At the last moment before Christmas out by the workshops I looked at an aluminium preserving pan here at home and thought it was time to pass it on to Lucy. Chris’s mum, her grandmother, had used it for jam making in the fifties and sixties. Frank Cane, (Pop), Lucy’s grandfather didn’t have an allotment, but he always grew vegetables and soft fruit in the garden and Chris remembers raspberry and strawberry jam being made for bread and jam at teatime. We don’t boil jam in aluminium pans anymore, but I thought she would appreciate the vintage vibe, and it would be good for storing something like logs. I wrote a label telling of its heritage, tied it to the handle and packed it in the car alongside the Christmas pudding and the presents.
I showed it to Lucy and Matt on Christmas Eve, and they said: ‘You’ll have hide it because Marg, (Matt’s mum) is giving us a brass one tomorrow’. ‘Really?’ I replied, ‘That’s a weird example of grandmother synchronicity’. But yes, they were right, she did. It was a much older brass one. It was heavy, gleaming and handsome as a bell. It turned out not to have a family connection though. Marg said she seen it being carried by a man in the street, admired it, and she was told that he was taking it to the charity shop, and she could have it if she wanted. It is heavy so maybe he was glad not to have to carry it any further.
Shining a Light on Grandma 