Meet Susan and Helen....

Susan is the eldest.  She had the most lovely long hair in plaits and I used to love playing tea parties with her.  She was dressed in a green bonnet and dress to match and had a lovely well fitted pair of shoes.  She is 62 years old.  Sadly as a child I cut her long locks as I thought her hair would grow back. Here she is wearing her pink dress - beautifully made by my mother all those years ago.

Helen is one year younger - she had beautiful curly dark brown hair, and still has a good head of hair - but rather "sticky" and "clumpy" with age.  Still has bobby pins stuck in and she too has a pink dressed made by my clever Mum.  Her best dress was a long dress with tiny beads sewing in (made by my Mum) and white shoes.  

These dolls have had a hard life.  In Australia, I played with them til I was about 12 years old and then they were stored in the loft, then my parents moved and stored them in the garden shed - this was no small shed, it was a corrugated iron shed with lots of shelves, and both dolls were in a box on the top shelf  I would reckon they were there for about 7 years, and temperatures were in the 30 degrees C, and iron gets hot.  By then I was in the UK - and so the dolls were "saved" and shipped to me here.  But I just put them in the loft - again a very low ceiling loft exposed to the elements of hot summers and cold winters.  

At last I have "saved" them again - but really don't know what to do with them and yet as they have some very good memories, I don't want to get rid of them. At the moment, they are sitting on my book shelf......I moved the books to the floor to make room - after all they are special....

Oooh so ugly....and yet

I could not part with it.  It was my granmothers and she has been gone for nearly 20 years. 

I just been sorting out one of the sideboard drawers this evening looking for my pinking shears - and came across this instead.  I hadn't taken it out of the drawer in all these years, but as soon as I did the memories of living with Nan came flooding back.

This hung on her kitchen wall during the four years I lived with her.  Its out now, dusted off and now hanging on my kitchen wall above the towel rail.

Not sure how long it will stay there.  It doesn't really look out of place....I am sure there will be some comments next week. We shall see.

My Memorabilia - 5

Yes I know!  Its only an old wooden stool!  But this stool holds many memories.  It was my grandmothers, my mothers mothers stool, and all I have to remember her by.  It doesn't really have a place in my home but I won't part with it. 

When I came to the UK in 1968, for three months I travelled all over the UK, mostly by coach and train.  My grandparents lived in Nottingham in one of those two up two down Victorian houses with the toilet on the back wall of the small court yard.  No bathroom, they bathed in the kitchen in an old tin bath.  There was no back garden and everybody in the terraced used this courtyard to reach the back entrances of their homes.  The front of the house overlooked another courtyard, so you were literally looking onto another persons front room. 

As I only intended staying in the country for three months, I visited them as often as I could and my granmother and I used to catch the tram into the city and walk for miles along the Trent and visiting the castle and many other attractions. 

These are postcards I bought as I travelled around and glued them into a scrap book.  The top picture is Wollatan Hall, the next one down is The Castle, and the next is the Castle Gate, and the next one Robin Hood Statue.

The next is the River Trent and Bridge and the final one includes the Castle Garden and the University in Nottingham. 

The ticket at the bottom was a show I went to and you can see the stalls were four shillings in old money.  I can't remember what show I went to see with a lad from the terrace.  But whatever show it was we thoroughly enjoyed it, but we never saw the last act.  Why you might ask?

Well it was the first time that either of us had ever been to a show and we both assumed there was only one interval.  So of course when the act after the first interval ended everyone got up from their seats .......and we went home!  It was only when we were telling my grandad that it ended funny, we realised that we had walked out at the second interval, not at the end of the show! 

Many happy memories all the same.

My memorabilia - 4

A real grown up iron given to me by my parents when I was around eight years old.  We had an old wood stove - one that you cook your food on top and in the oven.  The wood was fed through a door at the front, or you could use a tool to lift off one of the "plates" and pop the wood in the top.  I would place my little iron here to heat it up.

After washing my dolls clothes I would iron them - and it really did work - it was so hot I had to use a cloth to hold the handle.

This is a keepsake forever, I have very fond memories of using it a lot when I was young. 

My Memorabilia - 3

These cute little things.  I have always called them "Surfies", perhaps thats what they were called when bought in the 1960s from a Woolworths store in Australia.  I love them. 

They have never been put on display for fear of them getting broken, so wrapped carefully in tissue and stuck in a drawer.  I really don't know where to display them.

Maybe since I am having a new bathroom put in that I could include these little fellas in the decor.  They are about 5" tall, ceramic and bright coloured painted.  Still look as good as new.

My memorabilia - 2

Carnaby Street in the 1960s!  When I came to the UK in 1968 for a three month holiday, visiting Carnaby Street was high on my list to do.  Just loved it!  Loved the atmosphere, the fashion, etc.

And guess what I have never been back since my last visit in 1969!  This badge was sewn in the middle of a travel rug I was given, and many more badges were added to the rug of places I visited during the first year in UK. 

My Memorabilia - 1

 

I was only thinking today that we all keep a piece of memorabilia from our past.  Every now and again I am sorting out drawers and cupboards and come across different things that I have kept.

 

 

I cannot remember when or why I bought these.  I do know when I was twelve and left home to live in town so I could attend the secondary school, that all the girls collected items for our "glory box" over the four years, bought from the local shops with our pocket money.  Things we would need for our first home when we married.  I can only think that perhaps I bought these to go into the "box". 

It is three deers - mother and babies, connected by a small chain from the babies through a hook on the mother's neck.  These are shiny gold colour china.

They had been stored in the "box" - a very old wooden cradle which my father bought me from an auction, until I asked for everything to be shipped to UK, where the cradle was  passed onto my sister as it was too heavy to send. 

These deers remained stored in the loft for many years until I decided to bring them out in the daylight, and now I ponder on whether to sell them on ebay. But they are an ornament and not many people seem to collect ornaments now. 

My grandson recently came to visit and he pointed to the these sitting on the shelf and said could he have them.   So I guess I will have to keep them for a while longer.