If you are a reader of http://www.myteatowels.wordpress.com, you will have seen a Blog called ‘Iconic Scottish Images (or Be Prepared)’, which tells the story of how I met Lesley Stone.  The last line suggests that Lesley will become a Guest Tea Towel in the Virtual Tea Towel Museum.  And here is her story……  But first, I should introduce Lesley, an actress and comedian who has recently presented ‘Be Prepared’ at the 70th Edinburgh Fringe Festival.  I saw her show which was hilarious, based on the idea of setting up a Girl Guides Reunited for those of us too old to be a Girl Guide and reinventing some of the badges to be worked towards, like the Hip Replacement Badge.  At the end of the show, following a lot of hard work with our Community Singing, all the audience was presented with a Community Singing Badge.  It’s a long story but a bit later that day I came across Lesley and friends in a cafe and she recognised the badge.  The truth is that any encounter like that cannot be without a lecture on the Virtual Tea Towel Museum and Lesley did agree to be a Guest Tea Towel.  Those are the sort of things that happen but when one returns to the cold reality of home everything goes out of one’s head.  However, in the interests of research, I contacted Lesley and she said “Of course I remember you and your friend.  It was lovely to chat in the cafe about your collection.  I have taken a photograph of my favourite tea  towel.  Unfortunately, it has been well used; it has the drawings that both our daughters did when they were at that school so it’s not in the best condition.  I enjoyed reading your report of Be Prepared”.  Lesley didn’t say which pictures were of her daughters!

That is a great tea towel and I bet there are many parents across the country whose favourite tea towel is one from the school their children went to, especially if it involved their children actually doing part of the drawing.  I like the small hole in the tea towel, the sign of it being well used.  Thank you Lesley for being a Guest Tea Towel.  If you are in the St Leonards area at the end of September, Lesley is performing Be Prepared once again; it is well worth seeing!! 

Let me introduce you to Simon Butler.  I ‘met’ Simon via Twitter, one of my followers.  What struck me about Simon was that his personal strap-line was “I like a nice of cup of tea…….”; there were some nice pictures of tins of Williamson teas but lurking there was a picture of a pack of tea bags.  I couldn’t let that pass; I needed to comment on the importance of loose leaf tea.  Inevitably, that led to a ‘conversation’ about tea towels and an invitation to be a Guest Tea Towel.  “A tremendous honour”.  Here is Simon’s tale.

“This is the last thing that I bought in Edinburgh Waverley Station before leaving Scotland for a job in London.  Whilst it is a bit tourist-tat, it brings back a wait on the platform and tears as I watched the castle slide away.  It is three years old in November”.

That is the epitome of ‘every tea towel tells a story’; if you want to remember Scotland, that is a great tea towel to do it with, it has everything (although I am not sure about that picture of a haggis!).  Thank you Simon for that.  I will just add that one of the latest tweets from Simon said “I don’t know why, but was just overcome with urgent need for a cucumber sandwich.  This has never happened to me before.  It was tasty”.  A man with good taste!!

When I had this idea of having a ‘feature’ about charities that had fundraising tea towels, in my mind I could see cancer charities and animal charities taking part but never, in my wildest dreams, did I think of a Lobster Hatchery (a) being a charity and (b) having a fundraising tea towel.  It’s good to be proved wrong.  I came across the Lobster Hatchery while on holiday in North Berwick; I saw the tea towel and couldn’t resist it.  But, it was only as I walked away, did I realise that the Lobster Hatchery was, in fact, a charity.  Before Lesley tells the story of their tea towel (or even two), let me just explain (roughly) what the Firth of Forth Lobster Hatchery actually does.

Over-fishing of lobsters has been a big problem in British waters so three local lobster enthusiasts came up with the idea of the Lobster Hatchery, having had to invest their own money in it when a grant fell through.  The Hatchery supports the natural life cycle of the native European lobster.  Their strap line is ‘Hatch, rear and return to the sea’.  The plan is to release tens of thousands of juvenile lobsters into the Firth of Forth each year.  The Hatchery rears juvenile lobsters from eggs collected daily from local female lobsters known as ‘berried hens’.  The eggs will be reared and nurtured through the larval stages into juveniles within the Hatchery and released back into the sea when they have passed the more vulnerable stage of their development at around three months.  It can take up to five years for a female lobster to produce  eggs which she can then do for up to 40 years.

The Firth of Forth Lobster Hatchery aims to educate people about the dangers of over-fishing.  The V Notch part of the project is very important.  When a ‘berried hen’ is caught she has to be returned to the sea if she has a V Notch, a cut in the tail which does not harm the lobster, thus not diminishing the breeding stock.  I bet you didn’t know that!

“We decided to have a tea towel for our charity mainly because we operate from a container, seasonally, at North Berwick so tea towels don’t rust with all the salt water we have, and high humidity.  Plus we thought it was a good way to get our graphics onto something that would be used, hence keeping it in people’s minds.  It is also easy for tourists to take home when luggage allowances are an issue, and easier for us to store within our limited space.

The design was a collaboration between myself and a Graphic Designer called Robin Scott who works for Intimation Creative (www.intimation.uk) in Dunbar (who also updated our website http://www.firthofforthlobsterhatchery.org.uk).

This was our second tea towel; the first was a branding exercise to get our name out there.  The second was to celebrate our successful ‘V Notch’ programme which started in 2016, as well as release of juveniles.  We do raise funds from the sale of tea towels; we sold almost 100 of our first design and around 90 so far of our second design.

