I am making a large cake for a community event to celebrate the Coronation of King Charles 111.
I have started with a crown made from sugar paste (not fondant) to decorate the cake . This will dry and harden for 3 weeks and I shall make the 9 inch and 6 inch cakes just before they are needed. I find that Betty Crocker mixes made with melted butter works well when large quantities are needed for catering for a lot of people.
I have based the cake design on one by lucyssugarshack which can be found at
I have been looking for a new craft to try, I have not felt like returning to the drawing and painting that I did before Covid . I have found a new creative textile craft ,needle felting. Here are some of the eggs and Easter themed things I have made. It is easy to store the materials and calming to handle the lovely wools that I have bought. I sell my results to raise funds for charities supported by a local church. They also make pretty gifts for family and friends.
Eggs to hang on a tree
Chickens
Colourful Hens
How to Needle Felt
See my book reviews on the subject at
www.jan-arts.com where instructions on how to needle felt are given.
The 1901 census finds Mary Elizabeth Green and her six children in Northampton, England. They were living in a Victorian house built like many others to house the workers in the recently established surrounding clothing and shoe factories .The industrial revolution came late to Northampton ,previously most work was done at home but the invention of the Singer Sewing Machine changed the speed and ease with which boots and shoes could be stitched. Mary named the house Parammatta ,a suburb of Sydney in memory of the time they spent in Australia.
From this house Jimmy worked as a tailor, Mary as a forewoman in a shirt factory Henrietta as a shirt cutter, and Aggie as clerk in the shirt factory. Their father had trained them well and their skills enabled them to find work and flourish. In 1902 the factory girls sent Mary a letter of appreciation .
The Green children grew up remaining a close knit family .Aggie, Jimmy and William and Henrietta (my grandmother) married and had their own children. This is them enjoying a picnic in the long hot summer of 1913 with their spouses unaware that the storm clouds were gathering before a war that was to change many lives.
The pasted in picture is probably of Julia. The old lady is Aunt Sarah, sister of the late James Green. Henrietta is not in this photo, she has problems of her own to deal with, more of this later.
About 1906 Mary bought a a corner shop which gave her an source of income and she could leave the job in the shirt factory. She was a thrifty, hardworking woman who gave support to her family and friends .Her housekeeping was legendary and the last batch of bread that she baked was consumed at her own funeral in 1944.
I can just remember her in long skirts and a large white apron when I went to tea with her on Thursday afternoons.
This family history will now continue through the life of Henrietta (Etty) Green .
I am going to continue this blog with my family history. This is about ordinary people, their successes failures loves and losses.
A Colonial Adventure
England to Australia 1885
In 1885 my great grandparents James Green and his wife Elizabeth were living in Coventry and working as a tailors. They had three children Jimmy, Aggie and Henrietta .Life was hard, the industrial boom of the early Victorian years was over ,loss of respectability and the work house constant threats. Encouraged by the highly coloured statements of emigration touts they were induced with assisted passages to try their luck down under in Australia.
Mary Elizabeth had her photograph taken before they left .This costume showed off their tailoring skills supported by a painfully tight corset underneath.
After a long sea voyage they arrived in Newcastle, Australia, New South Wales eventually settling down in Adamstown. They set up a tailor's store , making working clothes for other immigrants. They had four more children ,Willie, Kitty ,Nellie and Julia .The children learned to cut fabric and sew. They went to a local school, Henrietta was a bright little girl , her photo was taken as the only girl to win a prize.
After ten years of everyone working hard , they made enough money for a visit home to England in 1894 .But tragedy struck when their youngest child, Julia, became ill and died suddenly .Shocked by this loss they buried little Julia in London Road Cemetery in Coventry and returned to Australia to carry on.
On their return they were photographed outside their shop.
James Green, Jimmy, Henrietta and Aggie, Mary Elizabeth, Willie , Kittie and Nellie above.
At some point James joined a Friendly Society. This was a wide decision for on 29th June 1898 he died in Camperdown Hospital from exhaustion and pneumonia aged forty one.
The Friendly Society
It is likely that the Society helped Mary to sell the business pay for the long voyage back home to England accompanied by her six children and with James' body on board The Augusta . They could only afford the cheapest berths near the boilers where they were constantly covered in smoke and soot. On arrival home James body was interred in the same grave as Julia. Their colonial adventure was over .Mary's priority was to find her family employment and avoid the workhouse.
Every area in the UK has now been put into a category telling the inhabitants what they should do to avoid spreading Covid19.The problem is that only Liverpool seems to have received precise instructions and everywhere else is waiting until they receive further information. We are clueless in Cambridge.
It is disturbing to learn that expert scientific advice was given to the government to take much sterner methods on 21st September .Once again Boris Johnson is behind the curve .He might decide to order a major lockdown from 24th October. What a mess this man is. He appeared on TV with his peroxide bleached hair visibly dropping out of his skull looking as one journalist noted "as if he has had a fight with a cat"
We have had three holidays cancelled ,the few days in Aldeburgh we have booked in early November look as if they might be cancelled now.
We went into Cambridge city early this morning to get an influenza jab followed by a coffee and delicious pain au raisin in Patisserie Valerie to help me recover.
The University students are back and in my view represent an immediate threat to the citizens. Wandering about in large groups, not wearing masks they think nothing of shoving old ladies like me in to the gutter to avoid stepping aside. Some use the city streets as their personal running track, breathing heavily and puffing all over other pavement users. There are plenty of parks and open spaces available to them in this city.
There are other sources of infection too, the Big Issue sellers shouting at passers by, no masks again Outside supermarkets are carefully placed aggressive beggars, no distancing and no masks .Doorways of empty shops are full of rough sleepers with mounds of filthy bedding , stinking of urine and accompanied by flea infested dogs. A few minutes observation will soon inform you that many of these people are actually drug dealers and addicts.
The authorities do nothing to clean up and deal any of these issues.
Poppy Brooch Kit
The poppy brooch crochet kit has arrived, so has the instruction book I sent for from Amazon, it is incomprehensible resembling instructions for constructing nautical knots. By the far the best instructions can be found on YouTube.
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