To Ask About Your Precious Things?

[MitziK]

Not a TAAT, but one here, along with an article by Jay Rayner, talking about kitchen items that hold meaning way beyond their intrinsic value made me think.



I have a wooden spoon. It's a corner spoon, made of a different wood to modern day ones and is smaller than any other corner spoon I've seen. It's the perfect size, weight and balance for everything. It's also tatty, scorched in places and rough. Out of every single tool, implement and thing-for-stirring we own, I reach for it every time.

This spoon was my Granddad's. Every time I stir porridge, scramble eggs, use it to splat butter into a pan, I'm holding something my Grandfather touched when cooking in his warm kitchen, where I would sit in the armchair by the range as he calmly moved around from the larder to the dresser to get plates to place them on the warming rack.

I don't have photographs, he's been gone for 36 years, but as soon as I pick up that spoon, not only does it feel as though it's an extension of my arm, I'm back in the clean, warm kitchen of the home that smelled of beeswax and coal, horse liniment, brasso, paraffin lamps and carbolic soap in winter, Sweetpeas and Honeysuckle in summer.


I've thrown away (or shoved into the jar at the back of the hob) other wooden spoons for far lesser offences than being knackered and tatty. But DP knows Granddad's Spoon is the one I'm asking for when I say 'could you pass me a spoon, please?' He knows it doesn't get left in a cold sink of dirty water. He knows it is The Spoon by which all other spoons are judged and found wanting.


It's completely illogical, but every time I scramble an egg or look out of the kitchen window, I'm connecting to that little, gentle man who dealt with me as though I was a slightly skittish colt. He didn't do much talking and was deaf as a post (particularly when he turned his hearing aids off so he could hear my mother telling him off again and that he should get rid of all that old rubbish and get a nice gas fire and a big fridge freezer put in), but he was a master of communicating through movements, gestures and a flicker of his bright eyes, blue as the Forget-Me-Nots growing in abundance along the front path. To silently put my hand where his once held mine so I could help stir dinner means so much.

When I cook with that wooden spoon, he's holding my hand again.



What are your 'worthless' treasures if you have any?







Do you have mundane, unimportant items that mean an entire world to you?

[Ghostlyglow]

Sorry, OP, I can't read that title without thinking of The League of Gentlemen

[goldpendant]

Lovely thread and post OP!

My DF, who is still with us but starting to age dramatically, has had this huge and pretty awful houseplant forever.

I nearly killed it while it was in my care as a carefree singleton and he worked abroad. He nursed it back to good health when he returned.

He recently took a cutting and nurtured them too into decent pot plants for my DB and I.

Do I like the plant? No! But it's beyond special and I will nourish it and ensure it thrives. He gave them to us at the start of lockdown in case he got sick.

[MitziK]

That's fine. I'm not exactly talking about Special Sausages, though.

[goldpendant]

That and a small pamphlet DM made for us about her family tree.

DM hasn't been able to hold onto much over the years, very few photos, heirlooms etc. So she put down a few words and scanned the last remaining photos so we'd have a piece of her family history.

It's just a piece of paper, but very precious nonetheless.

My kids first proper drawings are up there too.

[HUCKMUCK]

I’ve got my Grandmother’s bible which she had as a child.

I am not in the slightest bit religious but it sits on my bookshelf and sometimes I read a little bit.

She was my Dad’s Mum and she died the day after I was born having never ‘met’ me. My Dad and my Aunt have often said I remind them of her. I was very close to my other 3 grandparents but I still feel a special bond with Grandma even though I didn’t know her.

We also have a lovely wind up musical ornament that is a Noah’s ark. My Aunt (Dad’s sister) bought it for DD when she was a baby. Aunt passed away 5 years ago. I love that Ark and find it very soothing.

[Pelleas]

I have a family christening robe in which my grandmother and father were christened. It won't be used again because I didn't and my sister couldn't have children, and my father was an only child, but it's a lovely thing to have - it's over 100 years old.

[iklboo]

I have a soup spoon that was my nana's favourite. She died in 1988.

I have a fork that's the perfect size and balance for me. I've had it about 35 years.

Our butter knife was my grandparents'. Probably about 50 years old.

When I had DS my MIL gave us BIL1's christening shawl. She knew we were never having DS christened but she still wanted to pass it on. He's 53 this year.

[Tomanyhandbags]

I have a pudding basin that belonged to my Nana everytime I use it I am reminded not only of her but all the times she made puddings etc for us as just one of the ways she showed her love for me. Also have a large glass vase that she won at bingo at least 50 years ago, she actually won a pair, but as she always went with her friend they had 1 each. It always evokes the image of her.

[MatildaTheCat]

My precious item/s does have some actual value but is priceless to me. It’s an art deco tea set given to my Grandma when she left her job as a gem polisher at a very famous jewellers in 1930. It’s been so treasured and kept for best that it’s almost all survived.

I got it out recently and we used it at the funeral tea for my dear Dad. It was very meaningful for us all.

[ThatUserNamesTakenTryAnother]

OP I just enjoyed reading your post 🤗 made me smile

[totallyyesno]

I was going to say the christening gown too. It was made in the 1890s and two out of three of my children used it. It was shortened in the 1920s but is still ridiculously long.

[chunkyrun]

My sons first babygrow. Still has a baby smell. Few childhood teddies. Letters from my other half.

[AJPTaylor]

I have a rolling pin with blue painted handles that I bought for my mum when I was 5. Before that she used a milk bottle.

