Tea Sets - Celebration Cuppa

 
Aunt Tillie’s Silver Tea Set

“Take it,” Aunt Tillie insisted.
We sat side by side, our bare legs
Sticking to her plastic-wrapped couch
In that hot apartment on 34th Street.

“An heirloom,” Aunt Tillie said,
Showing the ornate tray in our laps.
“To pass down to your children.”

Who had absolutely no interest
Forty years later, to waste even
A minute with a polishing cloth.

So Aunt Tillie’s silver tea set
Goes to Goodwill
Along with my vintage china.

Aunt Tillie had been so sure
Generations would treasure
The chance to entertain in elegance.

But she spent her life, like I did,
Accumulating things that would one day
Be dumped for a tax donation.

Unloading my car, I see I am not alone.
So many others my age, discarding
Knickknacks we once though we needed
But now wish to unstick from our skin
Like the plastic on Aunt Tillie’s couch.

                                                   Jacqueline Jules

Jacqueline Jules is a poet and writer of children’s books. She lives in Long Island, USA. When I read this poem and realised that was exactly ‘it’, I felt relieved that I’m not alone and I need not feel guilty for doing a similar thing.

We had to pack things away to make space for our damp course to be replaced. This task also became a down-sizing project ready for that move we keep talking about. Emptying a display unit and a cupboard, I made the decision that the tea sets had to go. By tea sets, I mean family heirlooms and not items we had acquired for ourselves. A china tea set, painted gold, made up of cups, saucers, small plates and a sandwich or cake plate, with a milk jug and sugar basin, was a gift from the family to my maternal grandparents for their golden wedding anniversary in 1972. I remember the party and buffet taking place in their pub and I always thought I remembered my mother being there, but she had passed three years earlier. She must have been there in spirit. We had toasted the ‘bride and groom’ by drinking tea from the gold cups, some of us, anyway, and congratulating them on reaching fifty golden years of marriage. Or fifty golden years of constant bickering, but that’s another story.

The other tea set, also china, ivory coloured with tiny gold detail, belonged to my maternal great-grandmother. I don’t think it marked an occasion, it was hers and the two sets were kept together after they were passed down to me and my sister. I don’t know who had them first, they’ve been backwards and forwards, more recently ending up with me and nicely displayed in a glass cabinet. Until the great clearance.

My sister was quite sure she didn’t want them back and I could do what was best for me. Looking on Ebay and other online sites, I learnt that we weren’t dealing with treasure here. I would have to donate them to a charity shop where they would sit with other rejected heirloom tea sets for years. It was a very sad thought, but with the date for the start of the damp proofing looming up, there wasn’t much time for sentiment and the tea sets were bubble-wrapped and packed into boxes.

During this time, I had a welcome visit from a close friend of many years. We were overdue a catch up and a good gossip, which we did before moving into recent things like the state of our poorly house, the cost of the remedial work and being ruthless in getting rid of things. Someone in her family was about to have the share of a charity shop for a week, so she gladly took a box of DVDs and some clothes. When the tea sets were mentioned, it was music to my ears to learn that her sister did afternoon teas and might be able to use them, she would ask.

A few weeks later, on the other side of one of our trips away, I was happy to wash and re-pack the heirloom tea sets and send them to their new home where they might be used. Thank you so much, you know who you are.

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Chickens

Years ago, when I worked in an infant school, I was given the task of drawing a large chicken which was to be the centrepiece of a class project and would fill a classroom wall. I may have skills, but freestyle drawing is not one of them and I mumbled such to the teacher, who was very lovely and kind, but spoke to me like I was another of her 4 and 5 year old pupils and suggested that I try my best and might surprise myself. Hilarious, Miss! 

With good grace, and for the sake of the class who were going to make eggs, chicks, wheat and bread to be part of the wall covering, I accepted the challenge. It was difficult but my end result was acceptable in so far as it looked like a chicken, if only through the eyes of a child, and with the work of the class added to it, the scene looked like a fabulous reproduction of the story, The Little Red Hen. 

