'A grandmother is a mum with extra frosting'

Clothes are always more special if they have a story behind them, whether from a relative, a friend or a car boot sale. If you know something about them it makes you look at them in a different way.

The first photograph was taken of my grandma many years ago on holiday. The second was taken of me last year on holiday in Italy. She handed down the beautiful maxi skirt to me last year, and when she did, she told me the enchanting but sad story of it.

My grandma bought this skirt for the opening of an art exhibition of a very special friend, Leslie Cadapper, but the exhibition never took place. It was over before it began. Her friend's abstract paintings were deemed too 'sexual' so were never shown. You won't find any of his work on Google, only on very lucky people's walls (including ours) and in a book that his wife made last year in remembrance of him. After his exhibition being rejected he continued to paint, but not as avidly, and he never had an exhibition. I never knew him in person, but his family and my family are great friends. Last year I was lucky enough to go to a private exhibition of his work displayed in his family home, and his wife produced books of his work as souvenirs. It was a wonderful way to remember him, and while I was there I heard so many stories about him, and how kind he was.

So Leslie never got a chance to have an exhibition, and my grandma therefore never got a chance to wear the skirt to it. But that didn't mean she never wore it again, in fact it went on a trip to Australia with her! I am so glad she didn't throw the skirt away, as it feels like a little bit of her that I'll always get to keep.

Aren't grandmas the best?