| The September Coffee Morning was
well attended and we continue to
welcome new members. Members were reminded that entries for this year's
photographic competition must be in by the end of October. Phyll Babb attended this year's U3A National Conference on our behalf and copies of her report are available on request. The Guest Speaker this month was one of our own – the Reverend Roger Hawkins. Roger was introduced to Needlepoint by an Occupational Therapist when, as a young man, he was recovering in hospital from a flying accident whilst serving with the RAF. This, and his later theological background, gave him the idea for his own Millennium and Family Heritage project, which he proceeded to share with us. He unfolded a 6 foot wooden screen on which were displayed 8 panels of needlepoint depicting the 44 English cathedrals, each about 12 inches high. They were arranged vertically on the panels in order of the foundation of the dioceses covering a period of 1500 years. Each cathedral had alongside its name heraldic shield and carefully worded historical information, all to very colourful and pleasing effect. The project, not quite complete, has been 10 years in the making. All the panels were worked by Roger himself in the greatest detail – windows, drainpipes, sooty spires and all. The research into and the photographing of the cathedrals involved 10,000 miles of travelling around England. One thousand hours over 2 years were spent making the drawings from the photographs for transfer to the canvas. There are 148 different shades of wool in the pictures and a final total of 2 million stitches worked in 15,000 hrs. As a result of his research, Roger was able to give us some interesting snippets of information about each cathedral and the whole provided us with an extremely interesting and enjoyable talk by a man who clearly loved his subject. Next month's coffee morning will be on 20th October and the guest speaker will be Roy Deakon on “Royal Navy Shutter Signals. The Old Telegraph 1790-1815”. |
