Museum

Today

The move to Spencer House has highlighted what I already knew. Not only did we have too much stuff; a great deal of it had absolutely no function whatsoever in our daily lives. Much of it takes up significant space and adds a museum-like quality to the house; and the hundred and twenty teapots are still in store....

Paul's beautiful vitrine houses a collection of delicate cups, saucers and plates. There is a huge, quite unusable teapot filling up one window sill and a very pretty set of purple liqueur glasses and decanter on the landing cabinet that have never been used.

Looking at these glasses reminds me of one of those little niggling incidents of my childhood.

In My Day

At 4BH we did, indeed, have a "Museum". This was an ornate black lacquer and gold glass fronted cabinet that matched the hall table. It contained a number of items, not all of which I can remember - I expect family can help me out here. There was certainly an incendiary bomb that had landed on the roof of 4BH during the war (was it unexploded?). There were David's Coronation medals and Maundy Money from his time at St Paul's.

Sometime during my childhood - I think I was about six or seven - a friend of my parents gave me a delightful gift of a miniature decanter and glasses set on a cute tray. It was made of wood, hand-painted with red stripes and the whole thing was about eight inches in diameter. "Bohemian" Mamma called it, meaning it came from somewhere in Eastern Europe, I suppose.

How I looked forward to playing with it! I could give little tea-parties; a host of other fantasies crowded my brain. It was not to be. The gift was firmly taken away and placed in the Museum. I was allowed to look but certainly not touch.

In one respect, of course, Mamma and Daddy were wise; the item would probably have been lost or broken had I been allowed to play with with. But, on the other hand, if I couldn't play with it, what was it for? And I don't know what happened to it after Mamma and Daddy moved to Dorking.

And that's the whole issue surrounding these items; they have to play a significant part in our lives, at least the joy of handling and looking at them, if our homes aren't to turn into museums.