Flag waving

Posted on August 27, 2025August 27, 2025 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged Caring, Flag, humanity, humility, Memory, patriotic?, Politics, Right wing, rights, Thoughts2 Comments

In response to a lot of strange flag waving excesses in the UK I posted this message. I believe it explains how I feel about it.

It’s not the flag, but the idiots waving it whilst shouting abuse at anyone who doesn’t agree with them. It’s not the flag, but people arguing people should be burnt alive. It’s not the flag, but people who think it’s funny to let children drown. It’s not the flag, but people who think paying the taliban to take frightened people back to Afghanistan is a good idea. It’s not the flag, but the people who consider it the British Swastika.
If you fly the flag do it with respect to humanity.

I think this could be a way of describing it to other people too. This might be too much to say here, but I feel it needs to be said. I don’t want to bring arguments here. I apologise for that.

Penkhull Flag

Posted on June 20, 2025 Posted in Memories, UncategorizedTagged 2020, Design, Flag, flag institute, Mystery Plays, penkhull village flag, winner of the world Cup of flagsLeave a comment

Since I’ve been talking about the Penkhull Mystery Plays I thought I’d share an image of our flag and information about it from the flag institute:

Flag Type: Village FlagFlag Date: 7th July 2018Flag Designer: People of Penkhull with Philip Tibbetts and Graham BartramAdoption Route: Popular VoteUK Design Code: UNKG7540Aspect Ratio: 3:5Pantone® Colours: Green 355, Yellow 109, Blue 286Certification: Flag Institute Chief Vexillologist, Graham BartramNotes:

The Penkhull Flag is a community flag proclaiming the unique identity of this district of the City of Stoke-on-Trent (Staffordshire).

Penkull is a hilltop village and conservation area within the city boundaries, with strong links to the Spode family.

Josiah Spode I lived in Penkhull, close to his famous Spode pottery works, while his son Josiah II developed the village as a dormitory suburb.

The Penkhull Flag features a golden saltire nowy charged with a blue oval bearing a golden rooster.

The green field evokes the rural nature of the village.

The saltire recalls the crossroads at its heart, while the blue central oval represents classic Spode tableware.

Meanwhile the rooster draws on the weather vane of St Thomas’s Church – a commonly used emblem in the village.

This winning design was chosen by popular vote, achieving just over 35 per cent of the poll, and flew for the first time as part of the Penkhull Mysteries event.

Flag

Posted on July 30, 2024July 30, 2024 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, ArtRage app, catching up, Digital drawing, Flag, Metallic, PromptLeave a comment

#bandofsketchers prompt was flag, just experimenting with digital textures. I used Artrage for this with a slight metallic tinge. It’s not very exciting but I’m trying to drag myself back into doing art.

Two years ago

Posted on May 13, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, circus, Design, Flag, Fun, History, Horse, Life, Philip Astley, Sewing, WorkshopLeave a comment

Two years ago I was at a workshop. I was making a peice of a flag to celebrate Philip Astley inventor of modern circus born 1742, in Newcastle under Lyme. Belinda Latimer ran the workshop. Good fun to try a different craft. I don’t do much sewing or embroidery so this was quite enjoyable. I used a sacking type of cloth on top of a type of canvas cloth. I never did see the finished flag as there were different workshops to bring it all together.

Connection

Posted on March 13, 2022 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #bandofsketchers, Attack, Chain, Death, Drawing, Flag, Life, paper chain, Putin, Russia, Sketching, UkraineLeave a comment

We saw an airbase within 15 miles of the Polish border hit by cruise missiles today. Eighty one people were killed. Putin Russian madness continues.

Today’s #bandofsketchers prompt was connection so I drew our connection with family. I’ve created an imagined bracelet. The family at the bottom is connected too. Like a paper chain. I’ve used Ukraine flag colours. It’s meant to show a connection of countries supporting them.

Penkhull Won!

Posted on September 16, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Design, Flag, Penkhull's flag, Random, Sleepless in Stoke, Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, Tired now, Twitter, Up most of the nightLeave a comment

After twenty four hours and over 13000 votes Penkhull’s flag finally won out over Tiree in Scotland by 51.5% to 48.5%. So very very close. I couldn’t resist going on twitter every few minutes to check what was happening, through most of the night! It’s silly but I’m very proud of our little village in the city.

