Update on the Bowdler Picture

I promised I’d let people know when I had any more news about the Strange Little Picture  – the apparently 17th century piece with paper filigree and ribbon collage, which I found in Shrewsbury Museum’s stores last year.

(C) Shropshire Council, Shrewsbury Museums

I spoke to the Collections Officer about it, yesterday. She told me that the Bowdler Picture has now been taken out of the old art store at Rowley’s House and into the dedicated conservation store at Ludlow Museum. So it will not deteriorate further. The Museum staff are all very, very busy right now: the exciting new Shrewsbury Museum and Art Gallery is due to open at the end of the year. I don’t expect to have further news of the picture until after the big move is completed and the staff have time to do more research and get expert opinions. I am very glad that the picture is out of harm’s way. It has not been forgotten.

Don’t worry - I won’t let them forget it!

Caveat Emptor

Has it really been over two months since the last time I updated this blog?

I’ve been here and there. ‘There’ being a freezing-cold Bradford at Easter, for the annual national science fiction convention; ’here’ being the day job out at Battlefield, and regular visits to my father in South Shropshire. I’m also doing some transcription work, which means more of my spare time has been spent right here at the keyboard.

I’ve been doing this and that. ‘This’, below, is a small piece stitched mainly in Hungarian braided chain stitch. ‘That’, at the top of the page, is Fish Soup – a little picture worked in pineapple stitch: I was experimenting to see how the stitch could be used for the sort of stylised pictorial motifs normally worked in cross stitch. I designed Fish Soup to take advantage of some of the patterns that the stitches made naturally. It was surprisingly easy to stitch, once I had charted the design and I like the texture the pineapple stitch gives to the piece. I made both of these with some colourful thread which I bought from eBay (about which more in a moment).

You may remember that I had given myself a ban on further needlework purchases, along with stationery and books until Easter. Well, the thread on this piece was where my resolve failed. I had been looking at this thread offer on eBay for several months, wondering if I should get it or not.

I first bought some thread from eBay about a year ago. This was supposed to be “100% Pure Silk” but I thought it looked rather more like rayon in the photo. When it arrived, it was definitely rayon, very similar to Marlitt thread. Nice stuff – too nice to return for not being ‘as advertised’.

This Fragile Townscape

I recently came across author Pauline Fisk’s interesting new blog, My Tonight From Shrewsbury. Pauline is fascinated by the less-known, the hidden and the curious side of Shrewsbury, which she celebrates in words and pictures. As someone who also loves the strange little details of Shrewsbury buildings, this is right up my street.

On the 14th of February, Pauline’s blog dealt with the subject of rooftop exploration. And this is something that I feel quite strongly about. Strongly enough to want to talk about it here, at more length than I could do in just a comment on her blog. Rather handily, there is a building under renovation a stone’s throw from her street door and from mine. I took a few photos from my living room window this morning, which illustrate one of my main concerns.

As the urban explorer Pauline interviewed told her, people don’t often bother to look up at the buildings they pass every day. I have lost count of the people I’ve spoken to who are totally unaware of all the little carved heads flanking the windows and doors of Shrewsbury’s railway station. They are great fun to photograph and use as inspiration for digital artwork. You’ll find a set of them here on Flickr. Also on Flickr is my photo-collection of hopper heads, the decorative tops to rainwater downpipes. Shrewsbury is rich in them – The Square, in particular, has some remarkably fine ones. These are things you can look at without leaving the ground or trespassing.

What bothers me in particular about people clambering about on rooftops, however well intentioned the explorers, is the sheer fragility of the buildings. Many - very many - of those fine plastered Georgian and Victorian frontages, with their sash windows, parapets and architectural flourishes, are just additions to the older buildings that were on the site before. It doesn’t take much knowledge of building materials to realise that a rigid brick front on a flexible timber structure, isn’t that happy a combination. And as hidden timbers rot and crumble, as the rumble of traffic, as roadworks, earth-tremors, alterations and the weather all take their toll, the cracks and chips appear. Patches, mortar and fresh plaster, and then more decay…