For anyone who doesn’t know, the hen lives on a farm with other animals. She looks upon these animals as friends. When she finds a grain of wheat and decides to grow it to eventually make bread, she asks for the help of her friends. All refuse. She plants the grain, looks after it, harvests the crop and every step of the progress she asks for help and doesn’t get any. The wheat is milled into flour and she makes bread. The others all want to eat some, but the little red hen refuses to share. She eats it herself with her own chicks. Through the story, the aim was for children learn about sharing tasks, being fair, being helpful and working together. The collage remained on that classroom wall all term. The Little Red Hen, my ‘wonderful’ artwork, for all to admire. Long gone.

Why are cowards or anyone refusing a dare, called ‘chicken’? There is a lot to learn about the origins and some of it is fascinating, but to give a brief outline, chickens, usually called ‘hens’ were considered to be weak, timid creatures and completely the opposite of the male ‘cocks’ which were strong and fearless. Cocky, perhaps. And from Wikipedia, ‘According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the earliest written instance of the word ‘chicken’ in the craven sense comes from William Shakespeare’s Cymbeline, circa 1616. “Forthwith they fly, Chickens,” he wrote, describing soldiers fleeing a battlefield.’

Back to the world of childhood for my choice of poems, written by Jack Prelutsky, former U.S. Children’s Poet Laureate.

Last Night I Dreamed of Chickens

Last night I dreamed of chickens,
There were chickens everywhere,
They were standing on my stomach
They were nestling in my hair,
They were pecking at my pillow
They were hopping on my head,
They were ruffling up their feathers
As they raced about my bed.

They were on the chairs and tables,
They were on the chandeliers,
They were roosting in the corners
They were clucking in my ears,
There were chickens, chickens, chickens
For as far I could see…
When I woke up today I noticed
There were eggs on top of me.

                                Jack Prelutsky


Ballad of a Boneless Chicken

I’m a basic boneless chicken,
Yes, I have no bones inside,
I’m without a trace of rib cage,
Yet I hold myself with pride,
Other hens appear offended
By my total lack of bones,
They discuss me impolitely
In derogatory tones.

I am absolutely boneless,
I am boneless through and through,
I have neither neck nor thighbones,
And my back is boneless, too,
And I haven’t got a wishbone,
Not a bone within my breast,
So I rarely care to travel
From the comfort of my nest.

I have feathers fine and fluffy,
I have lovely little wings,
But I lack the superstructure
To support these splendid things.
Since a chicken finds it tricky
To parade on boneless legs,
I stick closely to the hen house,
Laying little scrambled eggs.

                                Jack Prelutsky

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Navigation - Sat-nav or Map?

“Navigation? Simple. There’s an app for that.”

I have my own ‘app’ in the form of an enlarged, easy to read road atlas. It is far better than the rude interruptions from the voice of the sat-nav in the middle of a conversation and making me lose my drift. It’s more reliable than the sat-nav, as well.

We used a sat-nav, or whatever it is on my husband’s phone when we were touring in our caravan last summer. Travelling from The Machars in Dumfries & Galloway to Maybole in Ayrshire, I wasn’t looking forward to the A77 and A78 which are always busy at any time of day. I wasn’t driving, but it’s still worrying as a passenger, ahem, back seat driver. I was saved the anxiety by the route the sat-nav chose to take. Miles and miles of single-track, harem scarem road, cutting through the lesser known depths of Galloway Forest Park, eventually releasing us into the freedom of rural Ayrshire. Not the best road for towing a caravan and we felt relieved to be unscathed, and alone. In all those miles we hadn’t encountered another vehicle. Drivers were either wise to avoid that way, or they knew we were out. It was a bad experience which made us wary of the sat-nav and we kept to the A roads after that.

