Not Just About Keeping Warm : Quilts 1700-2010 at the V&A



This four-poster bed with bizarre patchwork hangings graces the entrance to a fascinating exhibition at the V&A. Keep warm is almost irrelevant here; it's all about message: displaying wealth, supporting the empire and marking events in important families .

In five themed sections: The Domestic Landscape; Meeting the Past; Making a Living; Virtue and Virtuosity; Private Thoughts, Political Debates, the exhibition narrates a depressing but fascinating slice of social history

High-status families marked births and deaths with gifts of quilted pillows and the like, sometimes worked by the by governesses, more rarely by the lady of the house but most often bought in. They were objects of immense family value, passed down to generations. Commercially produced quilts from Canterbury and Exeter, centres of quilting excellence, also supplied the moneyed strata of society.

Commissioning hand-made domestic objects such as quilts meant exploitation of vulnerable workers, evidenced by archived female voices in Wales and Tyneside




The availablity of textiles in the nineteenth century meant women could showcase artistic and practical skills, virtues valued but restricted. They also signalled aspirations. A quote from George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss (1860) illustrates this, when Maggie Tulliver's father reminds her to 'Go on with your patchwork like a little lady'.

Quilts displayed patriotism in an age of political turmoil and jingoism, proked by fears of revolution, such as was happening in France.




Messages and images promoted sobriety, in the style of Victorian samplers. The Temperance Movement encourages patchwork as an alternative to alcohol. Quilts made by Wormwood Scrubs prisoners combined patches of stitched inspirational mottoes connecting crime with punishment and embroidered chains and bars and other prison paraphernalia.

Displays of quilts made by convicts or sailors on long sea-voyages are a reminder of the time-consuming and often communal nature of quilt-making.



For me, one of the most interesting specimens was an example of a printed quilt made in my home town of Preston, in a mill that once specialised in printed borders. It's now a garden centre. Although some would disagree, I think that's a sign of progress.

Spoilt for Choice: Reading Groups at Lewisham Libraries

Joining a reading group seemed a good idea when I was turned off by the chick-lit and celebrity biogs on bookshop shelves. And I'm in just the right place. Lewisham is a big borough, stretching from Blackheath to Forest Hill, with twelve libraries. Most seem to host reading groups.

It's two years since I joined the crime reading group at Lewisham Central Library. We meet on the third Saturday of the month, attendance depending on how popular the book is. Last month's choice, The Dragon Tattoo attracted twelve but the usual group is 6-8 people. There's a suggestions list, but choice often depends on current library holdings, eked out with loans from neighbouring boroughs. Books are kept between meetings for new members to request.

The host isn't always the same librarian, but the role is much the same: replenishing the drinks and biscuits supplies, updating the comment file and prompting discussion. Not that it's necesary - tastes vary and most people are ready to give opinions.


A big advantage with the crime genre is the range. The more predicatble British and American writers like Ian Rankin, Val McDermid, Lynda La Plante, Nicci Gerrard and James Elroy take turns with 'literary' works, such as Kate Summerscale's The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair and Case Histories by Kate Atkinson.

More recently there's been a spate of Scandinavian authors: Arnaldur Indridson's Silence of the Grave; Hakan Nesser's The Return and of course Stieg Larsson's The Dragon Tattoo It's prompted interesting discussion about national characteristics and representation in crime novels.

The current choice is a blockbuster called Homicide: a year on the Killing Streets which like Mr Whicher blurs the boundary of fact and fiction.It's written by David Simon, famous for the TV adaptation of The Wire.

Most discussions progress from the book in question to other works with similar themes/settings/ characters to comparison with film and TV series. It's a way of getting to know writers I wouldn't have read otherwise.

Maybe in reaction to all these murders, I've gone back to 'straight' literature. So for Blackheath Village and Manor House Library groups respectively I read Antonia White's Frost in May, a fascinating account of an Irish convent boarding school in the 50s that I read years ago, and Sean Longley's The Hartlepool Monkey, a recently-published subversive historical novel with an eighteenth century setting which made me laugh. Next Blackheath choice is a favourite, Graham Greene's The Quiet American, which I've seen as a film starring Michael Caine.

On Saturday I learned there's now a writing group that meets at Lewisham library. It makes perfect sense to me but I can see that's another interruption to my writing intentions.