Look at what has been happening under the plaster on this building. The builders’ netting obscures some of the detail, but you can see the cracks and crumbling wood. Some urban explorer leans a little too heavily on a parapet, and a chunk of brick or stone drops into the busy street. While I know that the serious Urbexers are never intentionally destructive, our roofs and ledges won’t stand a lot of weight safely. And where the careful ones go, the less careful may follow. Some were on the roof right above my flat a few weeks ago. They may have taken only photographs, but they left three or four cigarette butts on the tiles, and I was quite spooked by the noise they made before I realised what was happening. Across the road, the pinnacles on the Darwin Shopping Centre have been bent and broken; one urbexer grabbed an aerial pole for support on the way back down and the television shop below lost its signal until a repair team could get out to re-align the aerials. Drainpipes are often brittle cast iron, held on with rusting nails. Tiles shift and crack, leading to water ingress and further damage….

Not just the less-careful follow them, either. To glamourise climbing buildings without proper precautions risks attracting those who are too young, too drunk or too thoughtless to be safe at a height. Accepting explorers as a feature of the skyline, also gives cover for those who are ready to be tempted by a skylight or a roof hatch, or simply by the lead on the roof.

When I was younger, had I been fitter and possessed of less common sense and a better sense of balance, I might have been tempted to take my own camera up there too.  But now I am willing to forgo the grand views. And if I see shadowy figures on the Shrewsbury skyline, my first reaction is to let the police know about it. Not because I want to spoil innocent fun, but because I love our fragile townscape.

Any comments?

February Update

January seems to have flown by. I am now starting to work on pieces for the art show at EightSquaredCon – this year’s national science fiction convention in Bradford over Easter weekend. This unfinished picture has been in progress for a couple of days, and I’ve still got a lot to do on it. I am trying out Derwent Inktense pencils, combined with my usual Studio pencils and ink. The Inktense take a bit of getting used to – they don’t work quite like ordinary watercolour pencils, but they are worth persevering with. I was unsure in the beginning  – this is the first time I’ve used them, but I am already getting to like them very much.

‘Spring is Just Around the Corner’ has grown a lot since my last post about it. Progress on that and other stitchery will be slower now, until I am done with all my art-show work.

Busy, busy!

The Sand, the Station Master and the Station Master’s Dog

While looking though old papers of my Grandmother’s, we came across two copies of the L. & N. W. R. Gazette, a magazine subtitled “The Organ of the Recreative and Educational Associations of the L. & N. W. Railway Staff.” In the first of them, Vol. 4, No. 31, March, 1915, I came across the following article:

SWANSEA BAY STATION – SANDSTORMS

THERE are many stations situate in different parts of the country served by the London and North Western Railway which are subject to periodical visitations of floods, sandstorms, snowdrifts, &c.  Doubtless some account of the effects of such boisterous atmospheric influences and the manner in which they are met might prove interesting to railwaymen. Take, for instance, Swansea Bay Station, which is situated about midway between the stations of Mumbles Road and Swansea, Victoria.  This portion of line runs practically along the seashore, being subjected to very severe sandstorms, and great are the difficulties to be contended with by the Station Staff and the Permanent Way employees when a south-easterly gale is raging.  Sand extends on the sea front for some miles, and in rough weather it gets carried in clouds on to the railway and the station premises, sometimes blocking the lines and occasionally necessitating the adoption of single-line working. 

Immediately a storm arises the Permanent Way local gangs are called out, and, as is often necessary, men have to be requisitioned from each of the stations on the line up to Pontardulais, and even from places as far North as Llandovery and Knighton.  The shoveling of the sand from the metals, whilst it continues to enshroud the men, is very hard and difficult work, and great caution is necessary in watching the approach of trains.  Recently about 70 men were engaged in day and night shifts continuously for several days in the task of keeping the lines open, and it will give some idea of the effect of such weather when it is mentioned that several trainloads of sand are shovelled from the railway into trucks during and after a “fair gale,” representing many hundreds of tons all blown over the sea wall and fencing in the form of clouds.

