scene “Some of the characters were inspired by really knowing it prompted the title. Priscilla reminds her readers that, even real people, although no one character Furthermore, in Tangier Kasbah’s narrow when brought up differently, all humans depicts the life of any streets, I’ve seen young boys winding have primal values in common, which she individual,” she explains. by hand fine strands of cotton or silk identifies mainly in the search for true love, “I’ve seen young “The story is definitely not to make the elaborate cordons used curiosity and thirst for knowledge, whether boys winding autobiographical, though to trim kaftans and djellabas. Before scientific or practical, and the desire to by hand fine I have woven many of my being spun together, those threads not just satisfy one’s basic needs but also strands of personal thoughts into it, are so fine that you realise they are improve our lives in order to raise our cotton or silk...” and included experiences not a figment of the boys’ or your children in and hand them a better world and accounts from other imagination only when you step quite to pay our efforts forward. “Love, family, people I’ve met over the years, on either close to them.” friends: essentially we are all equal and side of the Strait. While writing it, my similar, but our upbringing can influence thoughts went beyond the characters and our life and that of others”. The first idea came almost a decade events in the story to meditate on our life, ago, and Priscilla, herself an avid reader behaviour and ambitions.” since her youth, claims that as “My parents were born in the a child she already knew that “Essentially we early twentieth century,” Priscilla Her message is that there are subtle she would write fiction one day. says. “I gleaned from their are all equal connections that tie all mankind together, She started putting pen to paper childhood memories and my and similar, but but they are often invisible and it is up to eight years ago and the opus was own life in the second half of the our upbringing century into the new millennium, us to disentangle the yarns and rewind finished in just over two years, can influence them back up tidily in the bobbin of our but ‘parked’ for six due to other all together a living memory of our life and life. A fitting metaphor for someone with commitments, and eventually beyond a full one hundred years. penchant and talent for designing and resumed during a working holiday that of others”. My convincing reason to bring crafting fairytale evening gowns, many in Tangier, when she did ‘nothing together characters apparently of which have graced the Miss Gibraltar but concentrating on the book in order unrelated but connected by those invisible pageant over the years: someone with to finish it’, while her husband Henry took threads was the deadline of the turn of the a sophisticated aesthetic sense and an care of shopping and cooking. century and millennium.” empathetic ear for social issues, especially those regarding women, thanks as well to The story touches upon social, religious With a front cover merging Rosina her stint as chairperson of the Women in and feminist issues, analysing how far Rosado’s painting and the graphic Business association (formerly the Gibraltar women have gone in their lifestyle elaboration by photographer Joey Business Network). expectations, with the twentieth century Martinez, ‘Invisible Threads’ is available being an intense and pivotal hurdled race in hardback, paperback and e-book The story The very title was in fact to ameliorate their professional aspirations from Amazon. The first forty pages are touches inspired by Priscilla’s own and medical care, first and foremost published in the website www.invisibibleupon social, sewing experiences with in childbirth, but also in the way their threads.net. The official launch will take religious every good seamstress’s conduct in public is perceived, struggling place on 8th September in Gibraltar. and feminist with poverty, ignorance, superstition, must-have, the ‘invisible issues... thread’: “As soon I started war and totalitarian regimes to eventually to plot the book, even debouch into a revolution against gender before writing it, the idea that some stereotyping that slowly but inevitably is people are connected to others without bridging the intercontinental gap.
Little did he know that the greatest surprise of the evening was to have nothing to do with the special dishes that he and his wife, Pat, were planning to serve, the entertainment they were to offer during the course of this auspicious night, or the gifts that they had so carefully selected for each of their guests.
Invisible Threads
T
ito was really enjoying this special day—the last day of 1999, the last day of the twentieth century. He had a great feeling about this evening’s celebrations and about the new century that was only hours away.
You could say that Tito and Pat had been mere instruments in a larger, more complex plan not of their making. It had begun long before either of them were even born, and it would shape their lives and the lives of others in the twenty-first century.
Invisible
Threads Priscilla Sacramento
Priscilla Sacramento
GIBRALTAR MAGAZINE SEPTEMBER 2016
63