Her ancestry
Sibyl’s mother came down from the Crumble Top plateau, out of a shepherding family whose flocks and wool shaped their lives for generations. She married out of the region, into a household with the name Sudley. Sibyl was born of that match but never knew her mother, who died in childbirth. Her father could not keep her, and she was sent back to the plateau to be raised by her grandparents. Aunts and uncles lived close by, so she grew up within the fold of kin, though always with that faint sense of being a child without parents. As an adult she longed for children of her own, but found she could not have them. By the time her grandparents passed away, Sibyl was married, rooted again in the plateau.
Her work and teaching
Sibyl works wool in all its stages: raw fleece from her family’s sheep and neighbours’, spun yarn wound into neat balls, and skeins dyed in hues coaxed from weld, madder, walnut, and woad. Her husband keeps more to the outdoor work, but Sib’s hands rarely still. At the spinning wheel her mind wanders, so she took to teaching as well. In this region schooling is not formal but a shared duty — each household taking a turn to pass on what they know. Sibyl took more than her share, and the role stuck. Children learn their letters and numbers under her steady eye, along with the everyday crafts of cooking, sewing, and practical woodwork. She is spoken of as “the teacher,” though titles are loose here, and it is one she wears with joy.
Her market stall
At Kiln Green market and other village fairs, Sibyl sets out a plain trestle, her apron smudged from dyestuffs. Sacks of fleece lean against the legs, while coloured skeins hang from a cord above. Browns from walnut, yellows from weld, brick red from madder, and, rarely, a precious skein of woad-blue. Children often sit under her table, knotting yarn or playing at lessons in the dust. To passers-by it looks like a brood of her own, but in truth they are pupils, neighbours’ children she has gathered and taught. She sells with calm assurance, neither haggling nor pressing, her stall a place of colour and quiet order.