Beekeeper, baker, knifemaker
A new documentary series examines a resurgence of interest in forgotten arts
By Resli Buchel
The Passionate Apprentice is the latest work by award-winning documentary film maker, Roger Scholes (The Coolbaroo Club) who - with the help of producer Lynda House - ventured into the isolated Huon Valley to uncover the stories of three traditional artisans. The knifemaker, the beekeeper, and the baker have each rediscovered a forgotten craft and are now passing on their wealth of knowledge to young apprentices.
"The valley's quite interesting really," ventures knifemaker John. "[There's] quite a mixture of people here... you've got the old hippies, the ferals, and people with farms, a few vineyards, and people who just live in the bush cause the just want to be away from everything".
John, it would seem, falls into the latter category. Living in what is little more than a shack in the bush, he smokes his own food and trades his hand-forged knives for the bare necessities, making only minimal contact with people. However, he is always welcoming when it comes to his young knifemaking apprentice, Linden.
"There's not many people who actually forge [knives] like I do," John explains. "It's taken me so long to learn... I'd like to hand it on to a young fellow who's interested. And when you find someone like Linden - he's got the passion - then it's really easy to teach". At just twelve-years-old, Linden has a much simpler take on the medieval craft of knifemaking. "It's pretty cool to cook and cut something with a knife you've made yourself," he states proudly.
On a sheltered hilltop nearby, Yves teaches his daughter Merlin an old-world craft of a different kind. Having learned beekeeping as a child in France, he is a strong believer in the value of passing on one's knowledge. "It's part of trying to give something to someone else... to pass on [the passion] to the next one," he says. "I think father [and] daughter have knowledge to give to each other."
Down the road from the family of apiarists, the Summer Kitchen Bakery houses yet another master and apprentice. But John (the baker, not the knifemaker) and his apprentice Shannon, have taken their relationship a step further combining their passion and knowledge of traditional baking methods to create a truly unique product.
"What we're doing is very traditional," says Shannon. "We're making bread without using modern yeast. It seemed like such a shame that we were putting [it] into these old, worn out electric ovens that weren't really doing our bread any justice." So together, John and Shannon built a wood fuelled brick oven in which they bake the best bread in the valley, and keep their intimate knowledge of the past alive.
"Baking is something that is essentially handed down from one baker to the next, from the master baker to the apprentice," Shannon explains and adds: "The sad thing is, in our rush a hundred years ago to embrace industry and technology, the old ways were pushed aside and forgotten about."
"Everyone who wants to do this now has had to figure it out for themselves," he continues, "but we share with each other... John and I are from different origins, but we come together, and we share what we've learnt, and combine it, and we're re-figuring out all the stuff that's been lost."
The Passionate Apprentice shows that, in the shadow of Sleeping Beauty Mountain, in Tasmania people are choosing to escape the hustle and bustle of modern life; to live, work, trade and exist outside mainstream society, by keeping traditional ways of life alive.
The Passionate Apprentice screens on SBS, Wed 25 June at 8pm.