Firth of Forth Lobster Hatchery. On ‘loan’ from the Lobster Hatchery

Man enjoying the Lobster Hatchery tea towel at North Berwick – selling from the Beach Huts!

This is a picture of the first tea towel and the little beach hut, next to the container, where you can find the Firth of Forth Lobster Hatchery merchandise on sale in North Berwick.

“We also package the tea towel and took time to think how we could get more information about us on the packaging.  The packaging also keeps them clean and makes them look more appealing, I think.  We also went for a single colour design to keep our prices low.  We initially worked with with an artist to do a full-colour design of a water colour lobster she had painted.  The copyright and division of royalties for each item sold became too problematic and greatly reduced any chance of us making money as we didn’t expect to sell large quantities so we decided on a graphic approach”.

This is a great, and unusual, story; the Firth of Forth Lobster Hatchery won the 2016 prestigious Scottish Rural Awards in the category of Aquaculture.  If you want to know more, or sponsor a V Notch Lobster, go to their website http://www.firthofforthlobsterhatchery.org.uk.

Thank you Lesley for the story.

When I reached the age of 60, just after my actual birthday, the NHS sent me a surprise birthday present.  A small envelope arrived in the post.  I couldn’t guess what it was.  Is it a birthday present that I wasn’t expecting?  Well, it certainly wasn’t a birthday present and, as Lyra would say, it wasn’t something that I was expecting!  Looking with horror, I found a Bowel Cancer Screening Kit.  Part of me thought ‘that’s a good idea; something that can be done in the privacy of my own home’ and the other part thought ‘OMG, how am I going to cope with that?’.  I diligently read the instructions; I didn’t understand them because I wasn’t concentrating, I was just too taken up with the little spatula and having to do this three times, on different days.  I put it to one side; I discussed it with Pete, in a vague, non-committal way sort of a way, where neither of us mentioned faecal matter (or whatever phrase you might use).  He has completed his screening so I sat down, and said to myself, “Get a grip.  This is for your own good.  You’re not having a tube shoved up your backside.  It’s a simple test.  No one does it to you; you can do it in the privacy of your own bathroom”.  Having had a good chat with myself, all I had was the mental image of a room in the Royal Infirmary where some poor sod receives hundreds and thousands of envelopes, with three stool samples in each.  After that I posted my envelope and a couple of weeks later a letter comes back saying my test was clear.  That was my birthday present; the ‘all clear’.

The fact is 1 in 18 of us will get bowel cancer at sometime in our lives; it is the third most common form of cancer in UK and the second biggest cancer killer after lung cancer.  With stats like that, why wouldn’t you do a Bowel Cancer Screening Test when the NHS is giving you the opportunity  to do it painlessly  and privately at home?  As I said to myself, “get over yourself, Barbara”.  It is thanks to organisations like GUTS: fighting bowel cancer, that I have that opportunity to carry out my own Bowel Cancer Screening Test.  GUTS was founded in 1983 with the aim of improving screening, detection, prevention and treatment of bowel cancer and research into the disease.  GUTS is based at the Royal Surrey County Hospital; as a charity it funds research into new ways of detecting bowel cancer and better ways of treating the disease.  It runs a Family Colorectal Cancer Clinic offering advice and screening to people at a high risk of developing bowel Cancer.  It funds equipment.  As part of its fundraising it has a fabulous tea towel.  Nerissa Deeks is the paid worker for GUTS and she has shared the story of the tea towel:

“Although the pig featured on our tea towel is not the charity’s official logo, it is wrapped up in our history.  GUTS (Guildford Undetected Tumour Screening) was set up by Professor Chris Marks in 1983.  A group of his friends and patients got together to raise money so that the charity could establish a local screening programme for bowel cancer.  They needed to raise a considerable sum of money to fund the programme and so hit the streets of Surrey with Gertie Guts in tow.  She was a life sized pig on wheels, made out of papier mache – basically a giant piggy bank.  Gertie was responsible for raising a lot of the charity’s start-up monies – although she did get a bit of help from the late George Michael; two of the charity’s early supporters ran in the first London Marathon and George Michael sponsored each runner for an incredibly generous £500 a mile.

Gertie continued to put in regular appearances at GUTS fundraising events and street collections but she is enjoying a well-earned retirement in leafy Godalming.  Like a lot of women a certain age, she has been plagued with what might politely be called ‘undercarriage trouble’!  Gertie may be gone but is never forgotten as she has now been immortalised on the charity’s official tea towel.  The colourful interpretation of Gertie was designed by Phill Davies, one of the charity’s trustees and a graphic design artist by trade.  The tea towels are sold in the Endoscopy Department at the Royal Surrey County Hospital (where GUTS is based) and at events, local fairs and markets as well as online.  The tea towel is perennially popular, raising several hundreds of pounds a year for GUTS”.

That is a great story of a charity tea towel and such a bright, vibrant, colourful design.  I love it.  Thank you GUTS for sharing your story and if any Visitors to the Museum want to buy a Gertie tea towel, go to http://www.gutsfbc.co.uk.

