I prefer to use knives with bone handles at home. Like so many preferences and habits it is because that’s what we did at Barmeath.
I get fresh flowers delivered for the same reason; my grandmother put flowers in the Blue Room. It was later painted a warmer yellow as the room is notoriously cold in a house even today not known for its warmth. It was where after a concert (a string detachment from the Ulster Youth Orchestra) and dinner we danced The Walls of Derry on the occasion of my brother’s 80th birthday this year. And the hall, dining room, drawing room and my bedroom to welcome me home from boarding schools.
Bone-handled knives are not supposed to go in a dish washer because the handles get discoloured and the glue sticking the handle to the blade dissolves. So they accumulated in the sink until either I or more likely the cleaner washed them in hot, soapy water. Now I wash them as they are used under a cold tap brushing the blades vigorously.
“ ‘What a pity,’ he said, without a trace of that buoyant flippancy that had been very much part of his attraction, at least in my eyes, ‘what a pity that we went to a classical school!’ I was puzzled at this, for he had always referred to his father and to his mother under the names of a Greek god and a Greek goddess; so I asked him why it had been a pity. ‘How would you wash an axe if it had traces of blood on it, and you wanted to remove the traces?’ Accompanying his question with one of his most engaging smiles, as if he were about to let me in on a delightful secret. ‘I suppose I would boil some water and put the axe into it,’ I replied. He looked at me triumphantly (he always liked being in the right) and said: ‘Well that is exactly what I did; and Chief Inspector Mahoney told me that that was just where I went wrong: it got the blood encrusted in the pores of the metal. He said I should have washed it in cold water, which would have left no trace.’ He seemed quite genuinely aggrieved about this gap in our education, as if Shrewsbury had let him down personally.” (A Classical Education, Richard Cobb)
“Richard Cobb CBE (1917 – 1996) was a British historian and essayist, and professor at the University of Oxford. He was the author of numerous influential works about the history of France, particularly the French Revolution.” (Wikipedia)
“Edward Ball, 19, murdered his mother, Lavinia (Vera), at their home in Booterstown, on February 17 1936. Her body was never found (her car was recovered at the coast in Shankill, Dublin).” (Murderpedia)
A Classical Education was originally published by Chatto & Windus in 1985. Now it has been rediscovered by Slightly Foxed Editions.
I am fascinated by the reference in today’s blog about the Ball or Preston Ball murder case. It is the leading Irish case where a conviction for murder can lie – even where no body is ever found. Interesting too that Edward Ball having pleaded not guilty confessed his guilt, long after the event, to his school chum Richard Cobb
Also, I thought everybody used bone-handled knives ? However, in clubland I find that only Buck’s Club uses bone-handled knives as well as fiddle pattern forks. Table settings there are so much nicer than the professional catering cutlery that adorns every other club table nowadays
Good news: a firm called Glazebrook now sells dishwasher-proof bone-handled, or as they call them cream handle, knives. Not quite the yellowish handles in old knives but very acceptable. My wife got fed up with our knives piling up to be washed by hand. Apart from the washing up issue, I find that some modern knives with metal handles aren’t properly weighted, and are liable to fall off the plate.