Normandy Commission - Canongate Kirk Edinburgh

This book is about a Community Project (1994-2000) in Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh, Scotland, commemorating lost combatants in the Normandy Landings of 1944. The commissioned artwork was designed by Hannah Frew Paterson for 30 canvas-work cushions on seats around the curved apse, and was sewn in Scotland, England, France and Las Vegas by amateur volunteer embroiderers. Entitled Christ the Light of the World, there is no other Normandy Memorial like it in anywhere.

The plain cream and light blue interior of this 1690 Church of Scotland - the continuation of Holyrood Abbey - is the perfect foil for the flow of colour, twice through the spectrum, that splays outwards from the Cross behind the Communion Table. Worked in prescribed textured stitches, 80 or so colours of wool are mixed, three strands per needle, as the individual stitcher chooses. Three cushions have a heraldic badge sewn in.

An array of photographs, charts, diagrams and handwritten letters illuminate the story. Yet the tone is anything but bland: duty, sacrifice, fear, suffering, loyalty, doubt, challenge are all here. What if you can’t sew on the proverbial button? This book is a real eye-opener. Easy to read, it is a very human story and an uplifting one.