Things you remember from your mum's handbag?

[TitaniasAss]

From when you were little?

I remember her purse, she always had the same leather purse since I could remember til when she died (when I was in early 40s)

Sweets in case anyone needed a wee treat

A tissue with lipstick on it where she'd blotted her lipstick

Half a million pens

Her lucky charm

SO many receipts

Loads of other random nonsense.

Bottle of 4711 eau de cologne, creme puff powder compact and a red lipstick, cotton hanky usually with flowers embroidered on the corner

@SusanDey the plastic rain hood! My mum had one too, they were called 'Rain Mates' when I was wee and folded up really tiny into little rectangles.

I also remember she carried a little card with the Footprints poem in her purse too.

We weren't allowed to go in her bag, very mysterious. From what I remember there was;

A huge purse
Cigarettes and at least 2 lighters
Tissues, in packs and loose
Letters/envelopes, usually covered in writing
A comb
Body spray or perfume
And hundreds of pens. She loved Bingo.

We weren't ever allowed in my mum's handbag. I know she had a pressed powder compact, 5,673,728 tissues, her purse, Polo mints and lots of green shield stamps.

When the order went up "100, get my bag" it was a call to jump to it.

Nowadays she zips about with a Radley cross-body that just has her purse, phone and 5,673,728 tissues. She doesn't really need the phone, but it's got pictures of the DGchildren in it and it's a very rare occasion she's not boring some poor soul to tears.

Not my mum but I remember my nan always had a rubber skeleton and a little E.T figurine in her handbag when I was little! I wish I knew why 🤣

Bags and bags and bags of spare change. One swing of that handbag would have taken a muggers head off.

Hallmark datebook. Even seeing pictures of them makes me feel all nostalgic.

This is such a wonderful thread, I hope it ends up in classics ❤️

Estee lauder pink lipstick
Packet of jelly babies
Pens
Tissues

Oh and a diary! She still has a diary as she won't use a smart phone.

That's something from the past. I used to carry a diary and address book until about 1999!

Compact of Coty face powder, smelled of Coty L'aiment
Lipstick, dark red
Embroidered hankies (two)
Tape measure
A little gold coloured box that opened to reveal a concertina of photos of me as a little girl
Plastic rain hood
Shopping lists
Callard & Bowser butterscotch toffees

I miss her so very much.

This is one of the most moving threads I have ever come across.
I want to write a book.

For me...20 B&H
A small tub of Nivea hand cream. The blue one.

Murray Mints, cough sweets, tissues, a neatly smoothed and folded M&S carrier bag, and a plastic rain hood. She had several handbags and they all had these in. They all smelt of mints.

The only thing I remember is this single photo viewer thing, when you held it to the light it showed a photo of my maternal granny, who died when I was a baby 😭

At least two books, sometimes more (she always had a book by her bed, in the car, in the bathroom, by her chair and in her bag). A lace edged hanky or one with an embroidered flower. Antihistamines (she had terrible hay fever). In pollen season, a big packet of tissues. Vaseline. Sudoku book and pen. My dad was a chronically early person so she was always prepared to sit around for ages.

When her dementia got bad, her bag got really random and dad would have to steal it away once a week when she was napping to remove all the things she'd squirrelled away

Folding silver fruit knife. Compact with max factor powder for a shiny nose. Lipstick in fancy case. Tiny box for sweeteners. Chocolate.

A shitload of receipts.
A shitload of tissues.
Nineteen or twenty shopping lists. If she found the right one on the right shopping trip it was a minor miracle.
A purse bulging with a million billion more receipts and twenty thousand different cards.

She ran her own business so was forever separating shopping into “for us” and “for the business”. Every time we went to the supermarket she’d have a section for our shopping and a section where she had milk, biscuits etc for her staff, or something else random they needed, cashed out separately. Different credit cards etc for herself and the business. How she kept it all straight in that mess of a handbag I don’t know. My dad was the organised one doing her bills etc and I think he quietly despaired
Successful business though so fair play to her!

A chiffon scarf and a scarf ring.
A pressed powder compact.
Lipstick.
Glasses.
Keys and purse.
As these were the only things that came out of the handbag I can only guess what else was in there. After all, "..you never go into a lady's handbag!"

I rang my sister to see if she remembered anything else that I couldn't. Spent half an hour laughing about some of the bits and pieces mum had in there. She reminded me of the little thing that used to go on the end of her knitting needles to count how many rows she'd done, a tail comb and a photo of my gran and grandpa. I can't believe I forgot about that, I used to ask to see it all the time. Makes me feel so emotional and grateful that I had her til I was in my 40s. I miss her so much, but I know we were lucky to have her in the first place.

Fags stole my first cigarette from there! However in general I'd say we weren't encouraged to go looking!

Players number 6 cigarettes, Astral cream, money off vouchers and her child benefit book - which she cashed at the post office weekly - in order to feed us most weeks.

Smelling salts

At least two Beecham powders in their folder paper packets that would spill in the bottom of her bag

A lipstick

Cheque book

Many pens

A very large , full of receipts purse

I would give anything to see her with it one more time 😢

She always had/has a proper purse - the long kind with space for cards, notes and (once upon a time) a cheque book. I have always associated that kind of long purse with being a real grown-up.

My nana was a legend of a handbag holder, her usual items would include:

• lipstick
• a wet flannel in a bag (guess like a wet wipe)
• Everton mints
• a large knife with the blade wrapped in foil (incase she had to cut a birthday cake or carve a Turkey, you know incase of cake ambush -would have been handy for Boris)
• a bingo blotter

I forgot a quarter of cough candy from the sweet shop in a paper bag and a tube of extra strong mints always