After Nancy died in 2012, I inherited a bag destined for the rag collection. Closer inspection revealed the contents to be an array of pinnies and tabards, aprons and overalls spanning her decades as home-maker, house-keeper, and informal cleaner. Some were overalls inherited from her own mum who had charred around the streets and businesses of West Hampstead from the 1920s – 1960s.
Avoiding the ‘advice’ of friends to cut the collection up and turn them into ‘shabby chic'[ shudders at term] patchwork, the overalls will provide the fabric threads and tell the tale of past and present chars: women and men who ‘did’ for folks in a post-war era of non-servants. It will reveal how their ideas have captivated artists and writers, and turned them into dissenting heroines as well as stooges and jokes. Telling the tales of the Char serves to reveal cultural snobberies and snubbings of working class women which serve to pique and interplay with the contemporary invisibility of private domestic workforce in Britain in the 21st century.
A series of events and an exhibition is currently in production (dates and location TBC)