4 JULY 2009

MARGARET ESME THOMPSON

21 MAY 1934 – 1 JULY 2009

This post is dedicated to my Mother, who died early Wednesday morning.

I write this lying beneath a beautiful blue and white patchwork quilt my Mother made for me in 1990 – one of the many, many lovely things in our house that she has made throughout the years.  As children, my sisters and I were often dressed in matching cotton dresses she sewed for us, and cardigans that she knitted.  She even made us little tweed coats with velvet collars like those you see photographs of the Queen and Princess Margaret wearing as girls – goodness knows how difficult these must have been to make, when she was working as a teacher too – and there was even a crocheted bathing suit which we still laugh about (it looked fine while dry but became so heavy and waterlogged when wet that it sagged way down one’s legs…). When  I went off to University in 1980 I took with me a patchwork quilt that had my father’s old plaid farming shirts as the central pieces, surrounded by more recent fragments of our family life – summer school uniforms, old prize-day dresses, the inevitable ubiquitous Laura Ashley florals….  (My Mother had stopped work on the quilt when my father, shortly after their marriage, had remarked that he did not care for patchwork, but had taken it up again a few decades later when, though still happily married, his opinion on such things seemed to have less weight….) All through those heady early Cambridge days, that quilt reminded me of my roots.

My Homemade book is dedicated to my Mother, and I am so glad that she saw this book published and liked it enough to give many copies to her own friends.   All through her life she was making things with love, from cards she would stitch and stick and keep in a drawer ready to send with well-chosen words and loving messages to the lovely little Liberty print dresses she made for my daughter Mary – two for every season – ever since she was a year old.

Mary also sleeps beneath patchwork quilts Ma made for her, pouring love and prayers into every stitch even before she was born, and has a doll, Milly, who was knitted by Mum and a pair of bears whose wardrobe of clothes for every occasion was always being added to by Mum with a new pair of pyjamas or a party dress. When we went to visit, there were always delicious meals and homemade cakes – often Mary’s favourite cup cakes with white icing and a glace cherry on top. Ma was happiest in her sewing room at the top of the stairs, or in the kitchen, cooking for friends and family and church functions.

These images from the Homemade book are a homage to my Mother: as well as Mary’s little dresses there is one of her homemade cards, and many of the eggs on the Easter egg tree were made by her.   She was especially pleased that one of the close-up pictures featured an egg that her own mother, who died in 1982, had painted, making the book a celebration of the work of three generations of our family, alongside all my friend Ros’s wonderful creations.

I don’t often put such personal stuff up on this blog, and if later it does not feel right, I might remove it.  But I can’t really write about anything else this week – and it sort of feels right. So Mother, this one is for you, with all my love.

For background on our project to turn a pair of dilapidated Victorian railway carriages into an eco home, my garden writing, other journalism and information on my past and current books, please visit my website.