A treasure trove

“I inherited a child’s desk from my mother,” says Ruth Walker of St Andrews. “She grew up in Edinburgh, the youngest of three sisters, and was born in 1900. The desk is made from fine rich mahogany, and the little drawers have mother of pearl-decorated knobs. It stands in my bedroom and I have not inspected the contents for a while – I have shoved my own flotsam and jetsam in occasionally and things somehow have just accrued!

“When I did take a look, the top drawers contained Christmas baubles, a packet of needles, a tiny prayer book, a pack of cards for playing Snap, a red tin Elastoplast box marked ‘Stamps’ in my father’s handwriting, some children’s wooden alphabet bricks, a hexagonal wooden puzzle box with a

Japanese scene on the front, and, inside, a pasted-on advertisement: SCRUBS AMMONIA TRY IT IN YOUR BATH!

“In the second row of drawers were an out-of-date paracetamol packet, an ‘Invisible Pen’, a stretchy bandage, visiting cards (my mother’s name printed in fine copperplate writing script), a tear-off pack of black and white postcards featuring ‘Les Riches Tapisseries de l’abbaye de La Chaise Dieu’.

“Further drawers contained more building and alphabet bricks with animals, several pairs of my own present-day favourite stripey socks, yet more postcards, my father’s visiting cards, Christmas baubles, a grey tin box that once held Formalin Menthol Cinnamon tablets, the repository now of some fine, old-fashioned steel pen nibs.”