A Parting Gift to YHS from Jan Rae

Jan Rae with her walling-hanging 'Yetholm Show'.

Sadly Jan Rae, whose husband Bill was one of the founder members of Yetholm History Society, will be leaving Yetholm shortly. Jan, a journalist, is also an expert on the subject of textiles and Scottish crafts and has written extensively on this area.  Her last book, Warm Covers; A Scottish Textile Story, was published in 2016 and later this year she will be publishing a history of the textile firm Johnstones of Elgin.

But Jan is not just an academic and she has produced many beautiful quilts, one of which, a wall-hanging, she has given to YHS as a valedictory gift. It is called ‘Yetholm Show’ and is based on a photo taken at the 1998 Yetholm Show. She started work on the wall-hanging at a workshop given by Ruth McDowall at Penrith in 1999 and finished it a year later. We are delighted to be given this striking work, inspired by our Shepherd’s Show and largely created here in Yetholm.