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Through
the GenerationsIn response to your comment about the significant role of cloth in our lives, I am writing to give you mine. I did my City and Guilds in Creative Embroidery, followed by an Art Foundation when I was 40, following a trip to the dentist when I chanced upon an exhibition from a local college over the top of a shop.
This may not be unusual but the reason I took the plunge was nothing more than the memory of a shawl embroidered by my grandmother who had died when I was a child. For some reason it had come into my hands years before. I had worn it for discos as a university student without a further thought, but seeing the exhibition had jogged my memory. I asked my father for more information and discovered that my grandmother had embroidered a shawl as a final piece in her City and Guilds course in the early 1930s. It had been selected for an exhibition at the V&A to which my father aged 10 was dragged (he is now 80).
Apparently Queen Mary, who was interested in the Decorative Arts, wanted to buy it but my grandmother refused to sell (something about the amount of time it had taken to make). However, when the exhibition went on tour round the country, the shawl was stolen from the train and was never returned. The shawl I have is a copy she made with just one of the original 4 corners worked.
My grandmother taught all forms of embroidery, lace, tailoring and the like for many years in the Frizinghall area of Bradford, especially after the war when make do and mend was popular. She always had full classes. Her name was Annie Hardcastle, should anyone be able to shed any light on the exhibition in question or remember her as a person or her work. I would be interested to hear from you.
Anne Ward
awtextiles@aol.com