Haptic & Hue

The first group of people in the world to be called refugees were deeply tied up with the production of luxury cloth. In the 17th and 18th century a small corner of east London became a byword for some of the best woven silk in the world. Spitalfields silk was worn by some of history's most famous people. George Washington, despite fighting a war against the British, had a waistcoat made from it, and his wife, Martha, had an entire dress made from the silk designed in London and woven by hand on the draw looms of Spitalfields. Queen Victoria wore it on her wedding day, and Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, wore it deliberately, to champion British industry. There are estimated to be over 40 million refugees in the world today and they are often seen as a drain on the societies that shelter them and are subjected to hatred and harassment. But this episode looks at what the first group of people to be known as refugees – the Huguenots of France – contributed to the country that gave them shelter and how they made British silk textiles famous. For more information about this episode and pictures of the people and places mentioned in this episode please go to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-8/ And if you would like to find out more about Friends of Haptic & Hue with an extra podcast every month hosted by Jo Andrews and Bill Taylor – here's the link: https://hapticandhue.com/join/

A number of very special quilts have been arriving in North America over the past few weeks. A collection of more than 40 are being returned to Canada, 85 years after they were made in communities all over the country. Most of them are tattered and deeply worn but they have an extraordinary story to tell. They are the last evidence we have of an astonishing operation that saw Canadian women and children make over 400,000 quilts during the Second World War. These were sent, largely, to Britain to comfort children orphaned in the conflict, families bombed out of their houses, soldiers convalescing, land girls in hostels far from home and a myriad of other uses. In Britain, the Canadian wartime quilts were often loved and cherished. But gradually, as the years passed they faded from memory. A few hundred have survived and many museums in the UK hold them. In Canada they were completely forgotten. Now it is hoped that with the return of this major collection a new generation will come to understand the work of their grandmothers and great grandmothers. The aim is that there will be a permanent exhibit of the entire collection to stand as a memorial, not just to the women of Canada, but to all those around the world who use their textile skills in times of conflict to bring comfort, compassion and care. If you would liket o see pictures of the quilts of read a transcript of this podcast then please follow the link to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-8/

This summer marks the 250th anniversary of America's founding as nation, born in a successful rebellion from the British crown. Events and politics tell us one tale, but textiles always give us another view. Much of the textile history of America is deeply painful – a story of enslavement and hardship in Victorian mills and garment sweatshops. But there is another side to this, because creating textiles for the home has always involved community, and throughout the two and half centuries America has been in existence, quilting, knitting, sewing and mending have been deeply social activities. This episode of Haptic & Hue is about one group of people who designed and made craft textiles at a particular moment in America's history. The Folly Cove Designers came from a little-known area of Massachusetts. They had no professional qualifications and they were taught around a kitchen table by one woman. For nearly thirty years in the mid-twentieth century they formed a close creative and supportive network making work of the highest quality. Even today, over seventy years later their story has a lot to tell us about how communities help individuals shine. For more information about this episode and pictures of the people and places mentioned in this episode please go to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-8/ And if you would like to find out about Friends of Haptic & Hue with an extra podcast every month hosted by Jo Andrews and Bill Taylor – here's the link: https://hapticandhue.com/join/

In a small corner of London lies one of the most evocative collection of textiles anywhere in the world. The fabrics – which are quite ordinary - are in the so-called billet books which recorded the identity and clothing of every baby accepted at the Foundling Hospital from the mid 1700s onwards. What makes these books so moving is that often the birth mother left a scrap of cloth or ribbon when she gave up her baby. She held onto the other half so that if her circumstances changed, she could return to the Foundling Hospital, match the two pieces of cloth and reclaim her child. The result, two hundred and fifty years later, is one of the best collections of textiles samples worn by ordinary people in Europe the seventeen and eighteen hundreds. It is hard to imagine today how we would feel if we had to place our own child in a foundling hospital, if this was part of our family history. One woman recently discovered that this is exactly what happened to her ancestor. She arrived at the Foundling Hospital in 1758 at just a few weeks old. But she lived to be 87 – an incredible age for that time – and became a mother and grandmother herself. Find out more in this episode. For more information about this episode and pictures of the people and places mentioned in this episode please go to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-8/ And if you would like to find out more about Friends of Haptic & Hue with an extra podcast every month hosted by Jo Andrews and Bill Taylor – here's the link: https://hapticandhue.com/join/