The station lamps get badly damaged with the sand (which fact the Gas Department would gladly corroborate), and trying is the duty of the Station Master and Staff in attending to the trains and station duties, the sand even penetrating into the innermost recesses of the offices.  The only means of moving with safety outside during such storms is by wearing goggles as a protection to the eyes.

Swansea Bay Station Master, Mr. A. Thomas, and his dog

We reproduce a photograph of Mr. Andrew Thomas, the widely-known and respected Station Master, who has been associated with Swansea Bay Station ever since it was opened in 1892.

In the photograph appears the Station Master’s dog, who is nearly as well known as the Station Master.  It is his practice to meet the trains, fetch and carry the ticket bag from one platform to the other, &c., but he always runs into the office when a goods train passes the station, having, we presume, recollection of once having been run over by a goods train.  On the other hand, he never runs away from a passenger train.

Mr A Thomas was my great grandfather. My father recalled being told about the dog being hit by a train. Apparently the dog was on the line between platforms when the train came along and Dad’s grandfather ordered him to lie down, which he did. However, it was a particularly long goods train and the dog stood up just too soon and was clipped by the brake van. Dad always thought that was the sad end of the dog’s story, so he was rather pleased to discover that the dog survived and carried on working at the station with Great Grandfather Thomas.

The other copy of the Gazette was Vol. 6, No. 61, September 1917. I found this piece in STAFF AND GENERAL NEWS:

On May 10th last, Mr Andrew Thomas retired after 40 [hand-corrected to 46 by my grandmother] years’ service with the Company. Entering the service as a young lad at Knucklas station, and after being employed in various capacities at many of the Central Wales stations, he was put in charge at Swansea Bay in the year 1890, which post he held for 26 years when, owing to ill health, he had to give up the position, and for some little time past he has been performing less arduous duties in the Swansea Goods Offices.  At the time he was appointed to Swansea Bay, the station was still situate at that part of the line known locally as “The Slip.” Two years later the station was demolished and the existing one erected some little distance from the site of the old one. 

Of the subject of our sketch it can truly be said that during the whole of his railway career he served his company well and honourably, and there is no doubt the Service and his fellow men will be the poorer by his retirement.  If any social function or any general collection was being made for the benefit of a necessitous cause, one was always assured of a most sympathetic and active interest on the part of Mr. Thomas. Of an unassuming personality, he did what he did unostentatiously, and there’s many a poor traveller who found in him a good friend.

For many years, until his retirement, he took a keen interest in the work of the North-Western Temperance Union and was the treasurer for the local branch. He also associated himself and took a keen interest in the St. John’s Ambulance.
The hope of all his friends is that now he will so far recover his health that both he and Mrs. Thomas may live long to enjoy his well-earned retirement.

And he did. Here he is with his wife Annie, as my father remembers them in the early 1920s.

 

Finally, a couple of links: the London & North Western Railway Society has a website with a considerable amount of information on the rail line in its heyday. And the Heart of Wales Line Travellers’ Association (HOWLTA) works to promote the interests of passengers on the line today.

Well past Year’s Turning

Here we are, already beyond the middle of January, so about time I popped in a quick everyday life and stitchery update before I post anything else.

Christmas at Bucknell was very wet and gloomy weatherwise, but very pleasant. Dad and I were both getting over norovirus, so it was a quite event, but we managed to tuck into a fine Christms dinner cooked by Alan, my sister’s partner. We spent a lot of the time looking at old family photographs that Dad’s mother had put in a box, most of them unlabelled. (We’d come across them while sorting paperwork.) Frances, my sister, is working hard on the family tree. She and Dad managed to put names to quite a few of them, and Dad had lots of stories to tell about uncles, aunts and cousins.

Too wet for my usual excursions with the camera, and not much light for stitching, but I managed to get a little further with ‘ The Curiosity’ – the chain stitch picture on silk which I have been doing for several months. I posted the first work-in-progress picture last year. Here’s another teasing little section (you’ll have to wait a good while before I show you the whole picture). As you can see, it’s grown another foot!

