Threads of Life Read online

  Copyright © 2019 Clare Hunter

  Cover © 2019 Abrams

  Published in 2019 by Abrams Press, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2019930880

  ISBN: 978-1-4197-3953-8

  eISBN: 978-1-68335-771-1

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  To the NeedleWorks team, board, volunteers and communities; Anne Munro, champion of communities and banners; and Glasgow’s Thursday Group, who share my love of sewing.

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Beginning

  1. Unknown

  2. Power

  3. Frailty

  4. Captivity

  5. Identity

  6. Connection

  7. Protect

  8. Journey

  9. Protest

  10. Loss

  11. Community

  12. Place

  13. Value

  14. Art

  15. Work

  16. Voice

  Ending

  Bibliography

  Images

  Acknowledgements

  In August 2013, when I was browsing the books in the Edinburgh International Book Festival’s tent, I discovered a rose crafted from newsprint. Attached to it was a handwritten paper tag. On one side was the message ‘A Gift for You’, and on the other ‘. . . freedom, books & the moon. Oscar Wilde.’ I took the rose to the counter and asked its price. The assistant said it was free, one of fifty left that day by an anonymous paper artist who had been depositing beautifully crafted homages to literature in libraries and art venues since 2011. It was a gift.

  At the time, I was wrestling with a decision: whether to apply for the creative writing course at the University of Dundee. I decided the rose was a sign, a talisman. I sent off my application the next day. I made a pact with myself that day in Edinburgh that, if I was ever published, I would tell this story so that the leaver of the rose would know that her kindness had made a difference.

  For help with research I would like to thank: Claire Anderson; Liz Arthur; Ellen Avril of the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art; Ruth Battersby Tooke of Norfolk Museum Service; Harriet Beeforth and Vivian Lochhead of the People’s History Museum, Manchester; Jean Cameron; Eileen Campbell; Ian and Thalia Campbell; Sally and Anthony Casdagli; Dr Annette Collinge of the Embroiderers’ Guild; Common Ground; Andrew Crummy; Ginnie and John Cumming; Laura Dolan and Dr. Adele Patrick of Glasgow Women’s Library; Cat Doyle and Jocelyn Grant of the Glasgow School of Art Archive; Alison Duke, Dr. Carol Hoden, David Mendez and Carolyn Walker of the Coram Trust; Kerry Harvey-Piper, Charlotte Hall and Shannen Long of the Peace Museum, Bradford; Ann Hill; Claire Hewitt; Cristina Horvath of Biggar & Upper Clydesdale Museum; Alan Jeffreys of the Imperial War Museum, London; Professor Janis Jefferies of Goldsmith’s College; Elizabeth Kemp; Alison King; Elspeth King of the Stirling Smith Art Gallery and Museum; Ryan Mackay and Anne Munro of Pilmeny Development Project; Sue Mackay of the Thackray Medical Museum, Leeds; Olivia Mason; Rachel Mimiec; Moniack Mhor; Frank and Jane Mood; Deidre Nelson; Emily Oldfied of the British Red Cross Museum and Archive, London; Hannah Frew Paterson M.B.E.; Kathrin Pieren, Joanne Rosenthal and Alice Quine of the Jewish Museum, London; Lauren Purchase of the National Poetry Library; Janet Richards; Lindy Richardson of Edinburgh College of Art; Joanne Rosenthal and Eveline Sint Nicolaas of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; Irene Spille of Stadtverwaltung Worms; Danielle Sprecher of the Quilters’ Guild Collection; Bruce Steinhardt of Art and Remembrance; Jayne Stewart of The Hunterian, University of Glasgow; Dr. Jill Sullivan of the University of Bristol Theatre Collection; Emily Taylor of the National Museums Scotland; Hilary Turner of the Bodleian Libraries, Oxford; Rebecca Quinton of Glasgow Museums, Burrell Collection; Annette Weber of the University of Heidelberg; Gill Williams of Fingask Castle; Susan Kay-Williams of the Royal School of Needlework; Rev’d Gillean Craig of Kensington Parish, London and the Women’s Library, London.

