Christmas has always been big in Stephen and Jake’s home. The baubles were a present from Jake to Stephen, bought in a vintage shop off Carnaby Street in London the year that they met. They’ve been together for nineteen years. The baubles remind Stephen of Christmas as a child, it was always a very grand affair. There were beautiful decorations festooning his grandparents’ manor house, there was a dining table as long as a runway with guests seated down both sides of it’s full length. It wasn’t until years later that he discovered that their stately home was actually a halls of residence, the banqueting guests were overseas students who couldn’t afford the flight home and his grandparents were the caretakers of the house.
25 Dec 2011
Claudia grew up in Bavaria, she moved to London at the end of the 90s. She returned to Germany briefly, living in Berlin before the pull of the UK exerted itself again. She moved to Glasgow for a few years then headed south to London again. This old tea set was bought on Columbia Road Market, near her home. She has always loved birds, the pheasant (fasanen) though native to China now thrives in both the UK and Germany.
18 Dec 2011
Cathy’s earliest memories are of trips to the Wiltshire countryside with her dad and elder brother, Drew. Bill was their host, a US serviceman and friend of the family. Their ‘Uncle Bill’ started a summer camp in 1956 for the kids of US air force men stationed in the UK. Camp Mohawk provided all the traditional activities, barbecues, canoeing and games but also gave children the opportunity to learn native American crafts. There were classes in decorating leather, the wallet was her dad’s, it is Cathy’s most treasured possession. She was three when she first went to the camp and still remembers a visit from Navajo Chief Rising Sun. Drew recently discovered some Pathé News footage of the camp from the 60s, in it Chief Rising Sun is revealed to be their Uncle Bill in full feathered regalia. Nine years ago their dad died, they tracked down the site of Camp Mohawk and scattered his ashes, most of the huts, though largely hidden by ivy, were still standing fifty years after their construction.
11 Dec 2011
Liza’s great uncle bought a farm in Nanyuki, in Kenya’s Rift Valley in the 1930s. Fifty years later her mother took her sister Emma to visit him. Emma decided to stay, she had met David, the man who was to become her husband. A few years later, when Liza flew out to see Emma, she too met a man who was to become her husband. Liza not only fell in love with Willy but also with the country, with it’s remoteness, it’s night skies and the sense of danger, where even daily walks were charged with the electrifying threat of being on something’s menu. Liza and Willy’s existence was simple, two wells served the island of Kiwaiyu where they lived. They fished to eat, catching tuna and dorado, sharing it with friends in the local village. Closer to shore they swam in the coral gardens, their eyes trained to pick out octopuses camouflaged against the rocks. It was here that Liza spotted her bottle, it’s neck decorated with a ruff of coral. The bottle is perfectly intact, gauging it’s age by the slow growing coral Liza estimates it must have been sixty years old when she found it.
04 Dec 2011
The London traffic was smiling on Abe, never had it conspired to help him but today another collector was delayed, stuck in a tailback. His dealer was killing time and had stopped by to see Abe. In the back of the dealer’s car was a towering Ekoi mask. In the 80s, Abe, his wife Sarah and baby daughter were visiting his mother in Ibadan, north east of Lagos. Sarah had bought a postcard of an Ekoi crest mask, this marked the beginning of Abe’s obsession. The masks, from Nigerias’s south eastern coast are carved from wood and covered in antelope skin. They are rested on the head, worn to celebrate the end of a period of seclusion and fattening in preparation for the marriage of young women. Abe locked the door of his shop, he cut the dealer a generous piece of Sarah’s carrot cake and the negotiations began. He cut a second piece of cake. Within the hour Abe had carefully unwrapped the mask, dusted it off and was re-attaching each of it’s tresses.
27 Nov 2011
Katherine’s grandad, Cornelius O’Reilly, gave her this coin when she was seven years old. He’d grown up in India and worked as a signalman on the north west frontier. The coin, written in Pashto, reading upside down when worn as a pendant, probably came from this area. When Katherine was eighteen he died, she’s worn the pendant regularly since.
20 Nov 2011
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