Sorry Jean I meant to send this to the list :o) Can I add that it originally came from the book 'Lark Rise to Candleford' by Flora Thompson and was set in the 1870's and 80's in the north-east corner of Oxfordshire.
From the chapter called 'Survivals' - "Queenie at her lace-making was a
constant attraction to the children. They loved to see the bobbins tossed hither and thither, at random as it seemed to them, every bobbin weighted with its bunch of bright beads and every bunch with its own story". It goes on to tell of the black bead that Queenie spoke of yesterday evening. Another chapter called 'The Box' which was loaned to any farm labourers wife after child birth - "It contained half a dozen of everything - tiny shirts, swathes, long flannel barrows(?), nighties, and napkins, made, kept in repair, and lent for every confinement by the clergyman's daughter." She "also kept two christening robes to lend to the mothers" - "One woman ripped off the deep flounce of old Buckinghamshire lace - and substituted a frill of course, machine-made embroidery, saying she was not going to take her child to church 'trigged out' in that old fashioned trash". A lovely book well worth reading, the TV series has taken it several steps further. In a book called 'Banburyshire in Old Photographs' Collected by Melissa Barnett & Sarah Gosling there is a picture of the real Queenie Massey (not making lace) and Flora Thompson. Diana in Northants - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]
