A Trip Down Memory Lane
(in lieu of a main speaker)
Brian and Anne Hewitt: The first image is of Anne's box collection, and the second is Brian's camera collection.
Next is an image of Kathy Terry and her sister's Norwegian dolls.
Here you can see a child's 'grain' sewing machine made in England (circa 1949) from Eileen Soper, along with her grandmother's vase.
An interesting one from David Hodgson, his mother's crystal perfume and powder receptacles that are labelled as 'Lalique' (David is doubtful). Aladdin also belonged to his grandmother.
And from Margaret Westgate, Hummel and Capodimonte figurines and a Royal Copenhagen vase.
And more porcelain from Denmark from Trevor Hitchcock.
This pottery collection is from Sue Lovelace.
And a personal favourite (Ed) from Mike Blong's grandmother's collection.
Ten-Minute Speaker (Trevor Hitchcock)
Trevor opened his talk saying this was a ‘Martha Stewart’ talk. Trevor met his wife Pauline while he was doing his National Service. His boss was called Windy and he ran the show. Part of Trevor's job was to take reports up to the typing pool and that is where he met his future wife. As they started their life together they came to an agreement that Trevor would look after the outside of the house and Pauline would look after the home and cook the meals. This happy and wonderful marriage lasted 58 years.
After the funeral of his wife at St Stephens church Trevor took a long walk trying to come to terms with what life would be like on his own. As the days went on and the realisation that he would now have to cook his own meals, he raced out and bought two can openers. After a while the tinned meals lost their appeal and a friend Maurice suggested that Trevor take Senior Chef classes. So Trevor arrived at his first class to find that there were old codgers like him and six women. The women in the group have coped with cooking for large groups in the farming community but now they were on their own, cooking for one was difficult. After a few classes Trevor managed beans on toast, with a few sliced tomatoes for decoration.
The other dilemma was how to look after a home on his own. Running the dishwasher was fine until the sediment on the plates went rock hard, then he resorted to hand washing. Overtime Trevor managed to operate the vacuum cleaner, do the laundry, and struggle with the fitted sheets and steam iron. On talking to a friend at the golf club about all the things he had to learn about keeping house a fellow member sitting nearby commented "How big is that guy's castle! Thanks for the reminiscences Trevor.