  For being patient readers and giving advice and encouragement: Jake Arnott, Ewan Armstrong, Simon Callow, Sophy Dale, Robert Dawson Scott, Janice Forsyth, Catherine Jeffrey, Anne Higney, Roger Hill, Ed Hollis, Rosslyn Macphail Clare Manning and Louise Welsh.

  For permission to use quotations: Mary Myams’s sampler: Courtesy of the Jewish Museum, London; Extract from ‘Carry Greenham’ by Peggy Seeger and published by Harmony Music is reproduced by kind permission of the author and the publisher; Lorina Bulwer’s sampler: Courtesy of the Thackray Medical Museum, Object number LTM: 598.001; Louise Buchholtz’s sampler: Courtesy of Norfolk Museum Service, Object number: NWHCM: 1965.332.1, Extract from the Billet Book courtesy of the Foundling Hospital, which continues as the children’s charity Coram, Ref: 15700-15799 Feb. 23rd 1760; Quotes from Ernest Thesiger courtesy of the University of Bristol Theatre Collection Ref: PFT/000065; Extract from Hymn of the National Celebration Skirt, Withuis Jolande (1994) Patchwork politics in the Netherlands, 1946–50: women, gender and the World War II trauma, Women’s History Review, 3:3, 293–313, DOI: 10, 10.180/09612029400200057; Extract from Menzies Moffat poster courtesy of the Biggar & Upper Clydesdale Museum; Extract from Ann Macbeth courtesy of Glasgow School of Art Archive, Ref. No: GSAA/EPH/9/2/1.

  For much needed early encouragement: Alison Bell, Jennie Erdal, Lucy Jukes; and Kirsty Gunn, Eddie Small and the late James Stewart of University of Dundee’s M.Litt in Writing Practice and Study.

  To Creative Scotland and the National Lottery for support with the funding of my research.

  To my faithful and never-doubting agent Jenny Brown of Jenny Brown Associates and my editor Juliet Brooke at Sceptre without whom this book would have been far less interesting, and all her supportive colleagues.

  Lastly to my long-suffering husband Charlie and my uncomplaining children Kim and Jamie who will no longer need to ask when The Book will be finished.

  Beginning

  You cut a length of thread, knot one end and pull the other end through the eye of a needle. You take a piece of fabric and push your needle into one side of the cloth, then pull it out on the other until it reaches the knot. You leave a space. You push your needle back through the fabric and pull it out on the other side. You continue until you have made a line, or a curve, or a wave of stitches. That is all there is: thread, needle, fabric and the patterns the thread makes. This is sewing.

  1

  Unknown

  Sometimes I dream about textiles. A quiver of moonlit banners drift colour streams across a mirrored lake. Yards of soft-sheened silk are flung by villagers edging a river bank, cast into the water’s flow, the people watching silently as the cloth, ripple-etched, is carried out to sea.

  Most of my dream settings, however, are more prosaic; a deserted warehouse, a musty charity shop in which rails of clothes stand abandoned. I trail my hand through long-forgotten fabrics – crêpe de chine, duchess satin, tulle net – grazing my knuckles on a crust of beading, smoothing down languid lengths of fringing, stroking the braille of lace, drumming my fingers along a rhythm of pleats: small collapses of spent glory, discarded, uncherished, their makers unknown.

 
When I wake, it is always with a sharp pang of loss, more acute than might be felt for actual textiles. Because the textiles I touch in my dreams have never existed. There is no hope of their re-discovery.

  I am on a train out of Paris, the hem of the city unfolding into a pretty patchwork of rural France. I’m on my way to Bayeux, where its celebrated tapestry is on permanent display. The tapestry is a rare survivor of medieval stitchery, now championed as a precious cultural relic deemed worthy of special safeguarding by UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register. But it wasn’t always so well protected. Indeed, for its first 500 years it languished in obscurity, its exposure limited to an annual outing as ecclesiastical decoration for the Bayeux Feast of Relics, when, for a few days, it would be looped around the nave of the cathedral as a reminder to the congregation of the triumph of right over wrong, of a French victory over the English.

