The international lace festival at Bailleul in Northern France has long been something I’ve known to be very special, but not having driven my car on the Continent (having allowed my husband to do it in the past) I’ve not had the courage up to now to try it.  The opportunity to share a stand with the Czech lace artist Jitka von Lindern pushed me into it, however; how could I refuse such a wonderful opportunity?

Bailleul is near the border with Belgium, and after studying the map, I began to wonder if the nearest town to the north, Ieper, had any connection with Ypres? It turned out to be one and the same so is, of course, in an area close to the hearts of many with ancestors who fought in the First World War – my own grandparents met in Northern France, my grandmother as a WAAC and her future husband an engineer in the RASC, while my great-grandfather (a retired Regimental Tailor) had re-enlisted and gone to serve in Belgium.  So it proved a good opportunity to see such things for myself on a quiet evening before the festival started (see left: the Menin Gate at Ypres, and Tyne Cot cemetery, Passchendaele).

The lace and the lacemakers were an eye-opener to me; France has a well-established mechanism for recognising their best crafts people, and there were two of the ‘Meilleurs Ouvriers de France’ in attendance, including Catherine Herve (see her caterpillar in the photo below).

Bailleul is the home of a ‘bastard Valenciennes’ lace slightly coarser than the original and their lace school had a wide variety of laces on display, including a spectacular panel with what seemed like hundreds of brightly coloured circles. There were many young people demonstrating, especially on the Sunday, and it was pleasing to see one making one of my patterns!

Lace also came from Canada (Diane Hudon, with a beautifully carved pillow tray made by her husband), and from other parts of France, including Pierre Varenne from near Sens, and Michel Jourde, well known from Lace Express.

All kinds of lace were in evidence, including tatting by Edwige Renaudin from Vincennes, and among the supplies were beautiful bone bobbins from the Loire, silk threads from Switzerland and handmade bobbins from Germany – although I never found the second room of suppliers and didn’t see what else was on offer. There were also a number of lace exhibitions throughout the town, including one by a group led by Martine Bruggeman, Kant Act de Bruges, at the Library, and an interesting historical survey at the town’s museum, old laces delicately inserted into their usual display in a way that made their discovery relevant and contextual.

It was a fascinating weekend, during which people gradually became acclimatised to my lace made from weaving and knitting threads, and plucked up the courage to buy a patterns, although I know now that next time I publish new ones I must cut the verbiage.  Since I speak some French, I was able to chat to passers-by which made it very enjoyable for me; some, however, were surprised to see an Englishwoman there.  ‘I didn’t know there was lace in England,’ said one lady. So it was good to wave the flag.

Quartered in a former seminary at Merville, south of Bailleul, with other participants from far afield, I took the opportunity to learn about the Great War from the French perspective, that town having been fought over, and pretty well destroyed, by the end of the war.  A beautifully-written book on the subject had me in tears at the description of how bravely all the men of the town had gone away to fight, leaving their wives and families to fend for themselves as best they could, with prices spiralling out of sight, and the town doing its best to support them.  The town was eventually captured in 1918 and reduced to rubble when re-taken.

I always appreciated that it must have been awful to live in an area fought over like that, and our hostel was one of many, many buildings which had had to be rebuilt afterwards. A poster in the Bailleul lace catalogue on sale at the museum showed a newspaper illustration of ‘The resurrection of Flanders lace’ in 1920 with women picking up their bobbins amid ruins still untouched after the war.  So I came home with a new appreciation of many things other than lace, and keen to go again in three years’ time.

Clockwise from the top: The Menin Gate at Ypres, where local buglers still sound the Last Post at 8pm daily, watched by large crowds; Tyne Cot cemetary at Passchendaele, recently visited by Queen Elizabeth; the spectacular display of colour circles by students of the Maison de la Dentelle, Bailleul; work from Pierre Varenne; Catherine Herve’s caterpillar; more work from Pierre Varenne; wire lace in one of the Bailleul displays.

Pierre Varenne is a retired teacher whose wife also makes lace.  His work is serene and beautiful and this is a happy man, exploring the world around him through the medium of his lace bobbins.  Each piece of work is painstaking and created over many weeks.