitches to the
03:17inch all the way around the flaps everywhere this is all hand stitched and
03:21hand seamed doe skin pigskin and flap leather it's all very traditional or as
03:29so what what is it you enjoy about it I mean it must get sore on the fingers at
03:34times I have to admit my hands have been very very painful while making this they
03:39really have because with the making the panels it's everything is hand stitched
03:44hand quilted so my hands were but what I do really find very fulfilling is the
03:53fact that it is keeping an old tradition alive and where do you see yourself
03:57going in the future and it are you kind of where you want to be you know carry
04:00you know scale wise because I mean I guess you you know it's a it's you
04:05putting your passion and your time into a saddle so it's not like you you want
04:08to say you know as six people in here buzzing away and yeah I'm not looking at
04:13being a mass producer or anything yeah that's never going to happen I am really
04:19I mean there's a lifetime of learning with side saddle and I know that I'm
04:23just scratching the surface because there's so many old brands a lot of old
04:28saddles out there that need refurbishing and looking after and there's some
04:31incredible side saddlers in our country with the knowledge is just second to none
04:38and I know that I'm nowhere near that so I've got a lot of learning to do
04:43without a shadow of a doubt I'm not ignorant to that fact but you've got to
04:48start somewhere and I mean winning the the national competition for me is is
04:53just fantastic it's a really good step well well done it's a it's a beautiful
04:59work of art well done thank you so much