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First published 2025 by: Bustle & Sew Station House West Cranmore Shepton Mallet BA4 4QP
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WelcometotheAprilMagazine
Now, without a doubt, spring has finally and irreversibly sprung! April is such a beautiful time of year, immortalised in poetry by Robert Browning…
Oh, to be in England Now that April's there, And whoever wakes in England Sees, some morning, unaware, That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf, While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough In England—now!
This year of course Easter falls at almost its latest - Sunday 20 April - so inside this issue we have bunnies galore, as well as taking a look at a less well-known Easter tradition - Pace Egging (page 29). There are seasonal recipes to enjoy too (page 39) and a little look at the life and work of a forgotten artist, Tirzarh Garwood, wife of the much better known artist Eric Ravillious (page 59).
I’m off to start planting out some of my seedlings now - best to take advantage of the warm sunny intervals between those famous showers if I want to enjoy my own produce later in the year. Then it’s back to the needle and hoop for a little al fresco stitching!
I do hope you’ll enjoy this month’s magazine and the May edition will be published on Thursday 25 April, in four weeks time. Until then…
Very best wishes
April
Spring is an uncertain time of year. As the sun grows in strength, the soil warms but the air is still cold, bringing us fine spells of sunshine followed by squally showers. The nights may still be frosty, but just as the days seem to be more settled, a deep Arctic depression may settle upon us bringing rain, sleet and sometimes even snow. But still, April is the month when the buds burst on the trees and the greening of the countryside around us is one of the joys of living in a temperate part of the world where the seasons are so distinct.
A fine April morning is, to my mind, one of the most wonderful times of year. The freshness and clarity of the air and the exuberance of the birdsong is delightfully invigorating, whilst there is the promise of the
whole summer ahead yet to come. In town and country alike, April is a very special time of year. In towns it’s often the trees that help residents follow the progress of the year. Whether native specimens like the oaks of Greenwich and other city parks, or long-ago introductions such as sycamores and limes, magnificent horse chestnuts and the London plane tree, all trees are a window on the changing seasons. Because of the heat generated by cities the buds of these urban trees usually open earlier than in the countryside.
The first of the month is of course April Fools’ Day - the traditional day for playing tricks on people. In the past, rather than April Fools’ Day it was almost always known as “All Fools’ Day” parodying the Christian
Church’s “All Souls’ Day” and “Al Saints’ Day”. Its origins and development remain a mystery, but it has been celebrated for at least four centuries and probably much longer than that.
“Nineteen Eighty-Four,” the novel by George Orwell (published in 1949) begins with Winston Smith beginning his diary on April 4. This is a dangerous thing to do since, whilst it isn’t technically illegal, there is the potential for it to be punishable by death or twenty-five years in a forced labour camp if discovered. April 4 is also the day that Martin Luther King, a prominent leader in the American Civil Rights campaign, was assassinated in 1968.
On April 10, 1633, the herbalist Thomas Johnson put a bunch of bananas in his shop window in Snow Hill, London. This was the first time that the fruit had been so displayed in England, and it wasn’t until the late nineteenth century that bananas were regularly imported into this country. However, a banana skin dating from around 1500 has been found by archaeologists near Southern, on the south bank of the River Thames, suggesting that at least one specimen of the fruit had found its way to London in Tudor times.
This year Palm Sunday falls on April 13. This is the beginning of Easter, or Holy, Week and it can fall anywhere between 15 March and 18 April. It commemorates Christ’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem on a donkey, when, according to the Gospels, the people spontaneously gathered to welcoming “Took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, “Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord.”
In the Middle Ages, this day was celebrated with elaborate rituals, “palms” were gathered beforehand, blessed in church, and then waved or strewn in front of a procession of clergy, which could also include a wooden donkey on wheels, or a picture of Christ riding one. Churches were decorated and the day was one of joyful celebration.
This is also the time to listen for the sound of the cuckoo, sadly less and less common these days. Many superstitions surround Cuckoo Day and the first cuckoo call of the year, which is said to occur some time between 14 and 20 April depending upon what part of the country you’re in. The number of calls you hear that first time are said to determine how many years you have left to live, or perhaps how many years until you get married. You will be super-lucky if you have some coins in your pocket and even luckier still if you jingle them as this means you won’t have any money worries during the coming year. It’s bad luck though to hear this first call from your bed as you are likely to suffer from illness very soon - unless of course you leap up immediately and start running away!
