Thank you, broadcaster Jo Andrews, for co-ordinating such a satisfying Haptic & Hue podcast on 'The Long and Winding Road of Lace'.  Although none of us involved - Christchurch historian Mike Andrews, Cape Town artist Pierre Fouche and New York lace researcher Elena Kanagy-Loux - knew what the other would be saying, Jo's skilful editing showed we were all speaking from the same hymn sheet.

It fell to me to talk about some of lace's history although I'm no historian, I've just bought and read all the lace history books since I entered lacemaking in 1975.  But I have not re-read them for a while, since my focus on using lace as an art form keeps me busy enough.  It came home to me during our interview how much my understanding has been broadened over the years by the conversations I've had with Denise Watts during our long friendship.  I particularly recommend H J Yallop's 'The History of the Honiton Lace Industry' (1992) for its carefully documented exploration of the social history of lacemaking, for some of the older books, although fascinating, are not quite so reliable.

If you have not listened to Jo's other podcasts, she offers from her website a riveting archive of 30 more to explore, textile tales crossing weaving, quilting, printing, embroidered samplers, yarns and gender, from home and abroad, over four series. Each one finishes with a poem - for ours, Elena read one she had found from 1651 by the Flemish poet Jacob Van Eyck, describing a maiden seated at her work:

'Often with her hand she fastens, and again unfastens the countless pins, to express the various patterns from her imagination, and in this amusement makes as much profit as the man earns from the sweat of his brow ...'  Yes, I value every penny I have earned from my own endeavours in this medium, too, although mainly from teaching and publishing.

For her podcast about the immigrant Huguenot silk weavers in Spitalfields, Jo ended with Warsan Shire's 'Home', which starts: 'No one leaves home unless home is the mouth of a shark ...'. That was not the only podcast I finished with tears in my eyes; Jo is the most sensitive teller of tales.