I was looking at my Tweets a couple of weeks ago; someone had retweeted a post from M&S Archives.  I never knew that there was such a thing.  I have been a lover of all things M&S since I was a teenager as are many people that I know.  My mother would never buy underwear from anywhere else; I used to have to take M&S nighties and underwear to Italy every year for my Aunty Eileen; my friend Jean, with her sisters, used to make a trip to M&S very Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter to renew their wardrobes.  Jean, at 91, still buys all her clothes from M&S with the help of the internet.  I could go on forever!  The idea of an M&S Archive is very exciting.  I know that M&S produce tea towels so the first thing I did was to abandon Twitter and email them; this could be a ‘Special Collection’ – tea towels from the M&S Archives.  Katherine replied: “I’ve searched our Collection Catalogue and I’m slightly ashamed to say that we only actually have two tea towels currently catalogued although I am certain there are more yet to be catalogued”. 

I asked Katherine if, instead, she would like to be a Guest Tea Towel.  This is her response: “This is my favourite tea towel in the M&S Company Archives.  It dates from 2009, when M&S celebrated it’s 125th birthday.  Around this time, the business began to look back at it’s heritage to inspire new products – the result was a special range of anniversary products, including this tea towel.  Some of these products drew on stylistic features or patterns of vintage clothing and packaging while others, like this tea towel, featured the original designs.  The Jelly Creams design on the tea towel is taken from a 1960s box held in the Archive Collection.  The food packaging designs from the 1950s and 1960s are fantastic, full of colour and lovely illustrations – just calling to be reused.” 

Thank you, Katherine for that history behind the tea towel; I agree that it is a fantastic tea towel and I hope your colleagues will join the ‘gang’ of Guest Tea Towels.

http://www.marksintime.marksandspencer.com/home  

If my mother were alive to day, she would be shocked that I had just interviewed Zoe Marsh, the owner of Yorkshire Stuff.  My mother was born in Lancashire, was Lancastrian through and through, felt her roots were in Oswaldtwistle where her father was born.  My mother was addicted to watching Coronation Street from the day that it began in 1960; when it was on, and for several hours afterwards, she would revert to a very broad Lancastrian accent.  Yorkshire was a world apart from Lancashire to her, even though we spent many a holiday in Yorkshire!

Whenever I interview someone for In Conversation With… I am always both surprised and excited by how different all the companies are.  With Radical Tea Towel Company they are looking to expand in the USA market yet Zoe’s passion is Yorkshire.  “I sell Yorkshire stuff to Yorkshire folk.  I’m Yorkshire born and bred, living elsewhere for most of my adult life, only returning to my home town of York in my mid-30s.  I noticed that there were no products available to buy in York, featuring the Yorkshire dialect or expressing Yorkshire pride.  This is surprising because so many shops sell Yorkshire themed gifts but they are all aimed at tourists.  I’m really proud of the Yorkshire dialect and our culture and heritage.  Yorkshire is the people that live here, and we’re great”.

Zoe with the White Rose of Yorkshire tea towel.

I was interested to know what Zoe did before returning to York.  “My background is quite varied.  I have worked as a glassblower’s assistant and a systems administrator amongst other things.  Before I moved back to York, I was a market trader in Bristol where I designed, made and sold jewellery.  I started Yorkshire Stuff in January 2014 with just a few handmade greetings cards and badges on my market stall and have slowly built up my product range.  I primarily sell through my market stall in York, every Monday.  I’m there every week so my regular customers know where to find me.  I also have an online shop and I attend events throughout Yorkshire.  Over the next couple of months, I’ll be at Harrogate Flower Show and the York Balloon Fiesta”.

“I buy some items in, ready made, and make some myself.  I also design some of my stock, and have it made up for me; that includes my tea towels.  I have three tea towels that have been finished, and produced, and many more that I’ve been working on but haven’t had printed yet.  I do everything; however, the team who do my printing for me are always very helpful in helping me understand what is possible to produce with a screenprint.  It always makes me smile when customers assume that there must be more people involved somewhere.  But, no, if you visit the market, I’m behind the stall; if you buy something online, I’ll post it out to you; and if you send me a picture on Facebook, then I’m responding to that too – as well as designing, making and doing all the other things that come with running a business”.

I wanted to know if Zoe had always dreamed of being a tea towel designer (I don’t think so!).  “I wanted to be everything from an actress through to an engineer.  I think that what I’ve always wanted is to have a job where no one can tell me what to do and this fits the bill”.  

And finally, what is Zoe’s favourite design?  “My favourite design, of mine, is the Yorkshire Dialect because it always makes people smile”.

This is Zoe’s favourite tea towel

This is the latest design from Yorkshire Stuff

My mother would definitely have approved of Zoe’s comment about having a job where you are your own boss.  I am glad that Zoe found the Yorkshire Dialect tea towel in the Linguistics Collection of the Virtual Tea Towel Museum; it hasn’t yet been blogged about but I can feel a blog coming on.  Originally, when I invited Zoe to be part of In Conversation With … she said “I can’t promise I’ll have anything thrilling to say”.  That was certainly not true!  Thank you Zoe for giving me your time for this interview.

Shop online at http://www.yorkshire-stuff.co.uk or visit Zoe every Monday at Jubbergate in York Market

Liz is a longstanding friend of mine.  I have known her for more than 22 years, both as a work colleague and as on of my best friends.  We have shared many holidays, days out and experiences, both happy and sad.  We are a good team; our skills and deficiencies balance out.  She can drive (and manoeuvre a caravan) and I can’t; she can cook and I can’t.  I can load a washing machine, deal with the bins and deal with dead animals; Liz can’t.  That’s what friendship is all about.  I, sort of, knew that this Guest Tea Towel was coming up.  I wasn’t sure how it would happen but I knew it would be a ‘lump in the throat’ job.  I knew it would be long.  I knew I wouldn’t have to edit it in any way.  Here is Liz’s Guest Tea Towel, the unabridged version:

This might be considered an odd choice for a Guest Tea Towel; it’s not one I’ve owned for years – in fact I bought it a few days ago – and the tea towel in itself isn’t imbued with memories. It is the memories and the emotions that go with it that will ever make it special, evoking thoughts of my mum, who died in January this year, and for whom North Walsham played a significant part in her life. 