This year Easter falls on April 20, almost as late as it possibly can, and it is of course, the most important festival in the Christian calendar, celebrating as it does, Christ’s Resurrection. It was once believed that the sun danced for joy as it rose on this day, and people would flock to high places to observe this phenomenon.
This year Easter is very late, falling on Sunday 16 April. The date can fall anytime between March 22 and April 25. It’s calculated by a very ancient formula dating back nearly seventeen hundred years. Easter Day is always the first Sunday after the first Full Moon on or after March 21st (the spring or vernal equinox). If the Full Moon is on a Sunday, Easter Day is on the next Sunday.
Whenever Easter falls, we love to celebrate the final ending of winter, in much the same way as our pagan ancestors who would light great bonfires to mark the return of the sun after a long cold winter. Today our Easter celebrations are the most
Eastertide
glorious muddle of ancient pagan traditions and Christian customs. The symbolism of fire is still used in Christian worship at Easter. In Catholic churches on Easter Eve, all candles are extinguished, then the great Paschal candle is lit and from its flame all the other candles are rekindled. The custom of decorating churches with spring flowers and greenery owes more than a little to the ancient Celtic practice of tree worship.
At the original feast of Eostre, the goddess of spring, eggs were used to represent renewal and new life. Centuries later the Christian church adopted the egg, using it as a potent
symbol for the Resurrection. Ancient games like egg-rolling (originally performed to ensure good crops and large families) were reinterpreted so that the egg came to symbolize the rolling away of the stone from the door of Christ’s tomb.
French children still play catch with coloured hard-boiled eggs until someone drops one and the game comes to an end. In Greece on Easter Sunday it’s customary for people to carry a red egg with them. Whenever two people meet they tap their eggs together. One person says “Christ is risen” and the other responds “Truly is he risen.”
From “The Diary of a Country Parson, 1778 by James Woodforde (1740-1803)
TheJoyof Spring….
Nettle Spanakopita
Ingredients
● 150g nettle leaves
● 100g butter
● 25g solid, 75g melted
● 200g feta
● crumbled
● 50g parmesan
● finely grated
● 1 lemon
● zested and juiced
● 1 egg
● beaten
● grated nutmeg
● 7 sheets filo pastry
● 1 tbsp sesame seeds
● Method
● For the filling, wash the nettles well but don’t drain them too thoroughly. Heat the solid butter in a large frying pan. When it’s sizzling and has turned a nutty brown, add the nettles and cook for about 6 mins until wilted. Leave to cool.
● Using a tea towel, squeeze as much liquid out of the nettles as you can, then roughly chop and tip into a bowl. Mix in the feta, parmesan, lemon zest and juice, about two-thirds of the egg and some nutmeg, and season generously. The filling should be loose but not sloppy.
● Heat oven to 200C/180C fan/gas 6. To assemble the spanakopita, lay three sheets of filo end-to-end on your work surface, overlapping by about 5cm. Brush each piece with melted butter and top with three more sheets, then brush with more butter and add the final sheet to the middle for extra support. Spoon the nettle mix along the edge, about 2cm wide, and tuck over the short ends to stop any filling from coming out. Roll the pastry into a long sausage shape. Starting with one end, roll up the sausage into a spiral shape about 20cm wide. Put the spanakopita in a shallow round pan, like an ovenproof frying pan, if it fits. If not, slide it onto a buttered baking tray.
● Brush the pie liberally with the remaining egg and scatter with the sesame seeds. Bake for 40-45 mins or until golden brown. Leave to cool until just warm, then serve in slices with a peppery salad.
Using nettles instead of spinach gives the classic spanakopita a spring time twist. Young nettles are a sweet, nutritious and free alternative to spinach
RhubarbandCustard
CrumbleCake
Ingredients
● 125g butter softened, plus extra for the tin
● 400g rhubarb chopped into 1cm chunks
● 200g golden caster sugar
● 150g self-raising flour
● 50g quick-cook polenta
● 3 tbsp custard powder
● ½ tsp baking powder
● 2 eggs
● 1 tsp vanilla extract
● 125ml soured cream
● icing sugar for dusting
● 100g golden caster sugar
● 60g plain flour
● 2 tbsp custard powder
● 1 tbsp quick-cook polenta
● 50g butter cubed
Method
● Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Butter and line the base and sides of a 23cm round springform cake tin with baking parchment. Mix a third of the rhubarb with 1 tbsp of the sugar and set aside.
