Traditional tattoo of a swallow above a red heart with a MOTHER banner, green leaves and blue flowers, on a limb.

Enlarged with AI from a smaller original

Swallow and heart with MOTHER banner

Traditional · Other · Colour · Photo

A swallow with outstretched wings sits above a red heart wrapped in a yellow banner reading MOTHER, with green leaves and blue flowers at the sides. Bold black outlines and solid fills of red, yellow, green and blue give it a classic traditional look. The design fills the centre of the frame against plain pale skin.

Traditional Other Swallow Heart Banner Mother Leaves Flower

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

Dear Mam,

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The wagons pulled out of Stalbridge on Tuesday with the big top folded in the back of Dougie's lorry, and I have been sitting on the step of the caravan ever since trying to write this so it doesn't sound like I've run off. I haven't. Sal says I'm not allowed home until I've won a goldfish, and I've won three, so I'm getting close.

The swallow came from a man called Teddy Wren who runs the knife tent. He had a board of flash behind his chair, and when I asked for something that would come back, he laughed and said swallows always come back, that's the whole trick of them. They cross half the world and still find the same barn. He drew the bird with its wings out like it was skimming a field, then put the heart under it and the banner across the heart. He wanted to write a name, but I told him to put MOTHER, because that's what you are, whatever else I call you when I'm cross.

He kept his radio on the whole time so I'd not pay attention to the buzzing. The green leaves took longest, and the blue flowers he did last, dabbing them in with a brush no thicker than a hair. When he wiped it down, the red was so bright and wet that I thought the heart might start beating under the cloth.

The fair is at Ilkeston next week. I'll ring from the box by the chip shop on Sunday. Tell Dad the tin of tea is in the cupboard above the sink, behind the Bisto, where he'll never look.

Love, Jen