The story begins in 1939, though for me in around 1974/5 when I was in my early teens and likely didn’t think my mum had had a life before I was around, or could tell me anything I didn’t know. History was probably my least favourite subject at school; I found facts hard to digest as someone who struggles to learn in a ‘chalk and talk’ style. I now understand I better learn through experiencing, or understanding the experiences of others but, back then, I simply thought history was bo-ring. We were learning about the II World War and assigned the task of looking at this from the perspective of anyone who’d been alive at the time. In the way that we probably all view our parents as ancient, I guess I figured my mum must have been alive all that time ago and must have asked her if this was the case? Through this, I discovered a connection with her I hadn’t had in this way before, as well as an openness and closeness I have never forgotten. My mum rarely talked about her past, neither did my dad; they’d both experienced traumatic events as children as each had a parent who’d died. For this time, though, as I put together a History Project, my mum became the teller of a fascinating story, though some of it I did not learn until much later still. 

This is where we go back to 1939, my mum as a 10 year old evacuated to North Walsham in Norfolk, along with her younger sister. Many may imagine being evacuated as a traumatic time, frightening for any child, yet mum described this time with such light in her eyes, and her being. She told me of the couple she stayed with, the farm they lived on and the fond memories of that time. There were stories of riding on the hay bales as the farmer went about his duties and the intoxicating smell of Pumpkin Pie, which she was told she was too young to like. (I think she did convince her ‘guardian’ to let her try it) The way she described the events were like relating the story of her best holiday, of mischief and fun and feeling safe. 

It wasn’t until last year that she related more of the story. By then dementia had pinched some of her memory, yet others, such as her time in North Walsham, came into much sharper focus. A safe topic for mum at this time was asking me where I was going on holiday, even though she would ask again five minutes later, and then again …

On one such occasion, I was going to Norfolk for a few days; actually nowhere near North Walsham but I readily promised to visit anyway. Off we set, a fair drive from where I was staying, and with no real hope of finding where she’d stayed, though she’d given me the name of the farm like she’d been there yesterday. Arriving, I headed for the library and told the librarian the story. She was not only interested but pointed me to where the farm was and where to park as there were no parking places outside. Off I set, hardly believing this was possible and feeling the depth and importance of the pilgrimage. And there I was, standing outside Bradmoor Cottages where my mum had been evacuated all those long years before, recognising what she and her sister had dubbed, “longey lane”, the road they walked to school. I took photos asking her if she recognised it and, with the help of her carer, she replied that she recognised the house but not the garage. When I posted a picture of the house name sign, again she came back through her iPad, saying, “Does it say Eileen and Dorothy stayed her in 1939? Mum”. I feel that incredible connection as I write this, one generation to another through the power of technology. 

When I next visited her, she divulged more of her evacuee story; a part she’d kept back previously, a part that maybe the disinhibition of dementia allowed (and I’m grateful for that). She said that Eileen, her younger sister, had not been happy there and this had forced her return to war torn London. She was clearly not at all happy about that, describing how awful to return to bombs and air raid shelters; the accompanying terror. She’d had three short months in North Walsham yet it had made a huge impact on her and she hadn’t wanted to be ripped away. Looking at her comment on seeing the house sign, I’m struck by how, even after nearly 70 years she used the term, “lived there” rather than “stayed there”; that says a lot. 

As I mentioned earlier, mum died in January this year. Once again, last weekend, I was having a short break in Norfolk; different part this time. It occurred to me that North Walsham may not be far away. When I realised it was but a few miles from where I was staying, I felt drawn to visit again; I didn’t really know why, or what it was I wanted by visiting, just a sense that I must go. I’m so glad I did and this is where my tea towel comes into play. I decided to stop in the town; an unprepossessing place, yet with the charm of many a Norfolk town that has a sense of timeless ordinariness. I had a thought as I parked the car that I could look to see if there was a tea towel, though I didn’t really expect to find one. I was with the tea towel hunter of all tea towel hunters, no less than Ms Tea Towels herself – the virtual museum one – and even she didn’t think it likely. Sometimes, though, the world and life has a kind of synchronicity that defies any imagination. I strolled over to the shop almost opposite where the car was parked, a little gift shop, pretty basic looking, and lo and behold, in the window – a North Walsham tea towel. Befitting to the style of the town, it had a simple, yet pleasing design, showing the two key features of the place; the church and the Market Place and Cross. These are set within a pretty border of leaves, setting it off to perfection. It’s not a flashy tea towel, it didn’t cost much, it only has one colour – blue on a white tea towel – but I love it and all it represents to me. As I wandered around North Walsham, I thought about my mum, how and why this place had made such an impact upon her in a few short months before it was torn away from her again. I think there are a number of reasons. She had come from London and had lived in poor, working class surroundings; I think that North Walsham, as a place, had shown her a different way of life and opportunity. I think she may have seen what might be possible for her; maybe, even in that short time, it sowed a seed that continued to grow and develop. I guess she had never been out of the city before this time and it instilled in her a great love of the countryside, which remained with her until she died. I guess she saw the many contrasts of city and countryside, of hustle and bustle, to calm and tranquility; she embraced it and loved it. Sadly, she never went back herself but I am proud, as her daughter, to have made that journey in her memory. My tea towel will always remind me of that, of that connection we made all those years ago through a school project, and of her love of a small Norfolk town that gave a few months respite from the Second World War.

