Remembering 1969

I have finished my 1969 box for the Embroidery Guild's 40th anniversary and exhibition. I think I might have done a better job if I hadn't left it to the last minute. This is the outside.


These are the contents.


We are asked to write about what the box and/or its contents meant. This is my statement about 1969.

• I was pregnant for most of the year – our daughter Helen was born on November 28. This why I included the pregnant doll with a dress made from fabric that I once made into a dress for myself about this time. I have included the dress pattern that I used. I also included photos of the proud first time parents.

• I worked full-time as a High School teacher until August. One of the subjects I taught was Social Studies, so I did take some notice of what was happening in the world. I recall the frisson of awe I felt on hearing Neil Armstrong’s voice from the Moon. I made a little book of photos from Apollo 11. Because so much happened that year I covered my box with newspaper reports of notable happenings: from the sublime - moon landings and the first flight of the Concorde to the ridiculous – John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s “bed-in” and Christo’s wrapping of Little Bay in Sydney.

• My husband and I established a fortnightly local newspaper that circulated in the Rockingham – Medina area (R-M News). We did everything related to its publishing: chased up information, wrote the news items, organised the advertising and did the literal “cut and paste” layout for the printer (NO computers – it was typed on an IBM golf ball typewriter, cut up and glued to master sheets), then collated each issue by hand. We did pay for students to deliver it, though. It lasted for 19 issues and would probably have continued for longer, but we had decided to go to teach in Papua New Guinea and we couldn’t find anyone to take it on. There are photocopies of the outside pages of the first and last issues.