It’s not unusual for families to have furniture that has been handed on through the generations.
It is less usual to have toys. I am staying in a house where the toys have been handed on. The oldest have been in the family for five generations and I suspect give as much pleasure to the oldies as to the latest grandchild. As a child I played with Bru and Angela’s toys: a hula hoop, stilts, a pogo stick and a game I couldn’t master called Diablo involving throwing and catching a thing like a shuttlecock using a string between two sticks.
And of course a vintage pram, similar to the one in which my grandfather and his three siblings were photographed as children. There were photographed again more than fifty years later in the same place with the same pram. Pocket-sized Aunt Ada is in the pram and Uncle Eddy, Aunt Aline and my grandfather grouped around. I will rummage around and post the photographs when I get home. Meanwhile I am going on a quest today – to find Aunt Aline, or more precisely her old home and her grave.
Richard Scarry – what a delight those books were, always so entertaining for adults as well as young; they always conveyed happy and positive images of work so even Lowly Worm had a well defined and positive image and personality and no chips on his non-existent shoulders about anxiety or his mental health.
Most interested to see the toys. I too have inherited a number, going back to the early 19th century (more details can be provided!), and have not yet properly planned their eventual homes. As to books: I worked with early children’s books for much of my career, and learnt to read with Randolph Caldecott, Walter Crane and Kate Greenaway (my grandfather was not fond of the last-named, but put up with it!).
It is thanks to Angela and Edward C-C that I receive your blogs, which I do enjoy.