Since Christmas, I’ve been back in Shrewsbury, back at work and being rather lazy outside of work. I’ve been dabbling with a new stitch. It is a slight variation of French stitch, a canvas-work stitch, adapted for counted thread embroidery on fabric. I call it ‘pineapple stitch’, because the texture reminds me of the outside of a pineapple. It’s surprisingly quick and easy to work, and doesn’t require a frame, so this small mat is my current carry-about project for odd moments and wet lunch breaks (or, currently, snowy ones).

I’m using a small oddment of fabric from my stash for the pinEapple stitch mat, and various colours and makes of pearl cotton 12, also from stock. I have to use what’s in the house – I don’t usually make New Year Resolutions, but I am banning myself from buying any more fabric or thread or needlework books before Easter. That’s a hard resolution for me to keep (especially as I’ve also banned non-essential stationery purchases) but necessary: I can hardly move in here for stuff and it needs using-up, not just storing. Perhaps you won’t be surprised to see that I’ve chosen spring flower colours for this piece of stitchery – I call it ‘Spring is Just Around the Corner’.

I’ll be back in a day or two with a bit of family history – and the Station Master’s Dog, as promised.

Wishing You a Very Happy Christmastime

I must be honest, and say that I’m not feeling particularly ‘Christmassy’ this year. The family’s first Christmas without Mum is bound to be a bit difficult. So things will be kept low-key. 

I thought you might like a glimpse of one of the cards I made this year. Very simple and easy to make. If you want to use the design, you should be able to use the picture above as a pattern.

The fabric is 36 count natural linen (Zweigart Edinburgh). Any relatively fine evenweave can be used instead – you’ll only need a small quantity, so it’s great for using up scraps and offcuts. In this case, a small strip of fabric left over from another project. On this fabric, the stitched area is 6.8cm high by 2.3cm wide. Allow another centimetre all round, before trimming. On coarser fabric, the finished size will be larger.

The green/blue threads are two strands of different colours of varigated silk thread from Oliver Twists. (You could use two strands of stranded cotton floss, or anything else that is about the right weight for the fabric.) If your fabric is not as fine, you may need to use more strands of thread. The tree-top stars are worked with two threads of blending filament – I used one strand of gold and one strand of red/green iridescent filament. Any fine, shiny thread would do instead. (I can tell you that blending filament is a real pain to stitch with – it is most disobedient stuff!) You could also tiny star-shaped sequins, beads or little adhesive stars to trim your tree.

For the blanket-stitch edging, I used sewing silk in a slightly lighter shade than the ground fabric. Again, the colour and thread can easily be changed. You might prefer to use a bright Christmas red.

Work the main part of the trees first, then the stars and finally the border. You can see the three stages in this photo:

The trees start at the top with a straight vertical stitch over four threads. After that, there are four fly stitches. The loop of the first one is two threads down from the top and two threads out on each side, and the tying down stitch covers four vertical threads. The loops of the other three are each one thread further out and three threads down from the previous stitch. All the tying-down stitches are over four threads. You might want to experiment with different numbers of branches, and different spacings to make trees of different sizes and shapes. There are eight threads left between the base of one tree and the first stitch of the tree below.

When the trees are finished, add the stars – just three straight sitches of the blending filament, one vertical over five threads, crossed with two diagonal stitches over four.

The border is just buttonhole stitch worked over three threads, with three threads between each stitch. (At the corner, you work three stitches into the same inner hole.) I left three threads between the trees and the border at the top and bottom, and it is seven threads beyond the broadest fly-stitches.

And that’s it. I cut the fabric six threads beyond the border all round, and then frayed off three threads. The piece is simply glued to the front of the card. (I used PVA glue, applied sparingly.) I mounted it onto a brown-paper coloured card, for a very natural, simple look.

And here’s the finished card:

A row, or a whole forest, of these little trees would make a nice decoration for table linen. How about white trees on dark green or holly red fabric? Have fun.

My very best wishes to you all for the holiday season. In the new year, I will have some more embroidery projects to share with you, along with other things. Starting with the story of Great Grandfather Thomas the Station Master and his dog.