Little Treasures

In a comment to my latest Podcast about my Sewing Box, Brianf mentioned ‘a round tin box with an Amish hex sign on it.’ It was where his late mother kept all her sewing needs. One item he had fond memories of was a Darning Ball or Egg.

Typically, darners were in the shape of an egg with an attached handle and were quite handy for darning socks at the heel. Most were made of wood, but more expensive models were made of silver with ivory handles.

It must be about 40 years since I heard of anyone taking time to darn socks, but who knows they might be next years top fashion item! Don’t laugh, over the past few years we have had torn or slashed clothes, seams on the outside and even underwear worn over the top of clothing!

Brianf’s comment made me think of some little items I have collected over the years and consider to be my treasures. None of them are of any great material value but when I handle them they bring the previous owner a little closer to me.

A silver spirit level which measures 3” long in old money, but for the young folk out there who never used inches lets say it is 7.5cms long. This object belonged to my late husband and was well used over the years. I keep it to hand and still make use of it.

Next I have a ladies Mother of Pearl penknife. Compared to penknives today it is rather ancient. It has two simple blades and that’s it. I sometimes carry this in my handbag it comes in handy for peeling fruit.

A Tuning Fork that belonged to my father’s eldest sister. She was a Primary School Teacher and the lady who gave me my love for sewing. I might talk more about her in a blog someday.

Going the full circle I come back to the sewing theme. I have a wooden spool from Leek in Staffordshire, England. These early spools were refillable. You sent back the empty spools and paid the fee to have a new supply of thread.

Now what do you consider to be your special treasures?

The Telephone

The Things People Say

And Second Place goes too……

I wonder if realising makes acceptance of the fact you are in second place any easier. I have known for several years that the eventuality of gradualness has brought me to this place. I am not complaining it is the natural order of events in life. Why am I thinking of it now, I hear you ask. Well the short answer is that my baby is away working in a place where her day is our night and while I am pottering about she should be catching up on her beauty sleep.

I am counting the hours until she arrives back in our time zone. I won’t be at the airport to meet her as that privilege belongs to the Love of her life. Perhaps we shall not see each other for several weeks but hearing her voice on the phone and knowing she has landed safely on this island will please me very much.

I am reminded of the first time Elly went away without her dad and me. It was a school trip to York. She was nine years old. We drove her to Larne to meet with her school pals and teachers for the ferry trip to Scotland. Once in Stranrear they boarded a coach for York. Children did not have mobile phones back then so we had to wait until her return on the Friday for any news of the week’s adventure. The young folk were discouraged from phoning home during the week in case it made them homesick.

We were back in Larne in good time to see the ferry sail into port. My husband’s footsteps and whistling speeded up as we joined the group of parents happily waiting to be reunited with the weary travellers.

Elly looked, happy, tired and as if she had not washed her face for a week! We were given a run down on the trip in the three minutes it took to walk to the car (she still does this and you have to listen well or you may never hear again half the details!).

As we drove home she was very quiet, so I turned round and discovered that she was quietly crying to herself. I asked if she was alright and she said “Yes” I asked if she was happy to be home and she sniffled “Yes!” Confused I asked why she was crying. Through her tears she told us, that as soon as she got into the car with us away from everyone else, she realised how much she missed us!

I have given my baby her wings; she uses them well and often. But that “Hi Mum!” when she returns from a trip puts a skip in my step and a song in my heart.

Roll on Saturday!

Do you remember when…?

Baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint and the babies were allowed to chew and lick the bars. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles. Babies were given the empty tablet bottles to play with, sometimes with Smarties in them for colour and interest.

As children, we were driven around in cars with no seat belts or airbags - being in the front passenger seat was a treat. We rode our bikes without helmets. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle and nobody died from it. We ate chips, tapioca, and bread and butter pudding and drank fizzy lemonade with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing. We would leave home in the morning and could play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark. The nearest parent was ‘Boss’ and we took correction when it was handed out.

Hours were spent building go-carts out of scraps of wood and metal and then tested at top speed down the hill, only to find out we had forgotten to add any brakes.

We did not have Play stations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no DVD movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, and no Internet chat rooms. We had friends; we went outside and found them. We played elastics and rounders, and sometimes that ball really hurt.

We walked to school and to friend's houses. We made up games with sticks and tennis balls. We played Box the Fox and were afraid of the owners catching us. We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones but there were no law suits. We had full on fistfights but no prosecution followed from other parents.

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. We were taught that ‘Sticks and stones might break our bones, but that names would never hurt us!’

We had no central heating and sometimes in the winter the frost on the bedroom windows was on the inside. We sat round the fireside at night and while our fronts were roasted our backs were frozen cold. We listened to plays on the radio and pictured the characters inside our heads.

Life was simple, slower and we found entertainment without it costing money.

Don’t get me wrong, I do like my comforts!

Memories of my childhood

Anne was a widow who lived in Co Clare she reared hens & geese and when she came to Dublin it was usually for the day and involved a trip to Clerys Department Store. There she bought a complete new outfit - from the skin out. The parcels were taken to the "Ladies" and she changed into the finery before she caught a bus to our house.

She always carried a leather shopping bag on these visits. It contained at least two or three-dozen eggs complete with half the hen run on them! These had been collected at dawn on the day of her journey. In the bag, or should I say half in the bag were two chickens. The head and necks hung out one side while the legs complete with claws hung out the other. Their necks had been wrung that morning while the due was still on the ground. They were complete with feathers and innards and there would be a trail of blood dripping from them all the way from Ennis to our front door! Her arrival on the avenue was announced by her laughter, which was loud and infectious.

One year when we were very young mammy was ill and in hospital. Anne was looking after us. She cooked, fed us and generally kept the house ticking over. My youngest brother who was aged three and the baby of the family pined for mammy and refused to eat. He refused to come to the table at meal times so Anne sat on the stairs and fed him chocolate biscuits. They were the only food he would eat for her. Her idea was that he was at least eating something.

Dorothy my niece shared this memory with me: “I remember Anne in a huge high bed with about 200 mattresses and blankets in the box-room”. Houses do not have box- rooms any more, all bedrooms are smaller nowadays. “I think about it when reading the princess and the pea to my own children! It was so high I remember not being able to climb onto it; I still remember the feeling of falling off yet again! And then when you got up it was so bouncy! People's backs must have really ached after a night's sleep in it” she said.

We were forever having visitors to stay at our house. Mattresses came up and down the stairs like yo-yos. The easiest place to store them was on the bed. A little less dusty than under it! One year we had a gathering for my father’s entire family. We planned to have the August bank holiday weekend Saturday as 'The Day'. They were like ‘The Tinkers’ coming for a week and going for a week!

We realised it would be a late night. So plans were made for everyone to stay over. We children were to sleep on mattresses on the floor while all the adults had the beds. The only problem was that the adults stayed up all night talking, singing and drinking.
In the end nobody slept in the beds.

We learned plenty of old ballads as we sang through all the Counties of Ireland. Each song seemed to have about 32 verses. Even today when I hear one of them on the radio, I can clearly see an aunt or uncle sitting by the fire singing their heart out!

I sometimes think about the children of today and wonder if in forty or fifty years time they will remember what happened in Big Brother or I’m a Celebrity get me out of here, or for that matter what their parents looked like?

TV has a lot to answer for!