On Friday, one of the students – a man now sporting a grey beard himself – sat in front of a vacant shop in Imlay Street, practicing the skills he learned in that room.

But unlike the rest of the students that day, Jonathan Bruce Kendall only left the classroom after developing his own technique.

“I learned quite by accident,” he laughed.

“An old man with a grey beard came to teach us how machines were so much better than people.

“He said, ‘Right! Lads, you’ve all got to make one of these [a loom], and come to school with a ball of wool and a crotchet hook.’”

Armed with the loom he made in craft and a ball of wool he found at home, the boy known to all as ‘Tooth’ because of his love of cookies, went back to school.

But he didn’t have a crotchet hook, leaving him to use his fingers to pick each stitch over.

But, being left-handed, he found it difficult to imitate the instructor’s movements, leading him to develop his own ‘figure-eight’ pattern.

The unique pattern creates an extra twist, and consequently, a thicker and warmer scarf than you’ll find anywhere, except perhaps in Peru.

“Until they invent a machine that can do that, they can’t usurp me,” he laughed.

“I had a look on the web a couple of years ago, and the only picture I could find where someone had done it the same way as me was an old lady in the High Andes Mountains in Peru.”

While he’s now travelling the countryside and living out of a station wagon while selling his scarves, it’s only been two-and-a-half years since ‘Tooth’ lived a very different life.

He spent around 30 years in London, working as a maths teacher, where he met his ex-wife Clare and had his beloved daughter, Dani.

After becoming homesick, he returned to Australia in 2012 to find that he had been away so long his teaching qualifications were no longer acceptable.

Not wanting to return to university and needing money to help his aspiring astronaut daughter pay her university fees, the answer was simple for ‘Tooth’.

“This is what I do,” he said, knitting away on Imlay Street.

“I live in my station wagon and stop in different towns and sell my scarves.

“When Dani came to see me a few years ago, she said, ‘Dad, you’re mad – you’re sitting on the side of the road selling scarves!’

“But I said to her, ‘Kiddo, I’m outside, breathing fresh air, going where I want, meeting interesting people and doing what I want – what’s the downside!’

While ‘Tooth’ is on the road in Australia, Dani runs an online shop from the other side of the world, selling the scarves.

Called ‘Tooth’s Loom’, it’s part of the Etsy online marketplace, with all profits aside from Tooth’s living expenses going towards Dani’s education.

“We’re OK – I’m a 21st century hobo with Skype and Telstra broadband internet access,” he laughed.

“We get to talk all the time.”

‘Tooth’ loves what he does, and says he has had a few more than a few interesting experiences along the way, including one in a ‘typical Aussie pub’ in Tumbarumba.

After scoping the place out on his first night in town, he pulled out the loom and set to work in the corner of the pub a day later.

“The blokes at the bar were looking at me like, and one of them turned around and said, ‘What are you doing?’

“So I said, ‘I’m earning money while I drink beer. What are you doing?’

“That stopped him in his tracks, but it was an eye-opener for them and they were amazed that I could do it without looking.

“Let’s face it, I’ve been doing it for so long that if I had to look at it all the time, I’d get pretty bored!

‘Tooth’ plans to stay in Eden for four or five days before heading south, and will set up his gear each day on Imlay Street.

To visit his online store, click here.