Goodbye present for Coope Boyes and Simpson

After 25 years, this formation of the a-capella singers ‘Coope, Boyes and Simpson’ is going to end. They are from the area Yorkshire – Derbyshire and found a second home in Ieper and the South-West of Flanders (Belgium). They came here because of several rememberance and Peace concerts concerning Word War I. During frequent stays with my friend Annie, I met them before and after concerts and at some parties. We were glad to receive an invitation for the very last ‘Final Concert’ at March 03, 2018. A goodbye present for Coope Boyes and Simpson is well deserved!

The ‘three graces’ with their present:

Goodbye present for Coope Boyes and Simpson

Thanks to Luk Dombrecht for the picture.

After extended tries to learn Dutch, they reached a certain level of functional speech (like ordering Belgian beer and basic swearing 🙂 ). On the picture you can see they like Hommelbier a lot.

On YouTube you will find many clips and audio recordings.

Besides the rememberance and Peace concerts, they had several performances at folk festivals (Sidmouth en Towersey, UK; Dranouter, B). Find more information on the site.

Here’s one recorded at the final concert in Ieper: ‘Lay me low’

Part of the lyrics of ‘Standing in Line’ (Lester Simpson):

“You fought and you died in the mud and the rain
A mile into hell and a mile back again
A pawn in their game, not fallen but pushed
And a Portland stone bonnet forever.”

As a personal gift to thank them for so many years of efforts to keep the memories alive, I thought of an embroidered pillow. I asked all three of them to write down a short sentence or a quote, thinking back on the 25 years of singing together. It should be written in their own handwriting and signed with their name. I digitized it in the BERNINA software V8. After a small change in layout, they were embroidered on the BERNINA 700.

And this is what it became, embroidery on the BERNINA 700:

BERNINA 700

The B 700 convinces with many new, innovative functions such as the pinpoint placement. Moreover, this embroidery machine comes with many embroidery patterns.

Learn more

Barry:

Jim:

Lester:

For a moment, I doubted Lester’s math skills… because 2018 – 25 is not 1994… But of course the first plans and meetings for the 1994 concert took place in 1993 🙂 .

I finished the pillows with a zipper in the back: