Monday, February 27 .....

With our appalling public transport system, hitch-hiking is still prevalent in Tasmania. Most of them seem to be back-packers who hadn’t realised that there might only be one bus going in a certain direction each day. They’re often a bit hippy (but that’s not necessarily a bad thing) and it will be the female on the roadside holding up her thumb while her male partner tries to look inconspicuous in the background. I’m not inclined to pick people up but I know Jamie does it quite often and will even go out of his way to make sure they get where they are going.

Today, there was a hitch-hiker on the Georgetown Road just on the edge of the city. This was no hippy: he had on black flared trousers, white shirt and black waistcoat, with a hat and a cloth bundle on a pole. Jamie was astounded. Look, he said, it’s a German Carpenter Journeyman. Unfortunately, we had gone past before I could make the decision to stop.

I’d never heard of such a thing and had to get on the internet when I got home, and what a story I discovered. The tradition dates back to mediaeval times and is still alive in German-speaking countries. Before an apprentice could be promoted to ‘master’ he had to set out to travel around gaining experience.

The journeyman brotherhoods established a standard to ensure that wandering journeymen were not mistaken for tramps or vagabonds. They needed to be childless and debt-free (in modern times journeymen often need a police clearance) and were required to wear a specific uniform. This helps them to find shelter for the night and a ride to the next town. Each journeyman carries a log book which he gets stamped to show where he has been. In German, the journey is called a ‘waltz’ and the song, Waltzing Matilda, is based on the journeyman’s waltz. In English-speaking countries we still use the term journeyman but don't expect our craftsmen to actually make a journey.

At the beginning of the waltz, the journeyman takes only 6 Euros and he is expected to bring that amount, no more and no less, when he comes home. During the period of the waltz, he is not allowed to come within 50Km of his home town. The journey is expected to last 3 years and a day (in some cases, 2 years and a day).

Apparently, although not all apprentices take the journey nowadays, there are several hundred young men and women on the road at any one time. If we had been able to get closer, we might have found that the journeyman was wearing a golden earring and golden bracelets, and carrying a traditional curled pole called a stenz. The gold was expected to be pawned when times were tough or kept to pay the gravedigger if the journeyman happened to die on the road.

The fellow we saw today is one of four who are in Tasmania at the moment. The German word for the group is Wandergesellen (gesell is literally ‘companion’). They have completed the first year in Germany and are travelling the world for the next two years and 1 day. I found a story from the Examiner which reported that two of the journeymen had built a new chicken coop for a local family.

Isn’t it a wonderful story, and what a shame I didn’t stop!