Chrissie was raised in Newcastle, just five minutes from the station. She’d go train spotting, aged eight, with her cousin. This was the route of the A4 Pacific steam trains, travelling from London’s Kings Cross, north through Newcastle and on to Scotland. As a young girl, Chrissie had travelled to Peterborough on the Mallard, one of the thirty five A4s, the most famous of them for holding the world speed record for steam locomotives. This still stands, held since 1938, at 125.88 mph. The trains were also an important introduction to typography, the later A4s livery using the typeface Gill Sans. Chrissie now runs a letterpress printing business, regularly using Gill Sans. The A4s always held a romance for her, walking through Bloomsbury in the late 80s, she stumbled upon a shop selling model trains. In the window was the Mallard. She bought it, the shopkeeper, excited to find a woman who was a fellow train lover, took her out for a pie.
29 May 2011
As a child Val would hear tales of her Grandmother’s west country childhood delivered in a Dorset accent that never faded despite her early move to London. Her grandmother had kept a pet piglet, tucking it under her arm and feeding it like a baby. The romance of this prompted Val, aged seventeen, to enter a skittles contest to win a piglet at a country fair. She knocked down all the skittles and immediately began considering where ‘Cuthbert’, her new pig would sit on the train home, what she’d feed him, where he’d live. Meanwhile a man had also knocked down all the skittles and a play-off between them determined he was the winner. Hearing him negotiating with the stall holder over what cuts he’d like, chump chops, belly or loin, was a horrible revelation to Val. Three years later Val’s grandmother died. On a shelf in the hallway of her house sat a small ceramic pig, a perfect memento of her grandmother’s stories and a more practical solution to Val’s desire for pet pig.
21 May 2011
Lyssa had a sensible job in marketing for over a decade but her real interest had always been in food. She gave up her job to pursue her love, writing a blog charting her adventures in frugal cooking. She began working in a deli, learning all that she could about the cheeses that they sold. Her boyfriend has always encouraged her, the copper pans were a Christmas present from him. Lyssa says they look older than their years because she uses them every day.
15 May 2011
These miniature paintings were given to Daniel by a Dutch/Venezuelan friend, the artist Christian Vinck H. The two portraits are the size of passport photographs. The pastoral scene at the bottom of the picture, between the Sun Maid Raisins and the medicine bottle is titled ‘Venezuela before the Fever of Oil’.
08 May 2011
Nick’s had his cat Florence for six years. They share a surname, Florence is Florence Foster, named after the Diva of Din, an American soprano, famous only for having no discernible musical ability. Nick collects her whiskers, he finds about ten a year. He’s compelled, in part, by the knowledge that she’ll die first and he’ll always have something of her.
01 May 2011
Bacon sandwiches and the oil that kept sewing machines running were the smells of Davide’s childhood. After graduating as an architect he was drawn into the family trade of tailoring, he was the fourth generation. The books, his ‘bibles’, were given to him by ‘Big John’, his grandfather’s partner in the business. First published in 1928 the books detail everything from the idiosyncrasies of American customers to book keeping to drafting a coat for a ‘corpulent’ figure. Davide had had the books for just one week when he learnt that John had died, John’s wife said Davide should keep the books. They still provide Davide with useful information but more importantly are a physical manifestation of his family’s tailoring history and their part in continuing the trade in London today.
24 Apr 2011
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