A small token of love, a canvas rectangle, skilfully embroidered with a modest poppy and cornflower, a red, white and blue heart, an ear of corn, positioned around the words ‘To my Dear Wife’, was the starting point for both my dissertation and final collection ‘A Stitch in – Time – Waits for No Man’. a family keepsake sent by my great-grandfather, during his time in a prisoner of war camp in the 1940s.