● To make the crumble topping, mix the sugar, flour, custard powder and polenta together in a bowl. Add the butter and rub into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs, then set aside.a bowl, then set aside. In a second bowl, beat the butter and remaining sugar until well combined, and lightened in colour slightly. Add the eggs one by one, beating well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla and soured cream, before folding in the flour mix and the remaining rhubarb that was not coated in sugar.
● Spread the cake mixture in the prepared tin, then top with the sugarcovered rhubarb and scatter over the crumble topping. Bake for 1 hr-1 hr 10 mins until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean. Leave to cool in the tin for 15 mins, then carefully remove from the tin and leave to cool completely on a wire rack. Cut into slices to serve and dust with a little icing sugar, if you like
Will keep in the fridge for up to three days. Pour over double cream to serve, if you like.
ANiceCupofTea
Tea has long been an integral part of British culture, shaping everything from daily routines to our national identity. The British are one of the world’s largest tea drinkers, consuming around a hundred million cuppas daily! I know I certainly contribute to this total as there is nothing nicer (in my opinion) than sitting down to stitch with a nice cup of tea at my side.
Tea was first introduced to this country in the mid-seventeenth century when it was imported by Portuguese and Dutch merchants. However it was Catherine of Braganza, the Portuguese wife of King Charles II who made tea fashionable at court in the 1660’s. Soon it became an essential refreshment among the aristocracy.
A century later, the British East India Company had taken control of the tea trade, importing vast amounts from China, and later from British plantations in India and Sri Lanka. Tea became more accessible to the middle and working classes particularly after the government slashed the high tea taxes in the 1780’s.
Probably the most famous tearelated incident ever took place around this time must however, be a non-British affair - the Boston Tea Party.
This was a critical moment in the history of the American Revolution as an act of colonial defiance against British rule. In Boston harbour, on 16 December 1773, American colonists, disguised as Mohawk Indians, boarded British ships and threw 340 chests of tea owned by the East India Company into the water. They were protesting about the tax on tea, levied without representation in the British Parliament and against the monopoly of the East India Company.
An early twentieth century grocier’s shop.
TirzahGarwood: ForgottenGenius
Inspired by the new exhibition “Beyond Ravilious” at the Dulwich Picture Gallery, I thought it would be interesting to take a (very) little look at the life and work of Tirzah Garwood, (1908-51) a talented artist and printmaker in her own right, but until now best remembered as the wife of British artist Eric Ravilious.
Eileen Lucy Garwood was born in Gillingham, Kent, the middle child of five. An enquiry by a relative into 'Little Tertia' – the third child – led to her older siblings nicknaming her Tirzah after the Biblical character, and the name stuck. It suited the sharp-eyed, imaginative girl who spent summers hunting insects with her older brother John. As their father was a professional soldier - a colonel in the Royal Artillery the family moved around frequently, especially during the period of the First World War, which the spent mostly in the countryside south of Croydon.
Tirzah’s parents were both keen amateur artists and encouraged her to make botanical studies and draw scenes of fantasy and adventure. When she was eighteen, Tirzah went to art college in Eastbourne, where she was taught wood engraving by her future husband, British artist Eric Ravilious. She took to this new medium with alacrity andwas still a teenager when the Society of Wood Engravers accepted her first work for exhibition the following year, and in 1928 she exhibited Hall of Mirrors (below). It seems to me from this image that women were just as bodyconscious then as we are today.
Tirzah Garwood
1929 Engraving “The Dog Show”
Thegardenwasfullofflowers-daffodils, tulips,wallflowers,forget-me-nots, pansies,oxslips,primroses-andonthe wallsofthehousecherry-coloured Japanesequince. Thebudsofirisand peonieswerealreadyfatwithpromise,and theroseswereinleafandtinybud. From “The Lark” 1922 by E Nesbit (1858-1924)