The flag institute who ran the poll was amazed at the number of votes that were cast. The lead swapped backwards and forwards between us and Tiree. A wonderful feeling to have actually won!

Up supporting Penkhull

Posted on September 16, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged #golittlechickengo, #penkhull, #StokeOnTrent, #WorldSeriesOfFlags, @theflaginstitute, Art, Design, Domesday book, England, Flag, Random, Scotland, Sleepless, Tired, Tiree, TwitterLeave a comment

I live in Stoke-on-Trent and the village at the top of our hill is called Penkhull. It was mentioned in the Domesday book and was a Royal Manor from 1086 to the time of Edward the Second. It is a village in a city and people like it so much that they had a competition to design a flag.

The flag has a golden Cockerel symbolising the weather vane on top of the church steeple. It stands on a blue ground which is for the blue of Spode, the old pottery firm in nearby Stoke-upon-Trent that manufactured ceramic products including the willow pattern pots that became synonymous with the factory.

The yellow oval and lines radiating out are for the road around the village green and the four roads each leading downhill from the village.

The green is to show that is a green place in the middle of a city. The whole design was approved by vexillologists (no I didn’t know that word before the competition) from a charity called the flag institute.

So why am I up? Penkhull is taking part in a competition being run by @theflaginstitute on Twitter. It is in the #WorldSeriesOfFlags and is up against the golden rays of barley from #tiree in Scotland. This is the final. I have not been able to sleep since I saw that Tiree had got ahead of us in the final they are on about 51.8% and we are on 48.2%? Something like that. Its very even between the two places.

Don’t know if I can get back to sleep…. The vote on Twitter ends at 11am. I think I’m in for a long night.

Penkhull won the semi final

Posted on September 11, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Art, Blue, Chicken, Cockerel, Flag, Green, Penkhull, Spode, Staffordshire, Stoke-on-Trent, Tiree, Vexillological, YellowLeave a comment

We won the semi final although someone said our flag looks like a bread wrapper! Now we are in the final next Tuesday against Tiree. I think it looks like a beautiful place, perhaps we will visit one day. However I can’t help hoping Penkhull win.

In my previous post describing the flag I forgot to say the blue colour represents the blue of Spode pottery. This iconic firm closed some time ago, but I have an art studio on the spode site so I feel doubly connected to Penkhulls flag. I will try and find the full description of what it symbolises.

I’m voting Penkhull!

Posted on September 10, 2020September 10, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged #penkhullflag, Flag, Fun, Go Chicken!, Go Penkhull!, Life, Penkhull, Semi- final, Staffordshire, Stoke-on trent, Today, Twitter, VexillologicalLeave a comment

Penkhull flag is in the semi-final of the @flaginstitute World Cup of flags today till 11am tomorrow. This is part of the vexillological festival to make up for not having many sporting events this year.

Penkhull was in the doomsday book and was then called Pinchetel. Penkhull means ‘Hill hill’ and is a very steep basalt volcanic plug that sits above the majority of Stoke-on-Trent. It is known as the village in the heart of the city.

The flag was only designed recently. The green represents the village green at the heart of Penkhull, with four roads leading up to it. The Cockerel (also know as a rooster or chicken) sits on top of St Thomas’s Church that is in turn on the green.

The flag was created for a competion run by the residents association to raise community spirit. I’m pleased to say that I partly helped to design it.

So if you would like to join in and vote you can find the vote over on twitter. Look for #penkhullflag #WorldSeriesOfFlags

Thank you. X

Our flag just won the FA Cup of flags!

Posted on May 29, 2020May 29, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged #FAcupofflags, Art, Design, Flag, Penkhull, Preston, Twitter, Twitter poll, Vexillology, WinnerLeave a comment

I helped design this flag with about seven other people in a competition to design a flag for the village of Penkhull, part of Stoke-on-Trent. I didn’t realise till last week that it had been entered into a national competition to choose the best flag design in an FA style set of votes.

After weeks of tension we reached the final and fought against Preston today.

The result was very close. After Preston took an early lead, votes for Penkhull overtook them. At the end the result was 52% to 48% in favour of Penkhull!

We are a village of about 6000, in a city population of about 250,000. Apparently around 6000 voted on twitter for the penkhull flag which equals 100% of Penkhulls population!

There is now talk of a European Cup of flags!!

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Flag