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?

A bangle I had made from my Mum and Dads weddings rings and my dd's necklace. I never take it off. It's made of 3 bangles that sit together.

Rosary beads that dd was given when she made her first communion.

Dd1 and Dd2 first babygrows and name tags.

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

Of course your not odd. Not everyone keeps such things. I know a few that have no attachment to 'things'

Equally it's not odd to keep them.
I have a few baby things although they get fewer every time I take them out. And some children things. Including paintings that 3/4/5/6 etc year old made for me. Cant keep them all.
I think the things I'm attached to came from a good place and a good person. I have nothing at all left of my parents, no pictures, no things, yet I dont mourn that loss.

But mug grandad was a stalwart in my life. A proper good person, and crucially, nice to me. He died when I was 14. At that age it's hard to lose someone like that. So I keep his memory alive if you like. Theres no one else to do it.

@Marsalimay I don't either. One reason is DP who has always been a bit scornful of sentimentality and discouraged me from keeping stuff, so I have no old photos or childhood things. The worst thing was when my mum died and he encouraged me to just throw away or sell everything. I wish now I had been strong enough not to and I really regret that I have nothing much to remember her by.

We have the 'Birthday Flag'. Its home made, with a bamboo stick so that it can be waved, the flag itself is a square of black silk and has the letters of happy birthday cut from brown paper and stuck on. The bamboo is broken so that it is a bit drunken, the silk is frayed and more dark grey than black. But .... It was made by my Aunt for my father's 1st birthday in 1922. It has been waved at every family birthday since then and was most recently waved for my great niece's birthday just before lockdown. We wouldn't be without it!

I have my nans necklace, my grandads stop watch, my great grandads teddy.

I have my grandma's angel for the top of the Christmas tree. Grandad's whisky glass, that was his father's. My father's armchairs.

My grandmother loved ornaments and I have a few of them, plus two of her cardigans. One is a vivid red, which she bought and worn. in a place and era where most clothes were shades of brown, black or grey. There is an early colour photograph in which she’s wearing it- stands out a mile in the sea of brown and khaki.

Oddly, the thing that makes me feel closest to her though is actually an item I bought myself. She was born and brought up in an incredibly remote, isolated place, in an area that is extraordinarily beautiful. It’s a real challenge to get to the location (it’s long abandoned and there’s no roads) and the view from it is amazing. I came across a piece of jewellery in an antique shop with the view from her front garden engraved on it - it was unmistakable and I bought it on the spot. I wear it every day, and it reminds me of the stories she used tell me about her childhood.

What a beautiful post.

My mum’s pinking shears. I always loved the sound they made, plus there was the anticipation of a new dress whenever she used them. I also have a small sharp knife she gave me when I moved into my own flat, 35 years ago. It’s the first knife I pick up when I’m cooking.

My treasures are both stones, kind of.

The first one is a piece of green tile. No idea where it originally came from, but at some point I think in the 50s my Granddad made tbeir driveway and laid a row of beach pebbles down the center. Somehow amongst all the regular roubded stones was this one bright green diamond shaped bit of tile... now every time I went to their house we would pull up in the taxi outside and I would run to the house to be the first one to hug nana and granddad. This tile was just a jumpable distance from the pavement, so I would jump on it, for good luck. Then never walk on the other stones. This became kind of a family tradition, and my little sisters would call it the lucky stone too.

When my grandparents died I was 33. The house had to be sold, but I couldn't go back to England to say goodbye or look around one last time, and any momentos I could have had to be small. I asked for them to somehow get me the lucky stone before handing over the keys to the new owner. Somehow, my Mum's partner managed to chisel it out without damaging the driveway and tbe next time my sister visited me she brought it over. It helps somehow, having it amd knowing all those decades I spent visiting that wonderful place full of joy and love.

The second rock is something I found by a river in Shenandoah, Virginia near the Natural Bridge. There had been indigenous trives there for a very long time. Tbe stone I found fit perfectly in my hand, whichever hand I held it in, and had a rounded back that was confortable against my palm, with a sharp edge oposite that can cut, it is quite serated. There are thumb grip bits almost. I will probably never know if it is actually a primitive hand tool, but it just feels so well shaped to be one and I just had a feeling it had been held like that before and meant something to someone once. Sometimes I hold it and the cool surfsces help my arthritis hurt a bit less and the weight of it just feels good to hold. It means nothing to anybody else in the world, and maybe it just formed naturally in the river... but I like imagining it has a story.

I have my Grandma's patch work quilts, they're beautiful hand stitched works of art.

There a few unfinished which my Mum is attempting to complete, still with nearly 100 year old scraps of fabric.

Mum has lovely memories from lots of the patches, some are from her old school uniform, some from her dolls clothes etc when she was a child. They make Mum happy just to look at them.

I have three I guess - the first is a stack of letters my mum wrote to me when I was away at university. She died when I was 23 and I’d walk into a burning building to get those out. I also have my great-grandmother’s engagement ring - worn by her, my grandma, my mum and now me, and a small white melamine cup with a picture of a duck at the bottom which we always call the duck cup. It was mine as a toddler and my mum worked out that it held exactly one portion of rice, and it’s been used as that ever since.

I have quite a lot of such things.

My grandparents' pyrex dinner service which I use every day.
Their butter knife - ditto.
DD's hospital bands with my surname, not her dad's.
A few items of DM's clothing. She died in 1997 and I think of her every time I look at them.
Letters written by my best friend while she was on VSO in China in the early 90s.
Postcards from a boyfriend of similar vintage.
DM's favourite cookbook stuffed with newspaper cuttings and handwritten recipes. She had very idiosyncratic writing.
Lots more. I'd hate to lose any of them.

I have a 9 carat gold signet ring that my mum gave to me. Back in the 70s their house was burgled and all her jewellery was stolen so her workmates at the factory she worked did a whip round and bought her this ring. Nobody had a pot to piss in so it makes it more special that they did that to cheer my mum up.

My amazing Nan died only 2 months ago, at the age of 93. She was my best friend. I have many of her things, mainly ornaments and photo frames, although I do also have two of her cardigans. I also have a doll which was mine when I was 2, and Nan kept them all this time.

More randomly I have a potato peeler that a colleague gave me 9 years ago, she was a very eccentric lady and at times very hard to work with! One morning, she came over to my desk and said she'd bought me a gift over the weekend. She then dropped a potato peeler on my desk. We'd never discussed my want or need for a potato peeler, so I was quite taken aback! Such an odd thing to buy for a gift! I lost contact with her in 2012 but the peeler gets used all the time and every time I use it it makes me think of my funny little ex colleague, and it makes me smile

I have a mug. :) I was given it at the end of my first ever teacher training practice, by the experienced teacher I was working with. She was a real inspiration to me, and I really looked up to her.
Now I use that mug every day for my morning cup of OJ, and I think of her.