Thank you Liz for sharing the story of North Walsham and your mum!

I said “In North Walsham now” and Mum replied “Looks just as lovely as ever” 22 April 2016

My second charity tea towel is from Canine Partners; there is probably nothing farther from Cure Brain Cancer Foundation (Australia) than Canine Partners based near Osgathorpe except that they both use a tea towel to raise money for the work they do and both have interesting stories behind their tea towels.

With a strap line of  “Amazing Dogs. Transforming Lives”, Canine Partners ‘does what it says on the tin’.  “Our vision is for a day when every disabled person in the UK has the opportunity to be partnered with one of our amazing Assitance Dogs”.  Canine Partners receives no government funding and relies on public donations and legacies.  Canine Partners began in 1990, training assistance dogs to meet the needs of individuals with complex physical impairments including those discharged from the armed forces, helping with everyday tasks like picking up dropped items, unloading the washing machine, pressing buttons and switches, fetching help in the event of an emergency.  Assistance dogs provide social benefits like increasing independence , confidence and self-esteem.  The reality is that it takes 20-24 months to train an assistance dog and each partnership costs £20,000 from the selection of a puppy until the dog retires after 12 years.  That is £4.56 a day.  One of the ways in which Canine Partners raises money is through it’s online shop which has been going for five years.  Pat tells the story of how the tea towel came about: “My husband had a severe stroke 16 years ago, leaving him with several disabilities.  Life was very black for several years following this, dealing with all his conditions, until we heard about Canine partners.  Eventually, a wonderful dog, a black Labrador, came into our lives, to save my husband’ s life and give me back mine.  Our Canine Partner, Yukon, was a saviour and our beloved friend.  The difference in my husband was tremendous and I wanted to give something back to this wonderful charity.”

“Living in a village with many dogs, I came up with the idea of trying to raise enough money for Canine Partners to buy another puppy.  So I asked all the doggies in the village for their paw prints!!  Yukon’s paw print is in the bottom right hand corner of the tea towel.  It was hilarious trying to get them, as you can imagine.  This quirky idea spread like wildfire and even two dogs who had emigrated wanted their paws on the tea towel.  You will see one in Australia and one in USA, both faxed over (very clever dogs, I say).  My lovely friends in the village were thrilled to assist as they could see the difference Yukon made to two lives.  With the help of a friend, keen on design, we put it together….. doggie biscuits on the photocopier!!  Those were the days!!  Dame Judi Dench lives in our village and even her doggie is on it”.

“The print had to be purple because of the (corporate) colour of the charity.  The original tea towel had the title ‘Canine Pals of Outwoods helping….’.  It sold like hot cakes and went all over the world as Christmas presents etc.  The furthest it went was Patagonia!  I had to keep re-ordering them.  But I was insistent that they were packaged nicely with an information leaflet about the charity”.

“Forever the teacher, I then designed a Fun Quiz to be sold with the tea towel; the questions were based on the names of the dogs e.g. ‘Which dog won’t sit still?’ (Fidget).  Fun for children and adults around a table.  Canine Partners were very soon able to buy a puppy from the original proceeds of £800.”

“Canine Partners then asked me if they could use the tea towel to celebrate it’s 20th anniversary and take away the ‘Outwoods’ heading.  Of course, I was delighted and they now carry on with it.  It is sold all over the UK at Canine Partners events and they have it on their website.  I am so thrilled.  I have even given one to Prince Harry when he visited Canine Partners HQ and I challenged him to do the quiz.  He assured me that he does the washing up and he laughed when I told him the story of how some of the dogs reacted to putting their paws on paper.  We have a lovely photo of Prince Harry accepting the tea towel”.

“I use all the original paw prints to hang on the Canine Partners Christmas Tree at the local church Tree Festival and to some dear friends, who have said goodbye to their dogs, I have given them back their paw prints.  This funny idea has now raised thousands of pounds and is a best seller at all Canine Partner events”.

That is a really great story about the ‘birth’ of a charity tea towel; a simple idea from someone who benefitted from the charity and who wanted to give something back.  It’s not flashy or glamorous but is something that is not costly and will appeal to lots of people because, after all, we all use a tea towel.  Thank you Pat for spending some of your time sharing that story.  But do I believe that Prince Harry does the washing up?  I’m not sure but I would like to believe it!

If you want to support Canine Partners go to http://www.caninepartners.org.uk and find their tea towel under Shop.

Let me introduce you to Lynn.  Lynn was a student social worker, on placement where I worked, many many years ago; I was her Practice Teacher.  When she finished her placement we kept in touch and have been friends for probably more than 20 years.  Lynn has listened to me ‘moan on’ about the storage system for my tea towels and, ever the Inventor, did come up with several solutions, one of which I based my eventual storage system on.  Lynn was one of the first people I asked to do a Guest Tea Towel; she agreed but first found a number of other people to do one first – Sharon, Helen……  She also scoured the camp site that she was staying on, taking a number of photos of tea towels, that people were using, which have appeared in ‘Enjoying Your Tea Towel’.  Now here, finally, is her story:

“Although, arguably, a very sexist image, we chose to ‘reclaim’ it and she seems happy enough in our kitchen.  It is my favourite tea towel.  It was bought as a Christmas present by our next door neighbour’s son who Helen saw being born and I got to know him when he was aged about 2.  I remember him knocking on our back door and asking if I wanted to play?  I was around 39 years old and for a long time he thought that I was a boy.  He now has two children of his own and is the Deputy Manager of a branch of Carluccios (a renowned chain of Italian restaurants) and we are very proud of him”.

