Black and grey full back tattoo of the Virgin Mary in an oval frame with prayer lettering, flanking torches, scrollwork and a Celtic cross below, in a traditional style.

Virgin Mary full back piece

Traditional · Back · Black and grey · Photo

A large back tattoo shows the Virgin Mary with a halo, arms outstretched and robed, set within an oval frame inscribed with a prayer. Flaming torches, ornate scrollwork and a Celtic cross with lettering fill the surrounding space. The shading is black and grey with bold outlines, and the composition is symmetrical and centred on the figure.

Traditional Lettering Back Halo Scrollwork Oval frame

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A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

The banner had been rolled in the vestry since the Coronation, and when Father Doyle shook it open on the flags of St Anne's it breathed out mothballs and old linseed. Someone had to freshen the lettering before the Feast, and since I was the only sign-writer left in Bootle who still cut his own gold leaf, the job came to me by default, as most things did that year.

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The Virgin stood in her oval with her arms held out and the robe falling in pleats I had to copy from a holy card gone soft at the corners. I worked on a trestle under the north window for three nights. The prayer ran round the frame in capitals, and every time I came to the word that means recourse I had to stop and lean back, because my hand wanted to shake and I did not want the ink to know it. Mrs Keegan brought me tea in a jam jar and sat on an upturned crate, saying nothing, which was her way of checking the spelling.

On the Sunday it rained as if it had a grudge. The torches on their poles were lit anyway, and the wax ran down the brass and hissed on the wet setts. By the time we reached the corner of Stanley Road the gold had streaked off the cross at the foot and the Latin was a smear of brown, but the Virgin's face had held, and so had the hands. Mrs Keegan walked beside the pole with her umbrella furled, looking up at the figure as though she could read the whole prayer from underneath.

Afterwards I rolled the banner back into its tube with the painted side inward, the way the sisters had taught me, so nothing would crack. It was past midnight. The gaslamp outside the vestry guttered, and I carried the thing back under my arm like something asleep, leaving the cross to dry in the dark, where nobody would look for the stain but me.