Textile and Sewing History in the Family Tree

Sail on Silver Girl - More Textile and Sewing History

In previous blog posts, I've written about my Latvian great-grandmother Otillie, and my grandmother Betty through their sewing exploits. This time we're saying hello to my Mum Rozanne, who has always sewed, as well as being interested in a wide variety of crafts over the years.

Rozanne was born in Trinidad, where her own mother had moved to marry her father. She was educated in Trinidad, and also in England on and off while her parents travelled during her father's annual leave. Long transatlantic voyages were the norm during her childhood and she became acquainted with the routine of life on board large passenger ships. Perhaps it's ironic therefore that she fell in love with a Navy rating, who enjoyed traditional Jazz music and played the banjo. It was very much a love match.

Mum was taught to sew by her mother Betty in the days when made-to-measure, or home-sewn, clothing was the norm. Money was tight in the early days of her marriage, so Mum often made dresses for herself, and outfits for my brother and I when we were children. In the late sixties, when Dad was based at Haslar Hospital in Gosport with the Navy, he was asked to come up with some regular evening entertainment for the young nurses on the base. (The Admiral hoped that on-base activities might keep the nurses from exploring the town's more seedy pubs.) Folk music was enjoying a revival at this time, and it was not too difficult to play! Dad roped Mum in to serve the tea, and within a few months a small folk club was formed. After a few months in the recreation room, the Club was given space in the Napoleonic-era cellars beneath C Ward at Haslar, and a small group including Mum and Dad became hosts and house band under the name The Sailmaker's Yarn. Because of its location the folk club became known as the C-1 (C minus one) Club. In the early days Rozanne designed and drafted the posters for the Club by hand, and the image below was taken in the cellars after they had been cleaned up and painted by the Royal Navy NAAFI.

From hesitant, makeshift beginnings, the C-1 Club became a thriving live music venue, attracting acts from all over the UK. Within a few years Dad was invited to leave the Navy, as a career in entertainment was clearly beckoning. The reins of the Club were handed to a small team of budding entertainers who continued to build on its success.

Meanwhile, Mum and Dad were progressing in their nascent music career, performing in local folk clubs under the stage name of Sailmakers, a nod to their Haslar days. Rozanne was a reluctant accomplice as she worked to overcome natural stage fright, and lack of confidence in singing in public, Nevertheless, she learned to play the guitar well enough to sing and play an instrument on stage, and continued to do so for the next two decades.

Their life became increasingly nocturnal, and we had a host of babysitters which affected us very little in term time. The bonus was that we saw a lot of them during the day, especially in the school holidays when we accompanied them on gigs. Mum lent her sewing skills to making outfits to wear on stage (below), following in the footsteps of her mother and grandmother as she turned sewing into a part of her working life.

In the image below they're performing in a folk club, singing 'Sammy's Bar'.

Mum went on to develop a range of stage outfits for different types of audience and venue, with coordinated shirts and waistcoats for Dad, thanks to the textile and sewing history of the family. I only learnt recently that Dad drafted the sewing patterns. He was a beautiful singer, a very able artist, craftsman, multi-instrumentalist, and a pattern maker too apparently!

Mum took me on regular trips to London by train to find interesting fabrics and notions, and she had a small but stunning selection of shoes for stage at a time when snakeskin, transparent and jewel-encrusted footwear was not widely available. Sometimes I lent a hand, pressing diamante claws through a garment to add sparkle to her dresses to catch the stage lights. And some of the beautiful pearlised sequins I still have were from her stash. My brother and I often joined them on stage, he being a talented singer and bass player (among other things) and a great support to the family act throughout his late teens and early twenties.

In time, Sailmakers received regular bookings for theatres, and their repertoire developed to Top 40 ballads and songs from West End shows. London agents began engaging them for after-dinner cabaret, and they toured as a support act for well known stage and screen personalities on speaking tours, often overseas. At this time they began using specialist London designers for their stage clothes. Their career lasted for 22 years, until Dad abruptly died 30 years ago.

Rozanne's creativity and sewing skills were very much a part of my parents' success as entertainers, and yet many of her friends know little of this part of her life. I sometimes try to put myself in her shoes, and wonder whether my husband and I could have made a career of singing full time. It feels daunting today, and would have been no less so sixty years ago. Yet they raised a family in this line of work.

I have so much admiration for all that they achieved, and feel privileged to know about the hidden side of the life of an entertainer: late nights driving home, sweat-soaked stage clothes hanging on the bannister, a hallway full of instruments and PA, and beans on toast at 3am. Much later, we learned that Dad came from a long line of variety and music hall entertainers (which explained a thing or two), and has inspired a whole area of textile work that is being developed in sketch books for the future.

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