That is a great story about how tea towels can evoke memories and I actually love the tea towel; it has worn well.  He couldn’t possibly have known, aged two, that he would find a career in Carluccios, after having bought you a tea towel from there.  It’s funny how things turn out.  Thank you Lynn and I look forward to receiving other pictures of tea towels that you convince people to let me have.

The first tea towel in the ChariTea Towel Collection is Cure Brain Cancer Foundation which is based just outside Sydney, New South Wales (Australia).  It’s mission is to increase the brain cancer five-year survival from the current 20% to 50%, by the year 2023, a big target “and we see research and clinical trials as the process for making this happen”.  All funds raised by Cure Brain Cancer Australia just go towards research.  Around 1600 people are diagnosed with brain cancer, each year, in Australia and approximately 1200 die from it, during the same period.

Cure Brain Cancer Foundation was founded in 2001, by renowned neurosurgeon Professor Charlie Teo, with an origami crane as it’s symbol.  A crane represents longevity and good fortune, the aspirations for brain cancer patients.  There is a wonderful article on Cure Brain Cancer Foundation’s website where you can download the format for the origami crane and make it yourself.  If any Museum Visitor tries this, take a photograph of your attempt and I will add it to this article.

Cure Brain Cancer Foundation has two fundraising tea towels; this is their story.  “The tea towels were brought to life as part of our role as the official charity partner for the Tulip Time Festival, the largest Tulip Festival in the Southern Hemisphere.  It is held in the Southern Highlands, just outside of Sydney.  We had the chance to be a part of the festival in 2016 and use the 35,000+ visitors to help raise funds, and awareness, for our cause.  That part of the Southern Highlands is renowned for having beautiful tea rooms, and in fact, we were onsite with the Bowral Country Women’s Association – so we thought it would be a good fit to do some bespoke tea towels to raise money.  The theme for the Festival was Alice in Wonderland so we had plenty of fun, creative concepts to work with!  Hence we ended up with the Queen of Hearts and the Alice in Wonderland tea towels.  The tea towels, themselves, are not designed to be educational; they’re designed to be fun”.

The tea towels “were designed by our beautiful graphic designer, Kath Marshall.  We wanted to keep it more fun and beautiful than too much about brain cancer and, when we gave her this brief, she came back with the designs attached and we loved them.  We then added a small embroidered ‘Cure Brain Cancer’ tag so everyone would remember that they had done some good by buying this tea towel.  The tea towel was initially sold at the Tulip Time Festival in Corbett Gardens, Bowral in September 2016 and after that online.  Once we sell our entire run we will have made just shy of 10,000 Australian dollars for vital brain cancer research.  We were very careful to pick a cost efficient, but quality, fabric choice – linen/cotton blend, stays beautiful and soft, while absorbent”.

What a great story of how two fundraising tea towels came into being.  I like the idea of them designed to be fun but with the tag to remind people what they are about.  I suggest that Visitors to the Museum have a go at making the origami crane, then let me have a picture to add to this story and finally buy a tea towel.

http://www.curebraincancer.org.au

@braincancer_AU

Mosaic: 2015. Read ChariTea Towel in the Museum

Mosaic: 2015. Read ChariTea Towel in the Museum

Before I retired, I worked for three charities, over a period of 25 years.  They were all local charities, all providing direct services to disabled people, all receiving part of their funding from a local authority but all needing to supplement their income through some form of fundraising.  It was always hard work to maintain financial stability.   I know the problem that charities have in raising funds, how they rely on volunteers and fundraisers, how every penny spent needs to be found from somewhere, how the Charity Commission watch how much money is spent on fundraising in relation to the money raised for the Charity.   The ‘Big Guys’, like Oxfam or British Heart Foundation, have huge fundraising machines; the people that deliver the service do not get involved in the day to day mechanics of fundraising.  Throughout this time, I was an avid tea towel collector and it was always my dream that one of the organisations I worked for would have a fundraising tea towel.  Did they?  Never!  I was always in a difficult position, as the ‘boss’, of not wanting to suggest a tea towel to raise funds, because of my interest in them, rather than be aware of the needs of the organisation.  But it was always a disappointment that we didn’t have a tea towel.  When I worked for FAIRDEAL, our big fundraiser was the T Shirt (based on the maze that many people struggle with to get Community Care services); it was a good design.  I still have two although they are 25 years old.  In POhWER, it was the T Shirt again; I’ve still got one of those, 20 years old but mosaic: shaping disability services, it was just the pens.  One of my colleagues, who was good at crafts, and knew my penchant for a tea towel, hand-drew two potential designs but this wasn’t taken up by the Trustees.  I still have those two designs, which I use and love; they are displayed at the top of this article.  The mosaic logo was red with black writing; I like Rosie’s creative use of colour, either the red tea towel with the black logo or the multi-coloured logos on a white background.

As I travel the journey of the Virtual Tea Towel Museum, I thought it might be interesting to look at Charities that do have a fundraising tea towel, how it came about and how successful it is for bringing money into the charity.

