HEATHER Belcher, one of Britain’s leading textile artists, brings her remarkable new exhibition to the Lake District Holocaust Project this month.

Running until August 27, Heather’s Hidden Threads exhibition centres around The Overcoat, which she has specially produced, using handmade felting processes. The inspiration for her creation comes from Mayer Hersh, a Holocaust survivor with deep links to the Lake District. Mayer, who died last year aged 90, arrived in the Lake District in 1945 as one of 300 child Holocaust survivors who came from Eastern Europe to Calgarth at Troutbeck Bridge in 1945 in order to begin their recovery from years of unimaginable suffering. The survivors became known as the Windermere Boys.

Mayer later moved to Manchester where he set up a successful tailoring business. The coat in Heather’s exhibition is based on one of Mayer's overcoats which he handmade in the 1960s. Heather travelled to Manchester to work at close quarters with the overcoat and also a three piece suit also made by Mayer. The items are held in the Platt Hall Costume Museum collection in Manchester.

Trevor Avery, director of Lake District Holocaust Project, said that when Mayer arrived in Auschwitz in 1943 he was asked what his trade was and, as his father had been a tailor, he replied that he was a master tailor himself.

"Of course he was far too young to be a master tailor but this response undoubtedly saved his life," explained Trevor. "He was then chosen to go and work on clothing in the camp, even working on the guards’ uniforms.

“Hersh’s story is a remarkable story of survival. The pressure for him to work at the highest tailoring level, way beyond his ability at that young age, was immense. One mistake and he could have been murdered. It was skills learned in Auschwitz that he continued into his own tailoring business in Manchester after he came to Britain in 1945.”

London-based Heather’s work has all the ingredients to make a dramatic appearance at the Lake District Holocaust Project. It has a quality of contemplation that sits alongside a profound sense of history, both personal and much broader. She described the inspiration for the overcoat as “a motif which I have returned to a number of times." She added: "Clothing can be a powerful marker for both the absence and the presence of the human form. Overcoats particularly, cover and protect us.

"My mother was a skilled dressmaker, making clothes for myself and all my siblings. She taught dressmaking and tailoring and passed her skill on to me. At various points in my life I have fallen back on those skills to ‘earn my living.'”

Hidden Threads runs at the Lake District Holocaust Project in Windermere Library until August 27.