Coat of Hopes visits the Island

The Coat of Hopes, a patchwork garment which is on a walking pilgrimage across the UK, arrived in Ryde for a tour of the Island on Monday.

The coat, worn by Helen Bradstock, has been donned by hundreds of travellers, and the patches carry people’s hopes for the future of the planet. It has travelled more than 2,000 miles on its journey and is made up of around 700 individual patches with more being added on a regular basis.

It is here on a five-week tour, and Helen said: “The Coat of Hopes is a wonderful project which started around the time of COPT 26, in Glasgow in 2021.

“Barbara Keel, the instigating artist of the project, put out a call for people to make patches to go on a coat and wear it at the conference.

“The coat was made to symbolise people’s hopes for the future of the planet, hopes for their communities, for themselves, for the people they loved. So the coat started its first journey from New Haven to Glasgow, over nine weeks.

“It was exhibited outside the conference and included a lovely patch from St Helens Eco Church over here, which included the white-tailed eagle flying over the Island.

“The climate crisis still continues and so does the walk, with me joining around two years ago. Now we are tasked with walking it across the Island over the next five weeks, it’s very exciting.”

The coat moves to Monkton Arts, Ryde, today (Friday) before going to St Helen’s Community Centre tomorrow with a family event there on Sunday. Next week it moves on to Newchurch and Newport. For full details of the tour, visit the Coat of Hope’s Facebook page and website.