SALLY'S PIN STORY.

Thank you to Sally for her charming story, which we shall add to Kirsty Hall's collection.

'Grandmother's Diamonds'

My grandmother was born in 1881 in a mining family of north-eastern England.  She wanted to be an artist, but times were hard, and against her wishes, when she was 13, she was apprenticed to a dressmaker.  She ended up using this skill to support her two small children when her husband was killed in the last month of Great War and so spent a lifetime on creating and repairing garments.

By the time I knew her she had stopped sewing, and had no wish to ever sew again.  Whenever any part of her garments failed, she mended them with safety pins.  If they were in a visible place she wore them proudly, and when my own slightly embarrassed mother remonstrated simply replied,

"Yes, I'm wearing my diamonds today."