  The Bayeux Tapestry tells the story of the Battle of Hastings in 1066. It is an embroidered narrative cloth with fifty-eight numbered scenes depicted in linen cloth and wool yarn, the simplest of materials. At its heart, it is a morality tale: a warning of the cost of betrayal. It tells how the English Harold recanted his oath of allegiance to the French William and seized the throne of England for himself; how William retaliated, prepared for war, defeated Harold’s army and conquered England. A wrong righted, arrogance and greed avenged.

  Images of the Bayeux Tapestry are embedded in our popular culture. It has become an iconic illustration of medieval life in Britain, its stitched narrative reproduced in countless books, on greetings cards and as needlework kits. It is much beloved by cartoonists amused by the incongruity of medieval stitchers and sharp contemporary comment. All of this has won it familiarity, an affection of sorts. But although I have read about it extensively and seen numerous printed versions of it, I only know the tapestry one frame at a time. I have no sense of what impact it will have when I see it in its entirety, no real understanding of its scale or its tangible presence.

  When I arrive at Bayeux station, the Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux seems disappointingly close. There is only a road to cross, a few hundred yards to walk, a conker-crunching stroll through a tree-lined carpark to reach the museum’s entrance. I had hoped for more of a pilgrimage, a little more time to savour the quest.

  I buy my ticket and snake through a surprisingly lengthy maze of red-corded barricades used to corral the swell of visitors in high season. The Bayeux Tapestry is a popular tourist destination, attracting close to 400,000 visitors a year. Even today, on a cold October morning, there is a queue. The girl at the desk hands me an audio guide and instructs me about its function keys, but in truth, I’m not listening. I am like a greyhound waiting for the retort of a starting pistol. I am ready for the off.

  A long, dark room is illuminated by a gleam of cream, a river of textile that stretches as far as the eye can see and flows back on itself again. I forgo the audio guide; this is to be an encounter between me and the tapestry. I want it to be my guide, to hold me back or beckon me forward, to insist on discovery at its own pace.

  The thrum of audio commentaries intrudes, and while I can block out its babel of different languages, I can’t avoid the sonorous soundtracks, the chanting of medieval songsters whose voices follow me – rising and falling, rising and falling – to chorus my meanderings. For the Bayeux Tapestry invites promenading. I stroll along its banks, surprised at how easily, given its vastness, it draws you in to its smallest details: the pattern on a cushion, the emblem on a shield, the liquid spill from a pitcher.

  It begins grandly with an ornamented, turreted palace with lions growling below on the border: a symbolic portent of warring kings. Edward, his name writ large above his sewn portrait (the soon-to-be-dead King of England), is counselling his brother-in-law Harold about his mission of peace with France. Seventy metres later, it ends tragically: the border is strewn with the war-dead and there is a final distressing image of a naked and cowering English soldier clutching the torn-off branch of a tree as his only defence.

  Unfolding between these two scenes are tales of feasting and farming folk, of spies and ship building, of hunting and harvests, of nobility on horseback and slain unarmoured archers, and of slaughter in the rough fray of battle. Its narrow frieze, only fifty centimetres high, has stylised sentinel trees to separate scenes. Embroidered borders provide an emotive and satirical commentary that amplifies meaning and mood in a procession of symbolic motifs and cameos of everyday life. Text travels across its surface in bold stitching to chronicle characters and events, and the visual story is punctuated by boasts of learning and travel: borrowings from Nordic sagas, images copied from illuminated manuscripts, designs culled from Greek and Roman sculpture and illustrations of some of Aesop’s fables, including ‘The Fox and the Crow’ and ‘The Wolf and the Lamb’. This is not just one story. This is a complex, multi-layered series of historical, biblical, mythical and cultural narratives, some of which we can still decipher, but much of which is long lost. We can no longer interpret all the tapestry‘s double meanings, unravel its intellectual challenges or unpick all the creative connections caught within its coloured threads.

  It is generally agreed that the tapestry was designed by a man. The vivid illustrations of war preparations, the knowledgeable portrayal of horses and the detailed attention to weaponry all point to a male provenance. Recent research by the historian Howard B. Clarke of the University College in Dublin strengthens the case. He identifies Abbot Scolland, who died c.1087, the head of the illuminated manuscript scriptorium at St Augustine Monastery, as its likely designer because many of the tapestry’s images seem drawn from life or memory and are closely connected to places and people associated with the abbot. Bishop Odo, the half-brother of William the Conqueror, is thought to have commissioned it, although some scholars believe that Queen Edith, the wife of the dead King Edward, was its commissioner, pointing to the earlier precedent of a donation by the widow of the English Earl Brythnoth of an embroidered hanging depicting his achievements, given to Ely Cathedral in AD 991. Conquered Saxon women sequestered in English nunneries are thought to have sewn it. This has been disputed by those who argue a French origin, proposing that the tapestry was created in the textile workshops at the Norman monastery of St Florent of Samur; that the yarn used has similarities with that spun in the Bessin district of Normandy; or that Queen Mathilda, the wife of William the Conqueror, who was known for her embroidery, was its principle author.

  What is irrefutable is that English embroiderers were renowned for their craftsmanship in medieval Europe at the time, a reputation endorsed by William of Poitiers, chaplain to William the Conqueror, who reported that ‘the women of England are very skilful with the needle’. If, as is widely believed, the tapestry was sewn by different hands, then the involvement of women from the nunneries in and around Winchester and Canterbury (there were seven within a day’s ride of each other) seems plausible. Some are known to have housed celebrated workshops of fine embroidery supported by church and royal patrons. The proposition that the embroidery was executed by women of varying skill again points to these nunneries as the origin of creation since, in the eleventh century, they were not merely a cloistered retreat for women with a religious vocation, but also a safe house for others who needed a respectable haven, such as the unmarried daughters of nobles given, sometimes unwillingly, to God, widows lacking male protection, poverty-stricken girls and those whose mental or physical disability made them vulnerable in the wider world.

  On the other hand, the Bayeux Tapestry is not typical of English embroidery of the period. It has none of its magnificence wrought in silk and metallic threads, nor its complexity of stitches, although the use of such materials and methods on a tapestry of this scale would have been prohibitively expensive. Controversy and conjecture continue. For all the intensive study, the origins of the Bayeux Tapestry remain a mystery, its provenance speculative, its stitchers unknown, its nationality unresolved, its present sequence questio
nable, its narrative considered incomplete.

  During its first five centuries of oblivion, it was only mentioned once, in Bayeux Cathedral’s 1476 inventory: a perfunctory entry that describes it as a very long and narrow embroidery with images and inscriptions of the Conquest of England. In 1792 it was nearly destroyed, seized by zealous French revolutionaries who thought the old cloth would make an excellent cover for their military wagon. Its reprieve was short lived. Two years later it was saved again from being cut up to make a fetching backdrop for the Goddess of Reason float in a local carnival.

  It was the tapestry’s story rather than its stitching that saved it; its political rather than cultural worth, its propaganda value. Napoleon was its first champion. He commandeered the tapestry as a talisman and used it as a rallying cry when he had his ambitions fixed on England. He put it on public show at the Musée Napoleon in Paris in 1803, where it proved to be a popular exhibit. But the sudden appearance of Halley’s Comet in French skies quenched his enthusiasm. It was an echo of the comet stitched on the tapestry itself: a star tailed in streaming flames – a phenomenon witnessed in England in the Spring of 1066, a mere four months after Harold seized the throne. Below the comet on the tapestry’s bottom border lies a beached fleet of phantom ships. Both are omens of impending disaster. Napoleon dispatched the tapestry back to Bayeux.

  During the Second World War the tapestry was moved for safekeeping to Mondaye Abbey near Bayeux, then relocated to the Château de Sourches. When Germany invaded France, Heinrich Himmler, leader of Hitler’s SS guards, appropriated the tapestry for German appreciation. He organised private views for his inner circle and tasked the Ahnenerbe (the bureau of German ancestral heritage) to document it exhaustively. Over 700 photographs were taken, two documentary films were made, watercolours were commissioned and a 95-page description was written.