The royal matriarch was one of a roster of celebrities—including her daughter Queen Elizabeth II—who pitched in on the tapestry, which was completed in March after 17 years of work. The project was conceived and designed by Tom Mor, an advertising executive and illustrator who dreamed of immortalizing some of Britain's lesser-known explorers. "What we have done is put together a jigsaw puzzle of that time," says Mor, 69, now retired and living in Cambridge. "Everyone knows about [Sir Walter] Raleigh and [Sir Francis] Drake, but there were dozens who went and risked their lives."
Mor hopes his creation will one day be mentioned in the same breath as France's famed 11th-century Bayeux Tapestry, which depicts the Norman conquest of England in 1066. Indeed, the project became a kind of needlepoint of national pride: Roughly 35,000 Britons added a stitch for posterity, paying a pound apiece for the privilege when the tapestry was taken on tour to local fairs and museums. But most of the 39 million stitches were made over the years by some 250 volunteers at community centers in the West of England. Many were overseen directly by Roncarelli, 76, a retired hotel manager who came to the project through a friend 13 years ago. "She knew I was potty about needlework, and we settled on the idea of setting up a group in Exeter to make a panel," says the English-born mother of two, whose husband, Canadian army colonel Joseph Roncarelli, died in 1959.
Falling back on her training at a London convent school—"The only thing they taught me was how to sew," she jokes—Roncarelli was an exacting taskmaster. "I would make sure that all the stitches were right," she says. "Some may say I cracked the whip, but they were all wonderful." She would give volunteers small squares of canvas and some wool as tests before they were allowed to get their hands on the tapestry. "Some people we wouldn't take," says Roncarelli. "I just wouldn't have the time to teach them."
The tradition of VIP input started with the first stitch, made in September 1980 by the late Kingman Brewster, then U.S. Ambassador to England and a descendant of Pilgrim father William Brewster. In 1988, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh added their stitches to the depiction of the 1588 defeat of the Spanish Armada, which was being sewn by a group of navy wives in Plymouth. "I don't think the Queen is a needlewoman," says Polly Hoskin, who led that group and assisted the monarch. Prince Philip, however, needed no help. "The Queen was rather amused at that," says Hoskin. "But, you know, he was a naval man. They used to do their own darning in those days."
With the tapestry completed, Mor is trying to raise some $650,000 to mount the work at a historic woolen mill in Devon, where it will be displayed in special humidity-controlled cabinets. Roncarelli, who now plans to spend her idle hours enjoying her cottage in Aylesbeare, Devon, is proud to have played the role that she did, but happy to be done with it. "My back nearly killed me at times," she says, recalling being hunched over the tapestry for hours at a time. "It can be compulsive. Once you finish one part, you just want to move on to another."
Nick Charles
Simon Perry in Devon and Kate Harrison in London
- Contributors:
- Simon Perry,
- Kate Harrison.
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