Onion Johnnies from Brittany, an Endangered Specy in the UK?

Where was I all these years, utterly ignorant of the Onion Johnnies?

Shouldn't I have known about them since they hail from Brittany (where I was born)...

Elizabeth Day in Only 15 of Brittany's Onion Johnnies survive (Guardian, December 21, 2008) seems to conclude that they are about to join the list of Endangered Species in the UK.

They were honored by Ian MacDougall in his book Onion Johnnies (cover above, 2002), a portrait of the working life of 9 of them in Scotland...