• A Life Journey: Interview 9

    This (Figure 1) is a dress that was made one of the winter afternoons that we sat round the dining room table. One of the maids did the embroidery and my aunt made it into a dress. I’m not sure if it’s on the photograph you were talking about before.…

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  • A Life Journey: Interview 8

    So tell us about the picture we’re looking at now. This is Meldgaard. Well yes, it’s been in the family for a while and as you can see I lived in the part of Jutland that’s known as moraine country. Sorry, can you say that word again? Moraine country, that…

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  • A Life Journey: Interview 7

    So Karen, looking back on your long life, in Denmark and here, what would you say your greatest achievements have been? What are you most proud of? My daughter, because she is really wonderful. And also she married the nicest man on earth. And I’m very happy living with them…

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  • A Life Journey: Interview 6

    I wanted to ask you about the time you were at home with Katrina round about 1948, and you started working at home. Can you tell us about that? When Katrina was born I still wanted to be involved with working and thought it would be nice to work at…

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  • A Life Journey: Interview 5

    So Karen in the last interview, you told us that it was the most marvellous experience to go to the Copenhagen Art school. Yes. Well I think I loved every minute of being there even though it was wartime and it was dangerous sometimes to be in Copenhagen. Of course…

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  • A Life Journey: Interview 4

    Today I thought we could talk about your education, and first of all I thought I’d ask you about your education in Jutland, from when you were a little girl. Well, my family have always been great believers in the folk high schools, which were begun by a priest of…

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  • A Life Journey: Interview with Katrina

    So Katrina, can you tell us some of your earliest memories of your mother? Yes, I think so, I think so. I think that the first memory, and I think it is a real memory, is of when I was about 18 months old, I think. And we were living…

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  • From rags to research

    The Beginning When I married and came to England in 1946 I had just completed a three-year course in weaving and design at Kunsthåndværkerskolen in Copenhagen. At that time the Art School was still housed in the Museum of the Decorative Arts. I had loved the collections there and the…

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  • The beginning of the Textile Conservation Centre

    Introduction Our first alumni meeting was about the dyeing of support fabrics. The meetings were a means of catching up with new developments, relating new experiences – and getting to know about how to organise such meetings. Mary Brooks asked me to talk about how the TCC began – I…

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  • A Life Journey: Interview 2

    So I thought we would start off by continuing to talk about your aunts, your uncles, your memories of them. Can you remember the names of your aunts and uncles? Yes, my mother’s sister was Agnes and she was a dressmaker. She was very very good at her work and…

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