Page 426 - J. C. Turner - History and Science of Knots

About the Authors 421

in numerous maritime crafts, including knotting; for example, he makes and
restores ship models, and puts ships in bottles. He is a Member of the Ships
in Bottles Society of America, and is on the National Committee of the New
Zealand Ship and Marine Society. He has had several articles published in
various Nautical Publications.

Europa Chang-Dawson

Europa Chang was born in 1944, in Shanghai, China. Her childhood education
was garnered from nine or ten schools, scattered through five countries. After
her VIth form at the Perse School for Girls, in Cambridge, England, she read
Mathematics at Somerville College, Oxford. There she gained a B.A. in 1967,
and M.A. in 1971. Recently she has achieved City & Guilds Diplomas in
Embroidery and Lacemaking; her formal studies of the latter craft are still
continuing.
Until her marriage to John Dawson in 1981, she taught mathematics full-
time. Nowadays she is a widow, devoting much time to caring for her aged
parents and relatives. She teaches mathematics part-time, takes a couple of
Tatting workshops each year, does research for a small museum, and enjoys her
nephews and nieces. She also enjoys doodling with string, or cord, or yarns, or
thread, or, if desperate, with pencil and paper! Her favorite TV programmes
are the Tom and Jerry cartoons. ('I seem to bumble through life, not achieving
very much but having a happy time.')
She has a detailed memory, with a lengthy story, about how she first
became interested in knots. Around the age of five years, in Hong Kong, an
Uncle gave her two linked elastic bands, and two separated bands, to play with.
She played with them for several days, and by various cutting and rejoining
maneouvres discovered for herself rules relating twists and mirror-symmetries.
She tried to explain these ideas to her Uncle, and asked him how to tie the
linked rings. When he laughed, and said it wasn't possible, Europa threw a
tantrum; as punishment for this (from her Grandparents), she was made to
learn how to splice two ropes together-and the Uncle had to learn how to do
that, too, in order to teach her. Small wonder that Europa Chang grew up to
be a great enthusiast about Chinese Knotting and Lacemaking!

Lydia H. S. Chen
Born in 1940, Lydia Chen holds a B.S. degree in Agricultural Chemistry from
the National Chung-hsing University in Taiwan. When first exposed to the
Chinese art of Knotting in the early 60s, she was immediately captured by its
elegance and subtle delicacy, and has since then devoted her time to the study
of Chinese decorative arts in general and knotwork in particular. Since 1981