Daybook

  PATCHWORK ON THE SILK ROAD  Up-Cycling in the Ninth Century        In case we thought that making do and mending – currently more trendily...

The Coat (Furisode) of Uesugi Kenshin (1530 -1578) In Japan, as in some other cultures, patchwork garments were given as gifts. In tho...

A Study in Turkey Red What links this Turkey Red quilt with Charles Dickens, West Cumbrian history and the history of the dyeing indust...

THE POST OFFICE GIRL On reading Stefan Zweig  Stefan Zweig ( 1818-1942) ‘Stefan Zweig was an Austrian novelist, playwright, jour...

The Custom of the Country By   Edith Wharton One couldn’t really describe Undine Spragg as a ‘heroine’.   But she is certainly th...

Something’s Wrong By Sam Smith ‘Insanity - a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.’  R.D. Laing This book is wr...

In 1806, the first party of immigrants, mainly members of the Sarchet family, from Guernsey in the British Channel Islands arrived in the th...