Saturday 23 February 2019

A handpainted "afternoon tea" set

is something I never expected to own. I have never wanted to own one but now I suppose I do.
It belonged to my paternal grandmother. It was a wedding gift.  My siblings don't want it so I am going to be "allowed" to have it.
But let me start a little earlier than that. This is also about what you inherit. My sisters married and they inherited quite a number of household items. 
    "You don't need them Cat," I was told. Perhaps I didn't. They also inherited our mother's jewellry and her wedding ring and the rings that had belonged to both my grandmothers. I was told "You aren't married Cat. You can't wear them." Perhaps that was right.
There was quite a bit of "good" crockery and cutlery that the Black Cat probably did need - having moved and changed partners more times than I care to think about. Middle Cat needed the sewing machine - repairs to the clothing of her  (then) two small boys. Her mother-in-law took the overlocker - she was the only one who knew how to use it. And there were other things that went as well.
But, oddly, the afternoon tea set was left there in the cupboard. There are cups, saucers, plates, a cake stand, a milk jug and sugar bowl. The set is complete. (There was never a teapot.) The pieces are made from bone china - not quite white. They are painted in bands of gold and navy blue. Each piece is numbered. 
I am a clumsy cat. Just holding a piece terrifies me. I have never used it. I am never likely to use it. We don't have afternoon tea parties in this house.
So, do I want it? Why would I want it? I have thought about this long and hard. I do want to keep it but not for what it is. I want to keep it because it is another reminder of my paternal grandmother, the person who taught me all the important housekeeping skills, the person who kept telling me "you can do it" when other people said I couldn't, the person who taught me to knit, and more. Grandma was the person who came when I was in hospital as a very small kitten. She was the person, along with my grandfather, who came to the only graduation ceremony I attended.  
Grandma married my grandfather against the wishes of her own father. Apparently the old man was furious that he was losing a "free" pair of hands on the farm. He had taken her out of school after just three years to work on that same farm. She had to educate herself after that - and she did. It was my paternal great-grandmother who gave her the afternoon tea set. I look on it as an enormous vote of confidence in my grandmother. It said not just, "I accept you" but also, "I know you are going to be not merely a good wife but a great one."
I know the tea set was not used that often. It may have been used more in the early years of marriage. I know they would have people to afternoon tea on a Sunday. Dinner parties were not as common then. My brother has the dinner set, the one we used at Christmas and on rare family gatherings. It's good but it isn't like the afternoon tea set.  My brother has the dining room furniture too, the "great chair" and the nine chairs without arms and the table with the extension which winds out. 
But, I think I have the tea set. It is there in the cupboard. Nobody else seems to want it. I may not remind them of it. Is that selfish?
I have to move it today because a friend is coming to take the old sound system which has not been used for the past twenty-two years. The connections are at the back of the cupboard in which the tea set has been kept. To get at those I have to move the tea set.
I have a box. I know I can do it.
And when our friend S.....has removed the connections I will return the tea set pieces to their place in the cupboard. I will look at the numbers on each piece and wonder who painted them.
And most of all I will look at them and think of my great-grandmother and my grandmother. They were both extraordinary women. The tea set is a little piece of Grandma. I want to keep it for that reason. 

No comments: