Tony Casdagli displays his father’s handiwork
Please pardon the profanity and consider the historical context in which it occurred:
From 1941 to 1945, Major Alexis Casdagli of the Royal Army Ordinance Corps was a prisoner in four German POW camps.
With a belief that it was every prisoner’s duty to defy their captors in any way possible, Casdagli took up sewing.
Using thread scrounged from decaying uniforms and disintegrating pajamas, the good Major created a tapestry that would eventually hang on the office walls of his captors in all four different prison camps.
With the symbols representing the key players in the war – the English coat of arms (lion), German swastika, Soviet hammer & sickle and the American eagle – the tapestry served as an example of fine morale and a well-run camp to his Morse-deficient captors.
But surrounding those symbols was a stitched border of dashed lines. Or, more to the point – dot and dashed lines.
His son, Tony Casdagli, would later say that “the Red Cross saved his life but embroidery saved his sanity.”
No doubt it gave him great pleasure to know that his captor’s office wall was adorned with a tapestry that said “F*** Hitler” in Morse Code!
The subversive sampler has since been displayed at the Victoria & Albert museum in London as a testament to a British soldier who never lost his fighting spirit.
Close-up
More about Major Casdagli can be found here and here.
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