Evening papers

I find that sometimes the smallest thing can start a new train of thought, not necessarily related directly to what caused it, or bring to mind something that has been long forgotten. It was some small item in Friday's paper that did it for me.

I don't usually read the morning paper until the evening. By that time, Mrs S has been at it and I frequently need to remake the paper sheet by sheet. It's not that they are out of order - well, not out of numerical order anyway - but that they are out of alignment and need straightening. I'm finicky about that: I do like my newspaper to be "just so". What I really need, I suppose, is a butler to straighten the pages and iron them for me. [Evening paper? Get it? Sorry pardon!]

Anyway, what I was reminded of was a family heirloom that is tucked away in a cupboard and rarely sees the light of day. That's the problem with family heirlooms. Modern houses are too small to allow much to be kept from one generation to another and passed on down the line, so what is kept tends to be small and tucked away. But I suppose that has always been the case for most people. It was actually only the rich who lived in large houses, mansions, castles or palaces and only the rich who had anything to be passed down the generations.

I do have one heirloom. It is a Victorian chest of drawers. I remember it standing in the small bedroom of my grandparents' house and it might even have been passed down to them from one side or the other - or maybe they bought it second hand. It ended up standing in my parents' small bedroom, a depositary for all manner of things that nobody knew what to do with but were reluctant to throw away. When we cleared the house after my mother's death, everything in the drawers did get thrown away as there really was nothing of any value - monetary or sentimental. But I insisted on keeping the chest. However, unlike Edith Piaf, I do have one regret.

The chest had at some stage been painted white. I actually seem to recall it as black when it was in my grandparents' house, but by this time it was white. What I wanted to do was to strip the paint completely and polish the plain wood. What I regret is the decision I made to have the chest dipped rather than going through the lengthy process of stripping the paint myself by hand. It stripped the paint pretty well, but warped the drawers so that I had to plane down some of the timber in order that they could be opened and shut easily, and the drawer fronts are now obviously twisted. Still, I polished that chest with beeswax every day for about three weeks while it was standing in our hall. The intention was that it should be taken to France to stand in the hall at Les Lavandes - and that is where it is now.

While it was in the hall here in England, the low table which had been there for the telephone had to be moved. It was, of course, put back once the chest had been removed, but then Madam decided she preferred the chest to the table! I had to search for weeks before I could find another similar chest.

The heirloom in France.