Saturday 29 April 2017

This week I've spent two days in Liverpool on a School for Social Entrepreneurs course - which gave me and my colleague a chance to hang out fpr an hour at 'Paddy's Wigwam' (ie the beautiful Catholic Cathedral) three minutes' walk from Blackburne House where the course took place.



by Diliff - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34030269

Blackburne House is also a fascinating place - a former girls' school dating from a time when girls weren't really educated, but the owner of the house wanted his daughter educated, so founded a school!  Which is now an access centre for women in Liverpool going onto trades and other learning opportunities. And for the SSE.  And has a fabulous canteen.  But I'll be back there another 8 times this year so can make more of that another time.

This time a couple of thoughts about the Cathedral.  .... what impressed me was spending time reading the commentary about the tapestry by Jill Hutchinson....


From http://purpleclaire.tumblr.com/post/21207237136/this-is-one-of-the-most-impressive-pieces-of'

it's made from wool and manmade fibres but also plastic bags and other recycled stuff... it was made in three parts because there wasn't anywhere big enough for a loom to hold the whole thing at once... but the thing that most got to me was that it took her SEVEN YEARS.... due to other work commitments, and a year lost to illness... an amazing commitment. I can't find anything about her on the web at all...

also a beautiful mosaic that my colleague pointed out, by Georg Mayer-Marton who had escaped from Hungary in the Nazi era...

We were there at 8.30 a.m. and it was great to see the cathedral waking up for the day, with the cleaners going round, and the organist tuning the organ ready for the day.