Baker Tartan - Advice from Xmarks

[jbaker42j]

Its been quite a while since I've posted....but don't worry, I've been kilted often. I'm posting with a heavy heart and I need to reach out to some old friends and kilt lovers. I've typed and erased for over a week now and am hesitant but I figure I can count on you guys, so here goes it.

Two weeks ago my grandfather passed away. His passing has been very difficult for me and I've not really been myself so please forgive me if I'm a bit scatterbrained in this post.

He was a strong man and a man of integrity. Despite his barrel chested appearance he sang and danced and was full of love and laughter. He was a WWII SeaBee and fought hard like many other men of his generation. He came from a very large family made strong by previous generations of Maxwells, Shaws, and Bakers that hailed from Scotland and Ireland. Many of the forefathers were men of military, police or firefighting service and this is a source of great family pride that has been handed down along with our Scottish and Irish heritage that we embrace dearly. In the same tradition my father became a Police Officer and I served in the military and became a Firefighter. It really goes hand in hand with our heritage. I am very proud to be his grandson and honored to have his name.

All this being said, I am currently being burdened with a regret. Back in 2003 and then again in 2008 I was set to register a tartan for the Baker family. There is a Baker Fashion Tartan, but West Coast Woolen Mills had been contacted a while back and this design was produced strictly as a fashion tartan and our family has never accepted the design and never will. We did however have an early design that was to be the basis of our Baker tartan. Later my father had visited the Scottish Tartans Museum and after listening to the curator and director emeritus, Matthew Newsome, the idea was to commission him to tweak our design then register it for the entire Baker family......then, life happened. Times get tough, money gets tight, then tighter yet. Fast forward to present time and my grandfather has passed and I never presented him with our tartan. I wanted so badly to do so but now I'm at a loss. I feel like a the threads of a tartan can bind a family together, the pride of family tradition and heritage are woven into fabric that keeps the spirit alive. Our family motto is "You'll Never Walk Alone", a song by the same name was played at Grandpa's service. From this motto I know that you carry your loved ones in your heart but I also think they live on in the tartan.

With my thoughts a bit murky, and times still being financially tough, I'm not sure which way to follow through with tweaking and registering the Baker tartan but it has to be done. I'm open to all constructive ideas. Thanks for reading.




And warp well the long threads,
The bright threads, the strong threads;
Woof well the cross threads,
To make the colours shine."
She wove in red for every deed,
Of valour done for Scotia's need:
She wove in green, the laurel's sheen,
In memory of her glorious dead.