Collecting Australiana
Without Prejudice
I am a collector of Australiana and love it. The only problem I have ever found about collecting is the storing of it. I have used up all the space I have and then some and need a mini warehouse or warm, dry shed now.
It all began with my former parent in laws " stuff", they originated from a dairy farm in Gippsland. My Father in law died first and six years later my Mother In Law. They were people that had lived through the Great Depression and the Second World War.
Both were hoarders and re used, re cycled and saved every bit of detritus they could lay their hands on. When they moved off the farm to the outskirts of Melbourne they took a lot of their " stuff" with them. Pots, pans, furniture, ephemera, kitchenalia, some mended things, tools, home made craft. You name it, they had it.
I as a former daughter in law had a chance to examine all the "stuff" and felt privileged to do so. I love Australiana with a passion. I was born in Edinburgh, emigrated with my parents and siblings as a two year old, returned to the U.K. to stay four nearly five years and attend my Mothers old Alma Mater, a Grammar School in Yorkshire.
I never stopped missing Oz however and my parents were given to saying that they realised they had made a mistake by returning and started saving to go back the day they arrived. In those days it took five weeks by boat to get home to Old Blighty and five weeks to return. The first trip taking us through the Suez Canal and the return via The Panama.
I bored everyone at Thornes House Grammar silly with my reminisces of Australia and was tagged an " Abo" and " Kangaroo shoes" .
From the day I arrived back in Australia I began collecting little things, little bits of " home " and have never stopped. Everything Australian went straight to my heart. But never did I expect to find the " seam of Gold" I found at my former Parents In Laws house.
Arnotts biscuit tins, square, tin, paper labelled, gorgeous. A flour bin with twin sides, deep and tin made. Fowlers Vacola Jars with still in good condition rubber seals. A shelved cabinet my Father In Law had made for his wife to use in the kitchen. Rimmed with cup hooks.
Baking tins that I can remember the roast lamb, mutton being baked in and then scoured and used for square apple pie, one time with chocolate pastry. Measuring jugs of tin, picnic baskets of cane with twin hinged lids that I can remember being packed with hot tea in flasks and all sorts of goodies for Morning and Afternoon teas.
A welcome staple for the Hay Harvesters after Christmas every year. Treats like home made scones, jam and cream, sausage rolls still warm from the convection oven that heated the kitchen up to an unbearable high and warmed the water for dishes and showers.
The hand made knits that my Mother In Law created on cold winter nights when the wind whistled down the chimney of the old weather board farmhouse. Old saucepans pitted at the bottom that had boiled up new potatoes and peas from the veggie garden. One old tin pot that mainly was used for tomatoes, chopped bacon and a topping of grated cheese. Spread on toast for breakfast. Another for the poached eggs, twelve of which my ex was known to boast of eating as an 18 year old farm labourer.
The well oiled and looked after tools of my Father In Law and the plants he had tended and the pots he had made with his own hands. I can remember him making the concrete pots and how proud he was of them when they came out of the mould.
The Brown Betty teapot that had made the endless pots of tea, tanned with tannin on the inside. No new pot would do, the brown inside made the best cuppa. Coffee was mainly unheard of as was margarine. Butter was de rigeur, being a dairy farm after all and the parents in law would never allow margarine in the house.
Butter always in a butter dish, which I have and sugar in a midnight blue glass sugar bowl with a silver spoon attached to the top. Tea in a caddy with a flat spoon. Biscuits in tins that kept out the ants and kept moist the boiled fruit cake and marshmallow topped Christmas Cake.
Everything I have is a memory. A loving memory of another time, another place, other people and families. And that is what collecting old stuff is about. The history, the memory, the scent, the texture, the feel. Older, comforting, familiar.
I am a collector of Australiana and love it. The only problem I have ever found about collecting is the storing of it. I have used up all the space I have and then some and need a mini warehouse or warm, dry shed now.
It all began with my former parent in laws " stuff", they originated from a dairy farm in Gippsland. My Father in law died first and six years later my Mother In Law. They were people that had lived through the Great Depression and the Second World War.
Both were hoarders and re used, re cycled and saved every bit of detritus they could lay their hands on. When they moved off the farm to the outskirts of Melbourne they took a lot of their " stuff" with them. Pots, pans, furniture, ephemera, kitchenalia, some mended things, tools, home made craft. You name it, they had it.
I as a former daughter in law had a chance to examine all the "stuff" and felt privileged to do so. I love Australiana with a passion. I was born in Edinburgh, emigrated with my parents and siblings as a two year old, returned to the U.K. to stay four nearly five years and attend my Mothers old Alma Mater, a Grammar School in Yorkshire.
I never stopped missing Oz however and my parents were given to saying that they realised they had made a mistake by returning and started saving to go back the day they arrived. In those days it took five weeks by boat to get home to Old Blighty and five weeks to return. The first trip taking us through the Suez Canal and the return via The Panama.
I bored everyone at Thornes House Grammar silly with my reminisces of Australia and was tagged an " Abo" and " Kangaroo shoes" .
From the day I arrived back in Australia I began collecting little things, little bits of " home " and have never stopped. Everything Australian went straight to my heart. But never did I expect to find the " seam of Gold" I found at my former Parents In Laws house.
Arnotts biscuit tins, square, tin, paper labelled, gorgeous. A flour bin with twin sides, deep and tin made. Fowlers Vacola Jars with still in good condition rubber seals. A shelved cabinet my Father In Law had made for his wife to use in the kitchen. Rimmed with cup hooks.
Baking tins that I can remember the roast lamb, mutton being baked in and then scoured and used for square apple pie, one time with chocolate pastry. Measuring jugs of tin, picnic baskets of cane with twin hinged lids that I can remember being packed with hot tea in flasks and all sorts of goodies for Morning and Afternoon teas.
A welcome staple for the Hay Harvesters after Christmas every year. Treats like home made scones, jam and cream, sausage rolls still warm from the convection oven that heated the kitchen up to an unbearable high and warmed the water for dishes and showers.
The hand made knits that my Mother In Law created on cold winter nights when the wind whistled down the chimney of the old weather board farmhouse. Old saucepans pitted at the bottom that had boiled up new potatoes and peas from the veggie garden. One old tin pot that mainly was used for tomatoes, chopped bacon and a topping of grated cheese. Spread on toast for breakfast. Another for the poached eggs, twelve of which my ex was known to boast of eating as an 18 year old farm labourer.
The well oiled and looked after tools of my Father In Law and the plants he had tended and the pots he had made with his own hands. I can remember him making the concrete pots and how proud he was of them when they came out of the mould.
The Brown Betty teapot that had made the endless pots of tea, tanned with tannin on the inside. No new pot would do, the brown inside made the best cuppa. Coffee was mainly unheard of as was margarine. Butter was de rigeur, being a dairy farm after all and the parents in law would never allow margarine in the house.
Butter always in a butter dish, which I have and sugar in a midnight blue glass sugar bowl with a silver spoon attached to the top. Tea in a caddy with a flat spoon. Biscuits in tins that kept out the ants and kept moist the boiled fruit cake and marshmallow topped Christmas Cake.
Everything I have is a memory. A loving memory of another time, another place, other people and families. And that is what collecting old stuff is about. The history, the memory, the scent, the texture, the feel. Older, comforting, familiar.
