Yesterday a wonderfully fat envelope arrived from Australia.
It was from Denise Litchfield, aka grrl+dog, guerilla knitter, artist extrordinaire and all around interesting person.
It contained a positive cornucopia of delights.....
including a little change purse and a fabric pin made by Hensteethart.
But the heart of the matter was all the information it contained about a show called Threads of Feeling at The Foundling Hospital in London which I'd been corresponding with Denise about for a while. The exhibition was of little scraps of fabric left with the abandoned babies in the 18th century. It was interesting that each child was carefully documented. Sadly, the exhibition is over now -- though I'm not sure if I could have borne to see it. A name and some few details attached to each little piece of stuff......What fodder for fiction! --see Oliver Twist, Moses and Romulus and Remus......
I wonder what happened to Florella Burney? What heartbreak lay behind her abandonment? How much kinder to call these children foundlings -- much better a word than bastard --which is what most of these children were, I suppose.
In the photo above, I have included the list of things my first mother gave away with me a very long time ago. I was touched that anyone bothered to keep it.
