I think I have read all of Tracy Chevalier’s novels and particularly enjoyed Falling Angels and Girl with a Pearl Earring. Thus I eagerly awaited my copy of her latest work: A Single Thread. It did not disappoint.
Chevalier does not write to any formula and her stories are all different and various. It is a way of writing that appeals to me. She finds a subject that interests her, follows the thread and weaves her own narrative around it. In this book the thread is real and not metaphorical, for the story is based in Winchester Cathedral and involves the making of cushions and hassocks (kneelers). Violet Speedwell, Chevalier’s fictional character, is dropped, very convincingly, into the real world of Winchester and Louisa Pesel. At this point I think you may already have formed inchoate pictures in your mind of single ladies, impecunious and with small, limited lives. In this case you would be wrong. Louisa Pesel who lived from 1870 to 1947 indeed never married or had children but she travelled widely, to India, Egypt and around Europe, very unusual for a lady alone, in the early twentieth century. She spent 5 years teaching at the Royal Hellenic school of needlework and lace in Athens and then returned to Bradford to look after ailing, aged parents. There she taught Belgian refugees embroidery in the First World War and later used sewing as a form of therapy for shell shocked soldiers, returning from the trenches. Understandably they found the repetitive action both soothing and peaceful. The worshipful company of Broderers (a term used for early, mainly male, workers of embroidery) recognised her work and her educational contribution in 1914. She organised groups and taught in many parts of the country and was responsible for completely renewing all the soft furnishings within Winchester Cathedral.
Violet Speedwell is also a strong character, sometimes unsure and wary but still determined to make a meaningful life for herself. I offer this novel to you as a rich and satisfying read even if you are someone who has no desire to ever pick up a needle.
Early in March of this year I went to 2 Temple Place in London to hear Tracy Chevalier talk about her characters, both fictional and not. The talk coincided with a textile exhibition there which included a few pieces of work by Louisa Pesel herself. I had planned a visit to Winchester Cathedral to see these now quite historical pieces of embroidery that we would now call needlepoint but for obvious reasons that is all on hold. Back in the 1980s or 90s I made a hassock for church, as did many people. The kneelers that had been there for decades were thin, threadbare and tatty. However, the kits that we used required only a straightforward tent stitch to complete them. I think the work at Winchester Cathedral is on a rather higher level and I hope I eventually get to see it.
It was rather serendipitous that the next book I read was: Threads of Life by Clare Hunter. This is really a social history of sewing, alongside stories that form a memoir of the author’s own experiences. I found some chapters extremely moving, showing how any sort of sewing could enable someone to tell their story, to record unbelievably difficult or painful experiences and simply to find their own identity, to show that they were here.
Hunter writes that it was the social reformer Elizabeth Fry who first introduced needlework into prisons, using patchwork as a cheap and easy form of sewing that took up little space. The women were able to learn useful skills which they could utilise upon release and as prisoners it provided them with an absorbing and creative activity. Prisoners of a different sort, in POW camps in Singapore used quilting as a method of keeping in touch with their menfolk who were in separate camps. (Do you remember the powerful TV series Tenko?) In Changi prison they made 3 quilts to send to the male camps, one British, one Australian and one Japanese. The last was a decoy to convince the guards their motives were innocent and humanitarian. However, they sewed motifs that would be meaningful to their husbands. They stitched patriotism, hope, defiance and love. The British quilt is today archived at the Red Cross in London.
Other chapters deal with forms of embroidery that give people a sense of identity, in Palestine, the Ukraine and China. In many parts of India and Africa there are sewn textiles that are believed to offer protection, to a new baby, a newly wedded couple, a traveller, or someone approaching the end of their life.
Maybe one of the chapters that I found most interesting was the one which focused on sewing and textiles within work. The coming of the sewing machine was welcomed as a tool which would help women and make their lives easier. In fact it did nothing of the sort as the sweatshops around the world testify to this day. It is fascinating how male and female jobs within the industry became delineated with men becoming tailors and women dressmakers. When it suited society, needlework was a gentle leisure occupation but at other times it was working for your country and providing money for your family.
Tracy Chevalier says of this book: ‘A beautifully considered book … Clare Hunter has managed to mix the personal with the political with moving results.’ I agree with her.