On a visit to the Outer Hebrides – no caravan, just car and cottages – we travelled north from touring the Uists to base ourselves in the Isle of Harris to explore Harris and Lewis. We were in a hilly area. The highest mountain in the Outer Hebrides was near, The Clisham at 799 metres, standing majestically over our cottage. Out one day for a drive and a look around, I was navigating using an OS map. We were aiming for the west coast. I was struggling with reading the tiny details on the map and soon thought we’d – I’d – gone wrong somewhere and couldn’t find any landmarks matching the map. We were on the cliff-edge road of a mountain and I was so scared that I couldn’t speak. I was literally stunned into silence. There was relief eventually when we found ourselves descending towards a small beach, a couple of cars and a handful of people. With map in hand, I explained that we’d become lost and sought their help. This lovely family came to our aid, turned the map the right way up, and pointed to where we were. They set us back on the right track, which involved a return journey back up the mountain road, but at least we were on the inside lane this time. I hope they didn’t ridicule us too much when they went home to Scandinavia. Oops. Don’t trust me with a hard to read OS map in the Hebrides, or anywhere in the world.

When I was in junior school, probably aged nine or ten, we were tasked with doing a project on something of our own choice. Girls favoured pop music or fashion. Boys chose cars or the armed forces. There were other things picked, but looking back, how gender categorised we all must have been. Of all the things in the world, I picked compasses. This was because there was a picture of a mariner’s compass on the front of a world atlas at home, and it fascinated me. The project didn’t get beyond two items, the mariner’s compass and a Girl Guides one. Good drawings, though, even if I say so myself. We’ve come a long way since navigating by a compass was all we had, especially at sea. The digital era has taken us over in the name of progress.

I’ll stick with the easy to read road atlas, even if it does weigh a ton on my knee in the car. I’m about to navigate us to Scotland then to Warwickshire, so I’ll be missing, but hopefully not lost. Back soon.

 Navigation

Lost in South Harris
When the map was upside down
And we got mixed up.

Study the road map
Give confident directions
And have a Plan B.

Work out the distance,
Choose where to make cmfort stops
To break the journey.


Rude interruption,
Strict, assertive instructions.
Who needs a sat-nav?

PMW 2024

 Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

 

 

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Housework - Squeaky Clean, Not Quite

 

Housework, that never-ending project that always starts with good intentions, but there are so many distractions and a complete lack of interest. That’s just me, obviously. Some people (other women) can’t rest until everything sparkles, nothing is out of place and a mixed fragrance of polish, disinfectant and Shake’n’Vac fill the air, a little diluted by the open windows. This is the opposite of me. I once saw a quote on a fridge magnet or something, along the lines of “Boring women have tidy houses”. With that in mind, I can promise you I am not boring. My house isn’t a tip, not exactly, but looking around, there are areas of ‘a work in progress’, things just started or not quite finished. It is the multi-tasking that does it. For example, the laundry can be happening while I’m doing something else. A loaded washing machine, switched on, looks after itself. How helpful it might be to have the magical finger clicking skills of Mary Poppins when the grandchildren have been and left everything out.

One evening, over Christmas, we had rain seeping in through the lounge bay window, dripping from the blinds on to the sill. It wasn’t much, just an annoying drip, with no obvious point of entry. I had to squeeze myself behind the Christmas tree to place a folded towel to soak up the water and silence the drip. It had rained constantly for days, so there must be a weak spot somewhere. We never found it, inside or out, and it hasn’t happened since. Watch this space. We noticed loose wallpaper, hidden by furniture, needing further investigation after Christmas, and when I had recovered from whatever virus plagued me for about a week.

The time came. The tree and everything festive, removed, boxed and returned to the attic. Spring cleaning can commence, but first, the wall needs checking. It was simple enough, remove the contents of the small bookcase, move bookcase out of the way – note to self for next time, the shelves are not fixed – I squeal in pain, but mind my language because I’m a lady. Examine the wall. The wallpaper has come off because the plaster is crumbling. A slight tap and lots of powdery plaster comes away building a pyramid shape on the edge of the carpet. All is dry, bone dry. A few spoken thoughts, then dustpan and brush followed by the vacuum cleaner. There’s nowhere else for the bookcase and contents to go, so it is put back to where it was. The post-Christmas cleaning and tidying continued, until I found something more appealing to do. Someone who knows about walls and plaster crumbling has been sent for. This might mean that the purchase of new chairs has to wait.

