Survivors

My apologies for the bleak subject this time. 

I was looking around the internet for copyright-free poems when I stumbled across this one. It drew such compelling images in my head that I just had to try and get something down.

The words are by Siegfried Sassoon:

Survivors

No doubt they'll soon get well; the shock and strain

Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk.

Of course they're 'longing to go out again,' —

These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk.

They'll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed

Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,—

Their dreams that drip with murder; and they'll be proud

Of glorious war that shatter'd all their pride...

Men who went out to battle, grim and glad;

Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.

Craiglockhart.

October, 1917.

The words drew such a strong reaction from me since I had, some days earlier been listening to a radio broadcast detailing the mental health of today's soldiers. Some things just do not change. 

The words and image are printed onto silk fabric, the background uses the chance-dyed dye catchers I have collected over the years. Lastly, the whole is overlaid with some sheer fabric, and hand stitched.

Days of wine, roses and castles

This small quilt recalls some very happy memories of when my daughters were young. We had a boat and travelled the canals during the summer holidays. As a family we had huge fun with "Cats Paw", which we kept for  several years. We sold the boat when we moved house twenty years ago.

The photos featured here date from 1990 and our summer holiday that year. The small figure on the back of the boat with me is my younger daughter, then aged 6.

I should explain, that the "roses and castles" of the title refer to the style of decoration on narrowboats on the canals in England and Wales. The decoration on "Cats Paw" is not really quite in the same tradition - I preferred to paint cheerful daisies. I must also apologise for the dreadful photograph. I shall try taking another photo once the weather improves here - the daylight is so dull at the moment.