During the Second World War, the women and children of Canada made nearly half a million quilts to comfort the victims of war in Europe. The vast majority of those quilts came to Britain to help those bombed out by the Blitz, to orphanages, hostels for land girls, and to hospitals and convalescent homes. After the war the quilts which were made of anything that people had to hand, from pyjama offcuts to silk dresses and warm coats, were forgotten. It only now, over eighty years later, that the story is being pieced together for the first time by some very determined researchers in Canada and the UK. It’s a tale that has never been properly told. The people who made the quilts were never thanked either by Canada or by the nations that received the quilts, and the quilts themselves have largely disappeared into memory. Just a few of them survive to remind us of this incredible operation.
Jo will bring a number of the rare surviving quilts with her and tell the story of how these are now being restored to both the national memory of Canada and Britain.
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