“In both wars, women took the place of men in London Transport jobs”
This is the fourth square of my London Faces Patchwork. It is a patchwork of papers gleaned from the pavements of the city in which I live. There are twenty-five squares making up the whole piece. You can see it here.
Sadly, the woman (from 1917) in the square in unnamed.
The quote and the picture were taken from ‘The London Bus And Tube Book’ by Nicola Baxter. Design Consultant, Jeremy Rewse-Davies. Editorial Assistant, Sharon Appleton. Photographer not credited. Published by Hodder and Stoughton, 1994.
Bought by Bromley Libraries in 1994, and sold to me, in a rather knackered state, in 2010.
The patchwork is in my shop.
I wonder what she is doing? Washing the bus, I think it is? I think from the larger picture, that is what I am seeing? Fantastic.
Yes, I think so too. I had to keep checking the date, because it doesn’t look as far back as 1917. There is something quite modern about her. Once the men came home, they went back to the jobs and everything went back to how it was before. I expect, though, it never went back to how it was before.
Lucy, (the lady who is getting married to Nev, and whose wedding invitations I made last year) left me a message to say that during the war ‘blackouts’, it was her Gran’s (the one whose anniversary cards I used) job to walk in front of the bus with a torch!
That was a long sentence!
I just emailed you when you were writing your comment 🙂
Got your message, thanks!
I think it’s her outfit, the work suit really looks like what people wear even today.
Love that part about the bus and the torch (or flashlight, as we would say here!)
We are having a lot of tomater/tomata potata/potatar type conversations :))))
Let’s not call the whole thing off, though.
!!!
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