Stonehouse Women's Royal British Legion: Sock maker Anne Drew speaks on the history of sock making

THE monthly meeting of the Stonehouse WRBL, took place at the Community Centre on Thursday, August 25.

In the absence of our chairman Janet, the exhortation and silent tribute were led by Rosemary Bodenham.

There were 27 members present.

Our speaker was sock maker Anne Drew who spoke on the history of sock making and gave a demonstration on her machine.

Anne's passion is sock making while her husband David's passion is politics!

The earliest socks were made in wool by the Egyptians in the third century, and were made on one needle, to wear with sandals.

In 1589 William Lee invented the first framework knitting machine.

Whole families knitted at home with even the children winding the wool.

Then came the invention of the latch needle.

Henry Griswold invented the circular sock machine and people in workhouses were put to sock making.

In World War I people knitted socks for the soldiers in the trenches in order to reduce Trench foot.

There are many sock yarns now.

Anne has a stall at Stroud Farmer's market and she also runs Sock School experience days when students can make a pair of socks in a day.

Anne was thanked for her interesting talk and members had turns on the sock machine.

Our next meeting is on, September 29, when John Crowther will speak on hedgehog conservation.

The competition will be for a mini hedgehog.

The competition winners for August, for a knitted item, were Marion Arnold and Sue Daw.