Scarlet Girl - Pixie hat - Capital Collections

Category

Museums & Galleries Item

Item no

39818

Title

Scarlet Girl - Pixie hat

Description

The following writing was inspired by wintry objects in the Museum of Childhood collections. The writers are part of 26, a group of writers with a love of words, who have invented a form of writing, called a sestude, consisting of 62 words.

'Scarlet Girl'

'Clickity clack' is the soft soundtrack to her secret;
the humble hiss of gas streetlamps drifting through the window, her concerto.

Shrouded in shadows, tirelessly she works.
The snug bed recess a nemesis of temptation;
soundly sleeping sisters a thoughtless jeer.

Come Christmas her hardships reap rewards: a pixie hat and victory.
She wears her arduously won censored colour;
Mother's summer ultimatum, shredded by defiance.'

By Laura McIntyre

Image: Hand Knitted Wool Pixie Hat 1940s

Date

1940

Type

Textile

Location

Museum of Childhood

Accession number

MC.2012.54

26 Children's Winters is a project that has challenged writers to respond creatively and emotionally to objects housed in the collection of the Museum of Childhood, Edinburgh. The writers were selected from 26 and they were allocated different groups of objects that related to childhood experience during the winter time, in the past and in the present. The written responses were in the form of a sestude - 62 words exactly, 26 in reflection. Those sestudes are presented here alongside the Museum objects.

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