It's nearly five years since the Anglo Trinidadian textile designer, Althea McNish, died in near obscurity in London. In that time her reputation and her standing has grown dramatically and she is now recognized around the world as the one of the first black designers of international standing. There has been a retrospective exhibition of her work, the Victoria & Albert Museum highlights her work, and there is a biography of this remarkable woman in progress. Althea McNish as a designer was a magician of colour, a woman who brought the light and the hues of the Caribbean to a drab post-war London. Queen Elizabeth wore her dress fabrics, cruise liners sailed with her murals on their walls and she changed the lives of millions with her textile designs. This episode takes another look at the life of Althea McNish. For more information about this episode and pictures of the people and places mentioned in this episode please go to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-8/ And if you would like to find out about Friends of Haptic & Hue with an extra podcast every month hosted by Jo Andrews and Bill Taylor – here's the link: https://hapticandhue.com/join/

Hooked rugs are humble things made of recycled cloth and worn out textiles, originally born of need and lack: and yet they have come to mean much more to the communities that produced and enjoyed them. In America they have become an emblem of homespun pioneer thrift and self-reliance and an important element in the definition of a certain kind of national values. Handmade hooked rugs are the stuff of everyday life, but in Canada they became a vital form of income for impoverished seafaring families in Labrador and Newfoundland. And in northern England and southern Scotland they brightened up the hearth of many rural and urban working-class homes. But in the far north of the British Isles a very different tradition developed where sewn pile rugs came to play a role as vital protection for sleeping bodies against night time trolls and witches. Join us as we explore the many forms of hooky, proggy, proddy, clooty, clippy, stobby, and bodgy rugs that have spread around the world. For more information about this episode and pictures of the people and places mentioned in this episode please go to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-7/. And if you would like to find out about Friends of Haptic & Hue with an extra podcast every month hosted by Jo Andrews and Bill Taylor – here's the link: https://hapticandhue.com/join/

If we need proof that textiles can rewrite human history, then it lies with the bog bodies of northern Europe. Textile archaeologists are revealing a whole new past about people who, in some cases, are older than Tutankhamen, but much less celebrated. Across northern Europe there are hundreds of bog bodies, who long ago were buried in marshlands and were preserved down the centuries by acidic conditions and lack of oxygen. We will never know all their secrets, but slowly we are discovering more about who they were, and how they lived. It is their textiles that bring us closer to them and tell us, not just about their skills, but also how they thought and designed cloth and clothing. In Denmark more than a hundred marsh bodies have been found - some in extraordinary states of preservation. They date from the late Bronze and early Iron Ages, and are between 1,500 and 3,000 years old. But what some of them are wearing can take us back much further than that, into a time when humans first started to cover their bodies with clothing. For this episode, Jo travelled to the National Museum of Denmark, in Copenhagen, to explore the textiles of two of the world's most famous bog bodies. For more information about this episode and pictures of the people and places mentioned in this episode please go to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-7/. And if you would like to find out about Friends of Haptic & Hue with an extra podcast every month hosted by Jo Andrews and Bill Taylor – here's the link: https://hapticandhue.com/join/

A very special tartan has just started to roll off the weaving looms of the Prickly Thistle Mill in the north of Scotland. This brand-new design in black, pink, red, and grey is part of a powerful campaign to remember the thousands of overwhelmingly female lives lost to accusations of witchcraft between the 1500s and the mid 1700s. This was one of the bloodiest miscarriages of justice Scotland has ever seen. Records suggest that at the time Scotland accused and executed more people than any other country in the world. The Witches of Scotland Tartan sold out long before it went into production after its registration was spotted by an eagle-eyed American, testament to the fact that the tragedy of the witchcraft trials spread to America with the colonists of the 1600s. It also speaks volumes for the power of textiles that the two determined women, who have been campaigning for a pardon for all those accused of witchcraft in Scotland, have chosen a fabric that can be worn by all as a living memorial to those who lost their lives, rather than a statue or a fixed monument. Cloth has a great power to hold the memories of those we have loved, but this may be the first time it has been called in use as a national memorial, to commemorate injustices done to unknown thousands who are long dead. It brings new meaning to the campaigns to exonerate witches in a world where these accusations don't seem to have died but merely changed shape. For more information about this episode and pictures of the people and places mentioned in this episode please go to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-7/. And if you would like to find out about Friends of Haptic & Hue with an extra podcast every month hosted by Jo Andrews and Bill Taylor – here's the link: https://hapticandhue.com/join/

Creativity and invention aren't words often associated with hardship and suffering, but in the Second World War women in America and Britain faced with clothes rationing rose to the challenge in many different ways. Those days are long past, but in an era of textile super-abundance, do clothes coupons have something new to teach us about how we buy and use our clothes? Can clothes rationing help cure us of an addiction to fast fashion? In this month's episode, we hear from a well-known winner of the Great British Sewing Bee who has adopted the wartime system of coupons as a way of limiting her consumption of fabric and clothing. Eighty years ago, Make Do and Mend became the watch-words of the day as people eked out their garments, repairing and re-making them over and over again. But clothes rationing in both countries also changed what people wore and hastened technological revolutions. In Britain many people had access to quality, well-styled clothing for the first time, and in America with luxury fibres scarce, man-made fibres entered the market much more quickly than they might otherwise have done. For more information about this episode and pictures of the people and places mentioned in this episode please go to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-7/. And if you would like to find out about Friends of Haptic & Hue with an extra podcast every month hosted by Jo Andrews and Bill Taylor – here's the link: https://hapticandhue.com/join/

