My history map

A long time ago, in that other country, The Past, a small girl lived with her mummy and daddy in a compact sixties semi in a quiet close of similar modest homes. 

Their home was just one corner of a busy market town, tucked beside the Downs in Hampshire, with Butser Hill an ever present, but distant marker in the background of their lives. The house sat beside a plentiful thicket of brambles and wild ground, perfect for playing with The Gang and gathering blackberries. A very small stream ran along the bottom of all the back gardens, and the main road was far enough away to be no danger.

At the front of their collected houses was a wide green, bordered by two rows of "houses for elderly folk". Sometimes the little girl scavenged blackberries, or scrambled in the undergrowth with The Gang; playing hide and seek, surprising a slow worm, or trying to climb the scrubby trees growing on the land; sometimes she dressed as a fairy princess and floated about on the green outside, chaperoned by her trusted feline assistant, Kandy, watched by mummy from the window of her sun filled kitchen.

Sadly, the little girl's daddy and her grandad died within a year of each other, the year she became eight, and their life together there was over. She and her mummy had to travel all the way along the A272, she doing the map reading while Mummy drove, to live with her granny, known and loved as "Ganna". Mummy had to go back out to work full time, while Ganna, at the age of 70, became the mother of the house in all ways. 

with Ganna and Grandad in happier times

That little girl was, of course, me. I look back on that time, not as something remembered, but as part of the myth of the past by which, to some extent, we all live; those things we understand happened to us, but which evoke no sense of lived reality. As an adult, I think of my poor Mum, coping with the loss of so very much, relinquishing her parenthood and going back to being a daughter in the house. I think of eight year old me, trying to adjust to such a huge change of living. I was lucky, in that Ganna was the most wonderful second parent, and my life was enriched by her presence, but still it was a big disruption.

In Sussex Stitchers this year, we have a project where we are each encouraged to create an embroidery centered around a map of some sort. I have chosen this, my most momentous journey, as the story behind my map. Transferring various images onto printable organza, I layered them over another, printed onto silk: this layer is backed by white cotton sateen to give substance to stitch into. The imagery I have used includes some photos from above, but also clips from my mother's diary of the time; entries from February, when he died, and November when we left all we knew to move back to Ganna's house. I used MistyFuse to attach those organza layers, and have quietly stitched into the fabric with simple couching, running and seed stitch, using some metallics, silk and stranded cotton. I am toying, now, with bordering the piece with some vintage lace edging. This reflects that remembered sense of having stepped back into an earlier time, that of my grandmother's world, rather than the sixties in which, in theory, I grew up.

Behind all this past detail is a faded out version of an oil pastel sketch I created on a return visit to the area around 30 plus years ago. I was exploring the top of Butser Hill as evening approached; sketching a hawthorn tree, the layers of the downs and the curve of the A3 winding through them on its way to Portsmouth. As evening approached there were wonderful layers of clouds to catch the dying light, it was a magical experience. 

I am hoping these fleeting glimpses once finished, will create some sense of that lost life which sits, in its own little flickering, glowing space, inside my inner mind. There is more to do, but I am content with the outcome so far. I hope you like it.