My first problem was actually identifying Charities that sold their own tea towels; today, tote bags are very popular (especially since the 5p charge for a plastic bag in a supermarket came into force in Britain).  More expensive items like sweat shirts are also popular down to wrist bands and T Shirts.  But, I have found some with fascinating stories about how their tea towels came about.  This, hopefully, will be a growing Collection which may be of interest to Museum Visitors and hopefully will generate some funds for those charities.

One of the good things about the Virtual Tea Towel Museum is that it is accessible to people from all over the world, it’s Visitors are from all around the world, so why not look at charities from around the world?  One of the things that all the charities featured have in common is their commitment to their specific cause and each tea towel is created from unique circumstances.

Cards for Good Causes

Click here to read the story of Cards for Good Causes…..Cards for Good Causes

Foundling Museum

Click here to read the story of the Foundling Museum

Woodland Trust

Click here to read the story of Woodland Trust

Aberglasney Restoration Trust

Click here to read the story of  Aberglasney Restoration Trust

Firth of Forth Lobster Hatchery

Click here to read the story of Firth of Forth Lobster Hatchery

Green’s Mill

Click here to read the story of … Green’s Mill

GUTS: fighting bowel cancer

Click here to read the story of … GUTS: fighting bowel cancer

Canine Partners

Click here to read the story of …Canine Partners

Cure Brain Cancer Foundation (Australia)

Click here to read the story of … Cure Brain Cancer Foundation (Australia)

What I love about In Conversation With… is that it shows the variety of tea towels that are around, if you want one.  Why would anyone buy a value-pack of blue check tea towels, that disintegrate after a few washings, when you could buy one, or two, really beautiful tea towels, good quality, hard wearing, that will last forever.  So far, three very different designers, very distinctive styles, not in competition with each other but with one shared value: quality.

Now it’s time to meet a fourth: the Radical Tea Towel Company.  This is another company whose work I think is brilliant and, if I saw one of their tea towels hanging on a hook in a friend’s kitchen, I would know exactly where it came from.  I’m a great believer in simplicity and honesty; I’m a great believer in the adage “it does what it says on the tin”.  You know where you stand as a consumer.  If you name the company after someone, you expect that they will be responsible for the designs; I expect Love Menu Art to be about Menu Art.  Simples.  So are you ‘setting yourself up’ if you call yourselves the Radical Tea Towel Company?  What does a title like that mean?  What does the customer expect?

The fact is that the Radical Tea Towel Company is just that, through and through, from it’s founding to it’s working practice, from the goods that it produces to it’s ethical policy, from the means by which goods are produced to believing in what it does.  It also sounds like good fun!  Here is their story:

“We are a family company.  We started as a small project in Autumn 2011 but didn’t incorporate until 2013.  Beatrice is a language teacher in French, Spanish and Welsh.  She was on the same Modern Languages course, at Durham University, as Tim, in the early 1980s.  They got married after graduating.  Tim is a graphic designer and publisher by background.  He is self-taught, after messing around with computers in 1990s.  Luke is their son who does have a background in politics, having studied it, alongside other social sciences, at university.  Before the Radical Tea Towel Company, Luke worked for London Underground”.

So how did the Radical Tea Towel Company come about?  “Beatrice was looking for a suitable, politically left-wing birthday present for her late mother’s 92 year old partner, David.  David was severely disabled, after a hip operation that had gone wrong.  She didn’t think he would wear a T-Shirt and bulky stuff, like mugs, wouldn’t go through his letter-box.  She didn’t want to involve him trailing out to the Post Office, on his crutches, to collect a parcel.  Beatrice thought there must be political tea towels out there, which would be ideal but hours searching on Google found nothing.  Around the dinner table that evening, she was moaning about this – and Luke and Tim encouraged her to start her own political tea towel business.  We agreed that Beatrice would find the manufacturers, Tim could do the designs and Luke would build our social media presence.  We started with ten initial designs and slowly boot-strapped our way from there”.

I wanted to know if David ever got his tea towel: “Yes, David got his tea towel.  It was a bit late for his birthday but he received a ‘Keep Left’ tea towel and he was very happy with it”.

“We have over 80 designs now and several more in production, shortly to be released.  We’re still coming up with ideas faster than we can get the designs out.  Tim is our chief designer and he’s a really talented guy.  The whole team feeds in ideas, and gives feedback on the first drafts though, especially on finding good quotes.  We’ve also used a freelance designer in the past.  We are always getting recommendations from customers, friends and family, all of which we add to our short list to think about.  Then once every few months we sit down, as a team, and debate which designs we want to be done.  There’s normally some impassioned debate and a voting process, if we don’t agree – it’s all very democratic , of course”.

“We sell mostly online, through our website.  But there’s a number of retailers around the country, mostly museum shops and booksellers, who stock our products and we have some great partnerships with them.  Make sure you check out, and support, your local radical bookshops, by the way; there’s a number of them throughout the country and they are a much better alternative to the usual book industry giants!”.

So I can see that all your tea towels have a message, radical but not necessarily in agreement with each other.  How does this work?  “Our central message is one of equality and fairness.  We believe we should all play by the same rules with no special privileges for the well-connected or wealthy.  On social media, we aim to produce a healthy and lively debate on political, philosophical and social issues but will never tell anyone which political party to vote for in an election.  Our products generally depict the Radical Movements, and figures, of the past and present, with a particular emphasis on left wing values.  However, this should not be taken as an endorsement, by ourselves, of the movement, or the persons, depicted, their actions or the consequences of their actions”.

“More than that, we work with family members and still get on!  We use natural, unbleached finishes, eco-friendly water-based inks.  Fabrics are woven in either Turkey or US and finished in UK.  To our knowledge no child labour has been used and employment practices are good.” 

