Kitchen Memorabilia

The oldest items are the flat irons, which date from my great-grandparents’ generation; I think it is likely that they belonged to Clara Woolgar née Dawson, rather than Catherine Smith née Seear. The cake knife and toasting fork are believed to have belonged to my great-grandparents, Herbert and Catherine Smith. The knife was used to cut the wedding cakes of their great-great granddaughters.

Coming down to the next generation, the chair and the little blue jug belonged to my granny, Ivy Gertrude Smith née Woolgar. They may have previously belonged to her mother, Clara.

The blue, Torquay Pottery, Plymouth plate is one of the few heirlooms from my father’s side of the family. It was probably bought by my grandparents, Albany and Elizabeth Ann Braund née Hogg, when visiting Albany’s family in Cargreen, Cornwall.

The radio belonged to my parents and dates from the 1940s. It was in daily use until the 1980s and has only recently stopped working. You can still turn it on but it will no longer tune in. The mixing bowl was a wedding present to my parents in 1947. It is used each year to make Christmas cake and Christmas pudding, as are the 1980s' cake tins. The recipes are in the Mrs Beeton’s Cookery Book, which dates from the 1970s. This and the 1980s recipe book, are the only recipe books I possess, apart from the handwritten recipes that have been well used, to the extent that some have now been rendered illegible under the food stains. The Snoopy apron, which is always worn for Christmas cooking, is also of a 1970s' vintage. The dog apron dates from the 1970s or 1980s. The guide one was a 1990s' addition, so that we had one each to wear whilst making Christmas cakes and puddings.

The tea caddies are now in the tool box holding nails and screws, They arrived full of toffees in the 1960s. The glass dishes date from the 1960s. The large dish and the flower shaped ones were in my childhood home, the two on each side of the photo were Granny Ivy’s.

Several items bring back memories of the 1960s. The plastic cups were mine. The pink one I used at home, the red one when at Granny’s. The pink one was used for guide camps, hence my name in red nail varnish. It has also been use by two succeeding generations. The pastel,  ‘Moonglow’, plates were in daily use in the 1960s and still are today. Prior to the Moonglow, we used a cream dinner and tea service with pink and yellow flowers round the edge; now just one dinner plate survives. The 1960s' Tupperware salt pot was used daily. There was a companion one in blue for pepper. A few similar pots that had plain lids also survive, minus their lids, which eventually split. 1980s' equivalents in darker colours, that were used for dolls, have also endured. Another legacy from the 1960s is the bottle opener, which was a birthday or Christmas present when I was about twelve.

The TG Green ware has been in my kitchen since the 1980s and is still on prominent display. The Snoopy tins were also acquired when I was first married. There used to be a third, smaller, Snoopy tin in yellow, which seems to have gone awol.