Went to see an amazing embroidery at Portsmouth recently and thought you might like to read about it.
Starting at the beginning - I came home from the Severn Valley Railway early one Sunday back at the beginning of June and saw that Songs of Praise that week was being presented by Pam Rhodes. I particularly like her gentle, empathetic style of presentation, so switched the tv on. The programme itself was a commemorative look at the 70th Anniversary of the D-Day Landings and was set at the D-Day Museum at Portsmouth. During the time it was on Pam was shown several times standing in front of a magnificent portrayal of the sequencing of Operation Overlord - the invasion of Normandy - and the whole thing was stitched. There are 34 panels each measuring 3ft. in height and 8 ft. in length. It was a commissioned work carried out by 20 ladies and 5 apprentices from the Royal School of Needlework and took five years to complete.
I had never heard of it and thought I simply had to go and see it. Well worth the visit so if you live in or are visiting the area I urge you to do the same. It is done in an applique style and I couldn't believe how cleverly it had been executed. Faces of well-known people were shown and they were so lifelike - how so? when basically they are scraps of material formed into face and head shapes - amazing and instantly recognisable. Uniforms too - it is well documented that the English army chaps complained that the uniforms were ill-cut and of a scratchy, itchy fabric - and there in front of me were applique'd uniforms which really looked itchy and scratchy; amost like pieces of brown blankets. I could've spent hours there, I just wandered around in a daze looking at it all.
According to the book I bought (well, more a brochure really) this embroidery was in place at the D-Day Museum at the time the Queen Mother opened it in June 1984. It then commemorated the 40th Anniversary of the Landings - and now we are at the 70th anniversary so I find it difficult to believe it's been around for 30 years and - to me - unknown.
The artist who designed it is Sandra Lawrence and her original watercolours were presented to the American Government in 1994 and are on dislay apparently in the Pentagon, Washington.
I also went and had a look round the D-Day Landings museum artefacts as well - it was all so moving. How can nations have inflicted such pain against each other. I'd like to think we've all learnt lessons and can now embrace our fellow man with love and understanding; yet look now at what's going on in the Ukraine - you can't help but sigh.
I'll bring the brochure with me to Leicester, you may wish to have a look at it.
