Neva McIntosh and the beauty of the Internet
I spent a semester abroad in London my junior year of
college. One weekend (a long one) I
journeyed up to Scotland. On the Great
Mile I found a small store owned by a woman named Neva McIntosh. She hand knit beautiful sweaters. The price was right and I wanted to bring
one home with me.
I picked the colors.
God knows why I picked grey and rose but I did. The sweater showed up at my doorstep in
London a few weeks later. I wore the
sweater to death. Then it went into the
world where all old clothes go to die that you can’t get rid of, the so called
attic.
Fast forward about 20 years, Freds parent go to Edinburgh
and find the store. They get me another
sweater, a beautiful classic white button down sweater with brown wooden
buttons. I loved it. Apparently so did the dry cleaner because
they lost it. I still mourn for that
sweater. It isn’t something I would buy
myself but I loved it and wore it often. I tried to replace it but it just wasn't the same.
I believe Neva has moved on because when I was in Scotland a
few years back I could not find her store.
I looked everywhere including the world wide yellow pages called the
Internet.
Last week I got an email from a woman in Canada who had
looked up Neva and found my blog post about looking for her in Scotland. She had bought a sweater roughly around the
same time I did when we were in college.
She too had kept her beloved sweater in the attic and had not touched it
for years. She reached out to me to see
if I was interested in the sweater before selling it on eBay. I figured why not.
She sent it to me as a gift.
I am not so sure that I will wear it but the story is great. You have to love the internet. Maybe one of my nieces will cuddle up in this
sweater when we go skiing next year.
Comments (Archived):
Gorgeous.
Love the story.don’t you remember pink and grey were 2 colors that went from 80’s room designs to 90’s clothing designs?Remember the design was called fair isle . Susan Bristol copied the Scottish designs and made a fortune.A friend and I were just talking about how she just broke a treasured antique figurine and I said you might find another one on Etsy or ebay. Before 1996 finding anything was lots of legwork and lots of driving. Now we just sit in a robe and find it so easily.When my mom was in the hospital in 1995 I remember my husband got a subscription to silver platter software that had abstracts of medical articles we could later look at at the Countway Medical Library. Now all you do is type in the disease.
i get so much satisfaction and joy from how the internet connects us, loved this story. you could probably write a book on the connections you’ve made through the www
The social web as a pure connector is a chain novel of these human touch points.We all have some. Thanks for sharing this one.
Oh that is so neat, thank you so much for posting the sweater that had bought years ago. We had great taste. I have been enjoying your posts.
guarantee we still have great taste!
Junior year, Spring semester ’83, I spent in London…and made a weekend trip to Edinburgh. Bought a green and pink with white NM sweater for my mom. Think NM must have been a stop for a lot of Juniors studying abroad! Mom had/loved the sweater for 20+ years. She’s currently in London and heading to Edinburgh. Hoping to find the next generation NM. Thanks for sharing. Ronney
’84 JYA Aberdeen found NM & had a cardigan Icelandic sweater made still wearing it.
Nice!
I have one too!