How do you see the future of the Radical Tea Towel Company? “We’re currently focused on opening a branch of the Radical Tea Towel Company to serve the United States.  They have such an amazing radical political history – we’re overflowing with design ideas”.

Martin Luther King. On ‘loan’ from the Radical Tea Towel Company

American Democratic presidents. On ‘loan’ from Radical Tea Towel Company

There are two other areas of the work of the Radical Tea Towel Company that I am interested in: the Newsletter and the recent award of some small grants, by the Radical Tea Towel Company.  “We used to send out emails around Christmas time, just letting people know about the latest designs we made.  But Luke was speaking to people about the best way to use our mailing list, as a way to communicate with your customers, and some customers were even asking for more stories about the characters on our tea towels.  Luke enjoys writing so just started putting together these histories based on our tea towel designs.  It’s become an important part of the business – people like hearing stories and reading interesting stuff; it’s much more engaging than traditional sales copy and we love getting encouraging messages from people who read the emails”.  I am on the mailing list for loads of email newsletters and, I have to say, that the emails from Radical Tea Towel Company are the ones I always read; many others don’t see light of day.

“We’ve always hoped that our business could be a vehicle for raising awareness about politically important causes, both in history and today.  We do that through the designs, but it’s also nice to help in a practical/material way, when you can afford to give something back.  Even small amounts of money can make a real difference to some causes: for example, the money we sent to CRIBS International helped house a refugee mother and her children.  Many people have noted the connections between some of our designs and issue-based campaigns today; it’s nice to make that link more explicit.  We also know that our customers are full of ideas for great causes to support and we wanted to ask their advice about who would most benefit from the money”.

As a true lover of history, I am amazed that someone would think of creating tea towels from some of the more obscure political movements that many people will not have heard about (since history is no longer a compulsory subject on the school curriculum): things like the Tolpuddle Martyrs, the Chartist Movement, Spanish Civil War, Owain Glyndwr, the Jarrow March.  I think some of the issues on these tea towels demonstrate what children are missing and hopefully people are inspired to read further on the social history of Britain.

Thank you to the Radical Tea Towel Company for their time.  It is a fascinating tour of the social history of Britain, and the wider world, one that many people may miss out on unless they do the wiping up!

http://www.radicalteatowel.com

Linda lives in Canada, Alberta to be precise, the Wild Rose Country (see the International Collection!).  I ‘met’ Linda through a love a tea towels; these days, that’s how I meet most people; Linda is a collector and I need to find out more about that!  This is the story of Linda’s tea towel.

“This is my oldest tea towel, agewise.  I found it recently in a Thrift Store for $2.99.  It celebrates Canada’s centennial.  As you can see, it has never been used; just put away for 50 years.  It is proof that ‘pure linen lasts’.  The original tag is still attached  so that must be some strong adhesive!  My family arrived in Canada in 1966.  Money was tight and I don’t remember my Mother buying one.

This year Canada celebrated 150 years and I couldn’t find a tea towel anywhere so I was glad I found this one.  I like the tea towel because I live in Alberta, Wild Rose Country and wild roses still grow here; I was raised in British Columbia where Dogwoods bloom in the late Spring.

My collection really began in 1981 with six Australian linen tea towels as a wedding present from an aunt.  One is still in my collection but no onger used.  My sons buy me Scottish tea towels when they don’t know what to get me for Christmas or my birthday.  One from Iceland has been my latest addition – fun and colourful.

Sadly, a good tea towel along the lines of Canadian Centennial appear to have disappeared in North America.  The towelling types are preferred here.  There was a tea towel sold for the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee but it was very unattractive and it is practically water repellent!  But, as a collector, I had to buy it as it was the only one available.  That is why I love this one so much”.

Thank you Linda for sharing your great ‘find’.  I love it.

I have known Lyn for about 18 years; she is part of my extended ‘network’ who appear in my Blogs (and she knows most of them).  She is Liz’s sister, Jean’s niece, David’s daughter, Sarah’s mother, Rob’s wife; that makes it sound as though she has no role of her own.  Lyn worked for John Lewis for ages, then in the NHS until she retired.  She is a great Pilates fan, loves walking, going around gardens and enjoys cooking, is an avid holiday-goer and takes pride in the planning of a holiday (although her Croatia holiday plan didn’t include breaking her wrist).  Lyn has loads of tea towels which I am pleased to say she uses on a rotational basis.  She has also managed to persuade a number of her friends that I would love to house some of their tea towels; it’s so exciting.  I was wondering what her Guest Tea Towel would be, and I got it wrong!

“Here is my Guest Tea Towel picture.  I don’t really have a favourite tea towel; it depends on my mood etc etc (I know what she means) but I really do like this one.  If you remember, you and Liz bought it for us when you visited Jean, shortly after Dad had had his stroke.  So I associate it with Jean and her ‘Be Strong’ mantra!”  We had been to Aberdeen to tell Jean about her brother’s stroke and she kept saying that we all had to ‘Be Strong’ and ‘Do what you want to do, now, because you never know what will happen’.  It is certainly something to hold on to.

“Also it makes me think of Scotland which is always a good thing and the impetus to start planning our next Scottish trip.”  There speaks the woman who has just returned from a trip to Mull, Colonsay, Islay and Arran!

Thank you Lyn.  I know what you mean; the Saltire brings goose bumps to my arms and the desire to set off to Scotland now.