The musical toadstool was a car boot sale find, given to Andrea by an old boyfriend. It was bought as part of a pair – with an elephant named Elsie. The toadstool remains nameless. Elsie stayed in Munich with the old boyfriend, the toadstool now lives in London.
Siân’s not sure where or who the horse came from, all that she remembers is that she’s always had it. There’s a photograph of her with her mother on a blanket on the lawn, Siân, aged one is clutching the little horse.
Akio’s father inhabited the foggy world of academia, as an economist and mathemetician his language was one of esoteric equations. He was a deeply cerebral but impractical man absorbed in a world of theories and ideas. In the early 70s Akio’s father received the letterpressed proofs of his latest manuscript. His father, with uncharacteristic dexterity, began binding the proofs with a needle and thread into two books, ironing the pages, impatient to see what his tome would look like in reality. He asked Akio, aged nine, to write the title on the covers. Akio was impressed by how beautifully his father had crafted the books. He was less appreciative of the unintelligiable contents but moved, then as now, by their collaboration in producing a simple, understandable object.
Brenda and Sid had been going together since she was twelve and he was fifteen. He was the errand boy for the local grocer. He timed his deliveries so he could meet her from school, racing ‘no-hands’ down the hill on his bike. In 1939 he joined the RAF, soon after war broke out. He gave Brenda ‘his wings’, a sweetheart’s brooch worn by wives and girlfriends while their men were away. Brenda had been promoted but was increasingly unhappy. Her boss regularly groped and harassed her. When her brooch went missing she handed in her notice. Her boss boasted that he’d thrown it out of the train window on his commute home. Sid gave her a new brooch but friends said that it’s upside down horseshoe meant that their luck would run out. In 1941 Brenda’s family received a letter from Ernie, Sid’s brother, telling them that he’d been killed serving as a rear gunner on a Lancaster bomber, he was twenty years old.
Half of Peta’s life has been lived in England and half in Australia. Growing up in the country that invented sun meant that adjusting to life under a duvet of grey skies in London was difficult. She also had to acclimatise to the distance from her family. ‘Sunshine from Australia’ was a present from Rosie, her niece, she was five years old and was learning to write. It has sat on Peta’s desk for the last fifteen years, the flower has faded over time but it still prompts a smile on a grey, rainy day. Rosie is now twenty and last year travelled to spend the ‘summer’ with Peta in London. They have always had a strong connection, Peta describes how Rosie, even at the age of five, knew ‘intuitively how to bring sweetness into my life’.
Sam’s family and Tom’s family were close which is how Tom came to babysit for Sam. They’d read comics together and when the comics ran out Tom would make up stories about Robot Archie. When Sam’s family visited Tom’s the two of them would play with Tom’s Star Wars collection. Sam quickly became an obsessive, memorising every line and planning elaborate sets in his bedroom. One night Tom brought each of his hundreds of characters and every vehicle over to Sam’s and said they were his to keep. Sam credits Tom with fostering his love of film, he’s now an editor and Tom’s a director. Sam says Tom is characteristically modest about his achievements, just as he was understated in giving all his toys away. Sam would love to pass the toys on too but he can’t bear to give them up, ‘I guess I’m just not as nice a bloke as Tom’ he says with typical humility.
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