Filigree butterfly tattoo on lower back

Mam says you've been cutting lace from the Sunday paper again, so I'm sending you something better to practise on. Enclosed is the drawing I made on the back of the shift roster, the one Dougie's wife sent round after the roof fall to cheer us up. I've gone over the wings in ink with the blue pen you left me, the one that skips, so forgive the blots. The purple came from Mrs Pringle's dye pot, the same she used on the christening shawl, and she made me swear not to tell the chapel.

Things at Hesketh are slow. We're on the new face at the far end of the seam where the air is thin and the lamps gutter if you breathe wrong. Dad says the seam will be worked out by spring, but Dad says a lot of things. What I keep thinking about is the iron gate outside the Methodist chapel, the one with curls at the top like wrought vines, and how you said the scrolls looked like they were trying to climb off the fence. I've tried to make the butterfly the same way, all those little tendrils holding on and letting go.

Last Thursday the deputy sent us up early, and I walked past the old spoil heap on the way home. The buddleia had come up purple through the cinders, thick as a hedge, and there were little brown butterflies on it by the dozen. I stood there with my bag on my shoulder and thought you'd have counted every one.

Keep the drawing. When I'm back on top I'll bring you a real one, pressed flat in a hymn book, before the frost takes the heap. Give Mam my love and tell Mrs Pringle the shawl was a lovely job.

Your brother, Tom