[Oliversmumsarmy]

Growing up I have lost everything on 3 separate occasions. I found a class photo of me on Friends Reunited and I think that is the only picture that survives of me as a child.
Unless you are talking about my children or the family pets and our health they are the only precious things in my life.
Other things have no meaning.

Once you have lost them all to fires/floods and had to walk away things take on a different meaning.

[BadlyAgedMemes]

I've moved internationally a few times, and never really got round to taking any large items from my home country, so I have lots of small things I've got as memories.

• My great aunt's kitchen towel (it's now getting a bit too worn)
• My grandmum's wooden spoon and other little kitchen bits
• Also her ear rings, which fascinated me as a child
• Other grandmum's mortar and pestle and some coffee cups
• A wooden jewellery box my granddad had made my grandmum when they got engaged (I keep my very old photos in it)
• Old cows' bells from my granddad's childhood home

Lots more little bits like that, of no monetary value at all. Also just bits from my childhood home, like the one spoon, fork and knife I "stole" from my parents when I left homes- they're still my favourites.

[RingaRosie]

A soft toy dog that Dad bought me for my 29th birthday. I’m still his little girl. Dog is 15 years old now, lasted longer than most boyfriends! (although DH is quite fond of him 😂)

[tsmainsqueeze]

Mitzik , your words have almost made me cry , so beautiful . I have my nans carving knife , she was the most wonderful nan , who would have been 103 on may 2nd .I use it daily , strangely it never needs sharpening and is well over 50 years old . She made the best chips ever! cut with that knife .
She was beautiful and cultured , always had a sparkle in her eyes and loved a new pink lipstick .
It has sliced so many delicious things on so many happy occasions over many years and it means so much to me ,she has been gone 15 years and i miss her very much still.

[StormBaby]

I have absolutely loads and loads, I'm a bit of a hoarder of special things and they are mostly all packed safely away. I do have a couple of Georgian brooches that I wear on my coat in winter, and an Edwardian perfume bottle and some tiny 1800s family bibles on my bookshelf from my great aunt Ethel. I have nans 1950s glass butter dish that's in daily use, and like you every time I open it up it makes a noise that reminds me of her house as a child.

[Rockbird]

I have Nanny's plant. My grandmother had this plant way back when and my mother asked for a cutting. Since then, and especially since my grandmother died in the early 90s, my mother has kept this cutting going and taken many more cuttings from it, two of which I have. Even though they're far from the original cutting they're still Nanny's plants.

[Bananabixfloof]

I mentioned on the other thread that we are definitely not talking about, I have a bone China mug from my grandad. Its had to be packed away safely because it's so delicate and if it broke i would be heartbroken.
I loved that man so much, and still every day I miss him. He had the patience of a saint with me. Never once lost his temper. Unlike my parents. And although I didnt know at the time, his wife/my grandma had dementia. He looked after her like she was a queen.

Also from other grandad I have two gold bracelets. He bought them when I was 5 years old. Just for me. Back in the 70s it was a lot of money to spend and kids like me didnt have our own jewellery.

Sadly a lot of other stuff has been lost in moves and floods and fires.
So I have no pictures of mug grandad, and only a few of bracelet grandad, all from when he was younger, not one of him over 30. I also have his medals from the war, but they dont mean as much to me as the bracelets.

[Vieve1325]

I was elected to do something a few years back, and as part of the dress code I wore a bespoke pin, made in the colours of the thing I was representing.

I wore that pin everywhere, it’s seen some of the most beautiful parts of the country with me, I’ve worn it in civic parades, photo shoots, meeting important figures and whilst speaking in public. There will be literal blood sweat and tears in between the stones- It’s my good luck charm.

It’s tucked away very safely at the minute, and I have swithered in getting a replica made because now after a few years of owning it and it being so special, I couldn’t bear to lose it- but the beautiful thing is if I did lose it, it would mean there would be a part of me lost / buried a beautiful part of the country for a long time to come, and I quite like that idea!

[Marsalimay]

Reading this thread made me realise that I have nothing that is precious to me in this way. I don't collect trinkets or keep memorabilia, I don't take photos...

I guess that's unusual, but does that make me odd?

[BadlyAgedMemes]

On the back of writing what I wrote earlier, I found myself thinking back to the one thing I wish I had that I don't. My great grandmother was a keen gardener, and had a specific white rose bush (which I don't remember) she'd brought over from an area she grew up in, which she'd fled because of WW1. It apparently flourished in her garden. My mother took a bit of it, and got it growing again in the gardens of each of my childhood homes. Sadly, when they downsized recently, she "didn't bother" anymore. Somehow the loss of that rose bush has really bothered me. I've just looked up one of my childhood homes on street view, and there's a massive bush growing exactly where that rose bush used to be (in public land as it spread under the fence, but kind of out of the way). I wonder if it's possible to smuggle some rose bush into a post-Brexit UK after the lockdown?

[YorkshireParentalPerson]

I have a lot of my Grandads stuff, his Christmas decorations dating back to the 1920's which I still use every year. I have a fruit bowl and an art deco tea service. I have his sewing box, which I use for my own sewing stuff but it still has some of his buttons in it. I think of him every time I need to use a needle and thread!

[Musicalmistress]

I have my grans butter/vegetable/cutter of all things knife & I feel exactly the same way about it as you do about your grandads spoon. It's part of our family history and has such lovely memories associated with it. It's the knife she always used, the knife she used to teach me, my siblings & my daughter how to cut veg for her famous soup.