A 75-year-old man has turned his childhood knitting hobby into a business as he prepares to graduate with a Masters degree which involved researching the craft.
While others may enjoy rest and relaxation after retiring, Michael Harrigan resigned from a career in professional development training to start his own trade in knitting.
Mr Harrigan, who is due to graduate from the University of Dundee on Thursday, previously trained lawyers and financial service providers, and will graduate with a Masters degree in Scottish history.
He is also part of a knitting guild and is a certified “master hand knitter”.
Mr Harrigan said he has enjoyed studying at an age when many of his contemporaries are retired.
READ MORE: Why Fair Isle has knitters around the world hooked
He said: “At my age you have to keep your mind active, I think that’s very important.
“Try not to think about it as a lot of work. If you take one day at a time and find something you’re genuinely interested in, it’s very enjoyable.”
During his course, Mr Harrigan studied Scottish bonnet-makers, and found most of them did not have particularly lucrative careers, but also found that Ayrshire bonnet-makers were generally more successful than others around the country.
He learned about the hand-knitters, who made bonnets in Dundee from the 15th century, and later those of Stewarton, in Ayrshire, who gained prominence with their diversification of products and marketing of their wares abroad.
Ayrshire makers shipped many of their bonnets overseas and sold in Europe and Canada, a relatively new approach at the time, whereas Dundonian bonnet-makers kept their business local.
Mr Harrigan said: “I wanted to learn why it was men who predominantly knitted these bonnets, how they did it and how they managed their businesses.
“I carried out research through the National Records of Scotland and found through death records that they were not particularly wealthy and that they passed on their craft to family members.”
Mr Harrigan, originally from northern New York State in the US, currently lives in Thailand and has studied part-time for the last three years as a distance learning student.
He said: “I’ve had everything I needed to study from afar.
“People were there if I needed them and I could be independent if not. The support has been fantastic but not overbearing.
“I’ve made a few friends and have a real respect for the professors who went out of their way to make sure we are all digging in deep enough, learning all we can and getting what we need to out of our studies.”
Having arrived in Dundee on Wednesday, Mr Harrigan says it is the first time he has visited the city, and he is looking forward to his graduation.
He said he intends to carry on his research beyond graduation.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here