Wartime in Wool

 Yesterday my old friend Bryan (Appleyard) paid a visit to Lichfield. We met, as usual, in the cathedral, which, on his last visit, was hosting an exhibition of Peter Marlow's wonderful photographs of English cathedrals. This time, by way of contrast, much of the cathedral was given over to a vast exhibition, The Longest Yarn 2, which tells the story of wartime Britain in a series of eighty 'wool art' tableaux composed entirely of, er, knitting wool. Above, for example, is VE Day at Buckingham Palace. 
   What can I say? This was clearly a labour of love, created by an army of volunteers over who knows how many man/woman-hours. It covers the whole duration of the war, from Chamberlain's broadcast to VJ Day, taking in the Blitz, rationing, the Battle of Britain, evacuees, bomber raids, D-Day, street parties, the lot. The trouble is that knitting wool has, shall we say, limited expressive possibilities, and knitted figures inevitably look like something from vintage children's television, with their round faces, button noses and vacuous expressions. Despite this, I understand that many people are finding the exhibition moving and impressive – and it is certainly attracting large numbers of visitors: the cathedral was heaving. It is, in its very English way, sweet, charming, and quite bonkers. Perhaps, if I hadn't watched the seriously moving BBC documentary Children of the Blitz the night before, The Longest Yarn 2 might have done more for me...
   Then we walked round Stowe Pool, dropped into St Chad's church, enjoyed an excessively liquid lunch, and had a look around the Samuel Johnson Birthplace Museum, where, in the bookshop, I bought a copy of Piers Brendon's Eminent Edwardians, and a facsimile of a letter from Boswell to Johnson.