The Box of Stories

Thank you, Sam, for those ideas - you can't go far wrong with a dog story.

I like sewing, and generally crafty stuff. My hand-eye co-ordination isn't great so I'm not that good at it, but I do love it. I have a work basket that I've had since I was a girl - it's quite small, the hinges are broken, it's overflowing and the lining is coming off. Pity, because I really like it. I also have a knitting bag and a lot of surplus wool, canvas and odds and ends in a chest in the attic. And boxes around the house for beads, ribbons, buttons, and anything else that jumped out at me from a stall. I have been thinking in terms of a new work box so I can put it all together. A BIG work box.

Well! A few weeks ago, Tony pointed out that we needed at least one more small table. I thought of the various junk/antique shops not far away and said I'd look out for one.

There's an antiques/crafts/junk shop halfway up a hill and only open on Saturdays. If you go past during the week you can't even see it's there, which makes it like a magical shop in a story book. But I went past on a Saturday and nipped in, looking for something to plant bulbs in.

I didn't find something for bulbs. I found HER.

She looks like a small table. But that isn't a table top, it's a lid. Lift the lid. Look! She is a deep and sensible workbox, with an extra drawer underneath, and she's on wheels. She looks a bit 1940s ish, and has seen some rough times because her top is scratched, but we can do something about that. Because of her worn appearance she was selling for not very much - and she is a Treasure Trove.

It wasn't just the workbox for sale, it was the contents. It must have been delivered to the shop just as it left the previous owner, presumably an elderly lady who is no longer with us but was a fine needlewoman in her time. There, inside, was the jumble of bits and pieces that accumulate in a sewing box, and this one had been accumulating for decades. Wool and knitting needles, crochet hooks in four different sizes. (I'll have to learn to crochet now.) A nearly finished tapestry and a half done tablecloth. Threads and embroidery silks, safety pins, papers and boxes of needles and pins. Stocking thread - who ever uses nylon stocking thread now? Poppers - 'snap fasteners' - with the instructions on how to use such new-fangled inventions. Three kinds of elastic. Buttons by the dozen. Mending wool. And my favourite -

It's only a paper of hooks and eyes, but it has a picture of a mother and daughter with 1920s or 1930s bobbed haircuts. And printed underneath, 'By Appointment to Her Majesty Queen Mary'. Queen Mary died in 1953.

She needs a name, an old-fashioned name. Nell, or Betsy, perhaps. Every time I lift the lid I think of her first owner, a hard-working woman, perhaps stitching by gaslight, darning socks, knitting sweaters, crocheting blanket squares.

And for every garment, every mend, there is a story. My workbox is full of stories. The red wool, maybe a sweater for a son or grandson. The pretty bobbly yarn, for a little girl's party cardigan. Every button has a story. And I will never know any of them.