Housework is summed up perfectly in this poem by Pam Ayres, followed by one of mine,

Dust If You Must

Dust if you must, but wouldn’t it be better
To paint a picture or write a letter,
Bake a cake or plant a seed,
Ponder the difference between want and need?

Dust if you must, but there’s not much time,
With rivers to swim and mountains to climb,
Music to hear and books to read,
Friends to cherish and life to lead.

Dust if you must, but the world’s out there,
With the sun in your eyes, the wind in your hair,
A flutter of snow, a shower of rain.
This day will not come around again.

Dust if you must, but bear in mind,
Old age will come and it’s not kind.
And when you go – and go you must –
You yourself will make more dust.

                                                            Pam Ayres

I’m With These 2018 Heroes

The kitchen floor needs mopping
And the beds are left unmade
But I’m not doing housework
While there’s matches being played.

The perfect football pitches,
Neatly mowed and lush and green,
Ready for the world’s finest
To give us the best we’ve seen.

So bring it on, DeBruyne,
Ronaldo and Messi, too.
Fellaini and Suarez
I’ll be watching all of you.

A huge shout out for England,
For Harry Kane and the boys,
I’ve taught my grandkids to cheer
And to fill my house with noise.

Fav’rites Rashford and Lingard,
The skilful Eric Dier,
I’m loving every moment,
Applauding Harry Macguire.

The crumbs stay on the carpet
While the football frenzy flows
And the pots wait in the sink
‘Til the final whistle blows.

Pamela Winning 2018 (edited 2024)

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Hexagons - The Patchwork Quilt

I loved needlework lessons at school. It was something I excelled in and the highlight of my week. All through secondary school I was joint top of the class with another girl who, like me, had a mother and two grandmothers, all knitters and stitchers, teaching their skills to our generation.  My Nanna Hetty used to give me a scrap of fabric and a handful of buttons to sew on. I would set them out in a pattern. It kept me busy for hours and I was very accomplished by the age of seven or eight. I also learnt to respect the sharpness of a sewing needle. No harm done.

At school, besides the curriculum stuff of making a cookery apron, a netball skirt and a pin cushion, our teacher introduced us to smocking and classic patchwork. The smocking was part of the baby dresses we made from calico and gingham. The patchwork was a bit more involved.  First we had to make hexagon shaped templates from squared paper. The six sides had to be exactly the same, so lots of careful measuring. Next, pieces of fabric were neatly folded over the hexagon side, taking care to keep the correct shape before pinning or tacking.  Each piece had to fit perfectly with another. I was very proud of mine, which became a beautiful patchwork cushion cover, later included in my exam collection.  I was equally proud of a patchwork gypsy skirt that I made for myself in the mid-seventies.

When I was told the gender of our first grandchild, I set about making a patchwork cot quilt. These days, plastic and metal templates are readily available to buy in all shapes and sizes, much easier to draw round and cut out. I chose the classic hexagon set and an assortment of suitable fabrics. Preparing the pieces was easy but hand stitching them together was more challenging for my poor eyesight. My first grandson is now three. He has a two year old cousin, a one year old brother and a sister on the way. My patchwork quilt remains unfinished, (my photo), but I will manage it, eventually, with the help of a hands-free magnifying glass.

I can relate so much to my chosen poem. It’s given me an idea for another needlework project.

 

Repairing the Heirloom
By Deborah Browning

The pattern was "spider web" -
Scraps of fabric forming hexagons,
Their paisleys, dots and plaids
Repeated until the shapes stopped,
Some incomplete, at the edge,
And over the whole a web, quilted,
Seven stitches to the inch drawing each corner
To the center.

In the patchwork I recognized pieces
Of my grandmother's gingham apron,
The apron itself cut from the skirt
Of a faded dress. Her family's clothes,
The work of her hands, for years
Were conserved. Winters passed to the scrape
Of scissors trimming those rectangles.

