The list is quiet today, and I have come across a charming 4-page article in the Summer 1999 magazine - This England - titled The Lace Villages of England. It was written by Susan Beaty (one t), and I would like to know if she has written a book using a different surname, perhaps after marriage? Please respond, so I can place the article properly in the library here. Otherwise, it will be put with Liz Bartlett's Lace Villages book. Wish I could copy all, but that would not be permitted. However, here is an interesting snippet that you can discuss whilst enjoying a cup of tea. "The work required great concentration, and it was very important that the children kept up a rhythm with their bobbins, and did not become too bored. Therefore, the dame would often break the silence by getting her charges to chant lace tells and have races to see who could be the first to set a certain number of pins. However, moments of real fun were rare for the children, and it was only when the dame occasionally left her pupils alone, while she attended some household task, that they had a chance for a few games! "One of the favorites was to challenge a child to run round the room and jump over the single tall candlestick which stood in the centre of the circle of lace makers to illuminate their work. Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick - would come the chant, and the selected youngster would have to run and leap before the dame returned - and without knocking over the candlestick! Over the years this has become a popular nursery rhyme and legend has it that Jack refers to John Bunyan (1628-88), author of The Pilgrim's Progress. He was brought up in the Bedfordshire village of Elstow and may well have spent some of his early years in one of the lace schools." Jeri wonders: Was a tell ever written for machine-made laces produced in mills? Jeri Ames in Maine USA Lace and Embroidery Resource Center
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