It startedwith a tray clothwhen I wasseven years old, following a bout of 'flu. My aunt had visited, bringinga Hans Christian Anderson book of fairy tales, but they weren't to my taste, beingtoo sad: ('The Little Match Girl' starving in the cold and other mawkish tales).

To cheer me up my mother gave me some coloured skeins of silk andshowed mehow to sew over the traced blue outlines of alady in a billowing crinoline dress. Fortunately, because I would never have been able to sew her features finely enough at that stage,she demurely obscured her face from the sun with a parasol. In the background there was a weeping willow tree and some roses, an arbour, paving stones, every kitsch cliche you could think of. I was thrilled.

Thus beganmy passion for embroidery. (Incidentally, anembroidery brand I was particularly fond of was called 'Penelope'. Penelope was the unfortunate embroideressin a Greek myth who was warned that once she'd finished her needlework her husband would be slain. To avoid this, she unpicked her work each night. Poor lady.)

TodayI was looking at pictures of the Bayeux tapestry in a book. This massive work of art, measuring seventy metres in length, used eight different coloured wools. It was worked by English seamstresses and records William of Normandy's conquest of England.

Centuries later, the last invasion of Britainoccurred just a few miles away from Fishguard, on the 22nd February, 1797.

A number of years ago, a friend of mine, Elizabeth Cramp, also a talented artist, decided to record this event in the time honoured way:she gathered a group of Fishguard enthusiasts and they produced their own version of '1797 and all that'.The tapestry was put on display andraised money for local causes.

Stained glass windows in churches were known as 'biblium pauperum' in medieval times, the 'books of the poor', where people could gaze at them and learn the Bible stories.

Art and learning are multi-dimensional, the best way of fixing things in our consciousness.