I trimmed a scrap of fabric from my old sundress,
Appliqued it over the threadbare original,
Bright red against worn calico.
I laid on the design by drawing needle
Across fabric, quilting the impression
That would disappear like the needle's imprints
In my fingers. My stitches met hers
And I knotted the thread of this net
That would catch another generation of small hands,
Clenching in sleep and letting go.





Thanks for reading, Pam x

 

 

 

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The Best Decade - My 1960s

I like to write historical fiction. I get a lot of enjoyment from researching specific eras. There is so much to learn and I never tire of it. I’ve spent a long time, in fits and starts, on a project that begins in the early 1960s and I’d love to see it completed, though it may have to stay on the back burner until I am able to dedicate more of myself to it. I expected to be retired by now, me like many others, and I planned to treat my project like a full-time job and see if it went anywhere. Let’s wait and see if I’ve still got a functioning brain by the time I get my pension.

I’m choosing the 1960s as the best decade that I have known and I’ve chosen through personal experience and not my research. I was born in the mid-fifties into a wonderful, close family of strong minded women and hard working men. I appreciate how fortunate I am to have had the love, security and grounding of a decent up-bringing. I’ve always been mindful that not everyone is so lucky.

In the mid-sixties we moved to Blackpool. Life got even more exciting. My parents had their dream pub on the promenade and clearly loved it. South Shore beach became my playground, with my younger sister, buckets and spades and either our mother or our adored housekeeper, Auntie Kathy to look after us. We watched the whole world from our upstairs windows, holiday makers dashing off the beach as a storm came over the sea, silly hats, illuminated trams and gangs of what my dad called Beatniks. As soon as the illuminations ended, that was it, Blackpool prom died. The winter view was one of an empty, bleak wilderness, but it was fascinating watching the waves come over the sea wall and crash on to the tram lines during a fierce gale. If only I could see it all again, but thinking as an adult now, I would be worried about the rattling sash windows blowing in. The summer of 1968 is still my favourite, even though my mother embarrassed me by telling singer/songwriter/busker Don Partridge how much I adored him, as we were being introduced. He didn’t seem to mind but I certainly did. He was in the Central Pier show for the summer season and we, that is me and my mum, were front of house guests and back stage guests on separate occasions. I was enthralled to hear him sing ‘Rosie’ and ‘Blue Eyes’ live on stage and I still love those songs. We had a summer of shows and meeting people including Engelbert Humperdinck. He was headlining at the ABC theatre. I was speechless.

My poem is an old one of mine, written with love for those bygone days. It reminds me now of a late friend, Christo Heyworth. When he read the poem, he told me that the ‘grumpy deck chair man’ could have been him, though, as I said at the time, I couldn’t imagine Christo being grumpy.

 

This Was My Blackpool In ’68.

Taking a tram from North Pier to Starr Gate.

A summer of fun and staying up late.

This was my Blackpool in ’68. 

Anne, Auntie Kath and me, all holding hands

Crossing the Prom to get on to the sands

Where the grumpy deck-chair man always stands.

This was my Blackpool in ’68. 

We were young ladies with panache and style,

Playing the penny arcades for a while,

Frittering our spends on the Golden Mile.

This was my Blackpool in ’68. 

Spinning the Waltzers three times in a row.

Make it go faster, we don’t like it slow,

And then the man said, “That’s it, off you go!”

This was my Blackpool in ’68. 

Out to a summer show, straight after tea.

Engelbert tonight at the ABC,

A back-stage delight for my mum and me.

This was my Blackpool in ’68. 

Got to get ready, there’s no time to lose!

My trendiest outfit is what I will choose…

A pink mini dress with bright orange shoes.

This was my Blackpool in ’68. 

A time of peace, love and Flower Power,

Charlie Cairoli and Blackpool Tower,

Seaside and sunshine for hour after hour.

This was my Blackpool in ’68.

Pamela Winning,   2013

Thanks for reading, Pam x

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