Don’t make the mistake I made, and call it tapestry. That is woven on a loom. This is canvas work, beautifully designed, meticulously hand stitched on to church furnishings, vestments, banners and the like. There’s a lot of gold. The old stuff: real gold leaf wrapped around a central thread, its modern equivalent synthetic, shinier, a touch more bling maybe but just as handsome.
This month we are raising a glass to ten years of clean energy produced by the island’s hydro-electric power station. Owned by the locals it is the latest in a long line of ways by which for centuries they have harnessed the power of their most valuable resource.
I’d been invited by Alan Trinder to watch him fly. “I’ll be at Port Meadow between 7.30 and 11.30 in the morning,” said the email he sent the night before.…
The rather crumpled picture above is the only one I have of my mother somewhere on her remarkable journey to the other side of the world in 1950. Exactly 75 years ago.
Just over a week ago, on April 23rd to be exact, I joined a jolly parade of University and City dignitaries robed in a fine collection of scarlet, fur and velvet…