The Singer company used to sell its machines on hire purchase terms - could it be that the distances between settlements and 'civilisation' in the Highlands prevented this, as it would be uneconomical for someone to go and collect a few pennies each week from an isolated hamlet?

My father's mother bought a Singer sewing machine at six pence a week when living in a village in Derbyshire in the 1920's. I believe that the collector came on his bicycle from the nearest railway station.

Anne the Pleater :ootd: