Chew on

Photos taken at St Chad’s Church, Sparrow Hill, Rochdale

My caption for the first picture would be, “can’t find a NHS dentist anywhere”, as one hears that very regularly these days.

I visited the church to see a performance, Sparrow Hill, by Skylight Circus. They give all age groups the chance to learn circus skills. A pal of mine was a hedgehog. What a great show and what a great idea.

A sheep tale

Fabric collage with machine and hand sewing. Photo – sheep at Stoodley Pike, Calderdale

I took the photo about three New Year’s ago. It was to be the beginning of my Sheep Project.

A few more photos were taken but I dropped this idea until I decided to embroider the picture last year. I got bored and it was put away. Then I decided to collage it and my enthusiasm returned. I’ll finish it when I feel like it.

As 2024 starts, I wish the world peace in these troubled and heart breaking times.

A festive card

mixed media collage and stitch

I completed this “card” with my readers and fellow bloggers very much in mind. Thank you sincerely for your thoughtful blogs that have entranced me and enhanced my year. I wish you well and I wish us all as much peace on earth as possible.

I made this circular collage perhaps a year ago. I never could think what to put in the middle of it. So I’ve decided to let it speak the language of flowers – cloth flowers.

I look forward to blogging again in 2024.

Chatham

The photos were taken by my Dad and I do not know the names of the subjects. He worked as a rigger at Chatham Dockyard, Kent, 1951 or 1952 to 1956 (going off a handwritten CV and the envelope containing the photos. There is some ambiguity). The envelope is labelled Snaps of Friends, 1951.  I think this was one of the happiest times in my parents’ lives. They moved back to North West England because my Mum, “missed her family too much”.

Whilst trying to get a feel of what life was like for my parents at that time, I came across something that truly shocked me. A tragedy occurred in Chatham on 4 December 1951 when 24 young Royal Marines Volunteer Cadets (aged 9 to 13) were killed and 18 injured in a road traffic accident near the Docks. To read more about this please see www.royalmarineshistory.com  I see that the tragedy led to many road safety interventions for future times. And yet, according to ROSPA  even today five people die on UK roads every day (84 seriously injured). I also note that the tragedy was referenced in the film Shadowlands, but I wasn’t aware of this.

I’ll continue with more doodle collages in future blogs.

Old photos, (1951/52 to 1956). Chatham Dockyard.

Mysterious

I’ve been meaning to use this bit of fabric for some time. A couple of people have commented on the image and what they see is so different. And I’m still spending some special moments musing on old family photos. This one is from my Dad’s collection. I’ve no idea of the whereabouts or significance but I like the strong shadows and the mystery.

Scrap collage based on doodle

Bella

The identity of this lady is forgotten within the family. It does happen when we do not label our photos, as time erases many memories. I am calling her Bella.  The name would have been unlikely. The subject would probably have been baffled at this attempt of restoration and baffled by the idea of blogs and all the other technologies we take for granted. It is probably the case that she didn’t spend much time in photographic studios, posing her hands in a particular way. I suspect her hands were busy most of the time.

Bluebells have finished now so my collage of white flowers will have to do.

Kin

Very old, hazy family photo likely of my Mum’s family.

A gravestone photographed during a holiday in Northumberland just after the lockdowns lifted.

A doodle I’m considering interpreting in cloth and stitch.

The link to the children in the image was so obvious and important that no-one noted on the back or on the envelope who the children were. Time has intervened and they are now unknown. Preserved, to some extent, but not named beyond a maybe, a guess, a suggestion. If a photographic portrait cannot be named, is it less important? No, it is not less important; whether the identities are accidentally erased or ignorantly or cruelly erased. At least in our times many stories are being looked at again, re-examined and re-balanced and restored.

Blue blood and blue skies

Doodle collage with appliqué and embroidery. Rock Nook Mill (textiles), from approximately 1886, Rochdale canal. A contrasting view, Pennines area.

I think this is my first ever appliqué based on a doodle of mine. It makes me wonder if my mind has been influenced by news of the coronation of Charles III in May. It looks a bit royal to me, though that wasn’t the intention. Anyway, bring on the bank holidays, for which reason April and May have always been good months.  I’m sharing a couple of photos taken on Good Friday around the neighbourhood. The old textiles mill, Rock Nook Mill, was destroyed by fire in 2015. There are plenty of photos on the internet if you prefer to look inside it. I hope my readers have had some lovely blue skies too.

Yesterday’s places

Places like these remind me of the countryside I enjoyed during childhood. It is intriguing to imagine the once noisy, busy place of industry, that has been quietened and abandoned by business. The roads to the place no longer of any significance and the centre of activity now shifted elsewhere. A collage of a place.

Photographs of places in Calderdale. And a green doodle fabric collage work in progress.