The Queens Coronation gown drawn by my Mum Evelyn Wood
Now this covers two people that I admire. The Queen and my Mother. As you might have guessed this is a fashion drawing of the Queen in her Coronation gown, 1953. My mother was the artist, she drew this sketch before rushing off to Scotland to marry her second husband. In the 1940’s and 1950’s pen and ink sketches were all the newspapers used for their fashion pictures and this is one of them. The year was 1953 and the artists were given a very small window of time to see the dress, sketch it and get it out to their newspapers.
The dress was stunning according to Mum, covered in precious jewels and embroidered with the symbolic plants of the United Kingdom…the Thistle for Scotland, the Rose for England, the Shamrock for Northern Ireland and the Leek for Wales. I was a great fan of the Royals, mainly for their wardrobe and all the clothes I couldn’t have and of course the jewellry. I do think the Queen has done a remarkable job, for a remarkable length of time, so I am a fan and she is my kind of people. Of course my Mother is defintely my kind of people, although she is no longer with us. She worked so hard and was very talented. As I may have mentioned we were quite poor and I remember her bringing freelance work home, which she often did at night, with her huge drawing board laid across her knees in bed, sketching. The ink part to be done later!