What happens when one of the most traditional museums in the world revolutionises the way it presents the story of the past? The answer is not only a riot of craft and colour, but a reminder of the crucial role of textiles in framing our histories. The Pitt Rivers Museum at Oxford, in the UK, has just added 15 brand new, intensely colourful Hawaiian quilts to its collection of extraordinary artifacts. These skilfully stitched quilts were specially made for the Museum, which holds more than half a million precious objects from all over the world and from all periods of human existence. Quilting is a craft that over two hundred years Hawaiians have made very much their own – although it was first brought to the islands by incomers. They have developed a unique style that embeds the deep beliefs and rituals of Hawaiian life and keeps them alive in the designing, making, and gifting of these beautiful quilts. For more information about this episode and pictures of the people and places mentioned in this episode please go to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-7/. And if you would like to find out about Friends of Haptic & Hue with an extra podcast every month hosted by Jo Andrews and Bill Taylor – here's the link: https://hapticandhue.com/join/

A coarse, plain cloth has a greater claim to being the most important textile in history than any sumptuous silk brocade or royal robe. Sailcloth is the fabric that has made it possible for humanity to explore the world, trade across seas, build great empires, and wage wars for millennia, and yet history pays very little attention to it. Textile archaeology has begun to fill in some of the gaps, but there is still a huge amount that we don't know about how sails were made and how sail-making changed the communities that undertook this work. Without sailcloth the Greeks could not have fought the Trojans, there would have been no Viking empire, William the Conqueror would not have invaded England, the Polynesians could not have settled the Pacific, Columbus certainly would not have sailed the ocean blue, Magellan would not have circumnavigated the world and there would have been no transatlantic slave trade. Sails made so much possible. But even though these form the structure of our history and cultural heritage, there has been very little focus on the sails that made them possible, and almost none on the communities that made the sails. This episode of Haptic & Hue looks at the most ancient sails we know about and takes us right up to the modern sails used for the sort of yachts in the recent America's Cup Race in Barcelona. We talk to a modern craft sailmaker and hear how a small village in Somerset was once at the heart of the global industry of sail-making. We also hear from a Danish textile archaeologist about why Viking sails were unique. For more information about this episode and pictures of the people and places mentioned in this episode please go to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-6/

Exactly thirty years ago a book came out that changed the way we think about textiles and fibre and the role they've played in the human story. Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years by Elizabeth Wayland Barber became a best seller. What she said was revolutionary. Until then people thought that textiles were a by-product of civilisations and that processes like weaving were around five or six thousand years old. Wayland Barber was the first person to understand that they are central to the development of human society, and she said, spinning and weaving were far older than we realised and went back to the beginnings of human social development. She coined the phrase The String Revolution and suggested the Stone Age would have been better called the Age of String. Elizabeth Wayland Barber's book: Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years with its radical ideas, put textiles at the heart of the human story. It played a major role in creating a new generation of expert textile archaeologists and in getting the subject taken seriously. She helped make it possible for them to search for ancient fibre and textiles and, crucially, to understand that what they were seeing wasn't detritus or trash but something precious that has a great deal to tell us about human beings and what they are capable of. She was also one of the first people to give us a way to value the work of women in pre-historic societies. To celebrate the book's 30th anniversary a new edition has been published with an updated afterword by Wayland Barber. This episode of Haptic & Hue is devoted to a rare interview with Elizabeth Wayland Barber in which she tells us how she came to write the book in the first place and the ideas that lay behind it. For more information about this episode and details of the discount on the book please go to https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-6/

An extraordinary quilt handstitched by convict women on board ship as they were transported from Britain to Australia in 1841 has just gone on display in a new exhibition at Australia's National Gallery. Many of those who made the quilt were illiterate and led tough and impoverished lives. And yet these social outcasts and exiles - working in desperate circumstances - created one of the most important cultural artifacts in the colonial history of Australia. The Rajah Quilt – named after the ship the women were transported on - has nearly 3,000 individual pieces. It is one of the only items made by convicts that survives from this part of Australia's past, which was buried in shame for so long. The quilt gives us a rare chance to re-assess what it meant to be transported and to see how it has become an important part of Australia's history and a powerful symbol of how many people first came to this country. For more information, a full transcript and further links: https://hapticandhue.com/tales-of-textiles-series-6/