Necklace

The necklace was a present from my Mam. She gave it to me on my graduation day, September 10th 2014. On the front it has my name in Greek letters and on the back, the year of my graduation in Roman numerals representing my area of study, Ancient Greek and Roman civilization. She knew I had a great love of Ancient Classics, I absolutely love my necklace.

Green Stone

This is my item I brought, it’s a green stone, it’s been handed down through generations from my fathers side.  I think it’s eight generations so far that it’s gone through.  Every generation it goes to the youngest person and every generation has to take a piece off and make something from it and then you hand it down to the next generation.  And because the youngest in my family was actually my sister who passed away and then it was handed to me.  And this will be handed down to whoever is next in the family line.  And it means a lot to me and I wouldn’t go anywhere without it.  I brought it from New Zealand and it will stay with me until I’ve handed it down to the next generation.

Do you know how big the piece was in the beginning when it started?

I was told it was about that size (gestures with hands)  when it started.  And it was first cut by hand, it was actually taken from a part of my fathers land or his families land,sorry, and it’s been handed down ever since ...so...

Do you know what any of your ancestors made with their pieces?

Oh they were all necklaces eh, my fathers was a teardrop just handed down to the very first son of the family or the child of the family, which I lost in the end.  His grandfather and his father made....They’re called pounamus but he had made hand sort of weapons, that we used to use in the old ern times.  And the one before that ehm I think it was a necklace, a ring has been made out of it and something else.... I can’t remember.

And what are you planning on making out of it?

....Bits....I don’t know to be honest with you.  That is supposed to come to you. 

And do you have to be involved in the making of something or....?

It has to be made by you.

Oh...ok...

And nobody else, you can get a hand to cut it of course but I have to make it myself.

Oh that’s very interesting.

So you have to carve whatever item you want..

And that goes to the oldest person in the family that piece.

And the cut off?

And the cut off goes to the youngest so if you were born in between...Hard Luck!..No if you were born in between you get bits and pieces from it, really everybody gets a little piece.

It’s lovely, it would be great if you could get all the pieces lined up, that’s like a time line within itself.

Oh a lot of it has been lost...family has moved.

It’s a lovely colour.

Beautiful colour, when it’s actually cut that’s eh 40 years that hasn’t been cut, but it’s pure green.  When it’s cut and shiny. 

When it’s cut and polished

Beautiful, that’s my piece and I’d never leave without it.

Baby hospital bracelet

I keep this in my wallet, I put it into the spot where my ID should go so that I can see it through the plastic window.  It went in when I was waiting to leave the hospital with him.  My son was a much longed for baby and even though I went through the 9 months of carrying him it was still wonderfully shocking the moment they place your baby into your arms.  Because Loki came early he was taken away to the Neonatal unit and while I was sitting with him his baby tag kept falling off as he was so tiny.  This was the first piece of writing that said I had a baby boy that I saw, and because I was still in a kind of daze I kept reading and re-reading it as though to confirm that it was really real.

Aberdeen Towel

This is my object.  It's fairly battered now but that's because it's coming close to about 20 years old. When I was about to leave for university in Glasgow my Grandmother gave me it.  This is an Aberdeen football club towel.  My brother got at the same time an Aberdeen hat but that's because he wasn't going anywhere and my Granny thought that it might not be wise for me to walk about Glasgow with a symbol of Aberdeen on it.  But at that stage Aberdeen were so shite that nobody really cared I walked around with a t-shirt on and all you got was a look of pity.  So that's gone to Glasgow for 4 years and then back home, and then when I came over here in 2000, so it's 14 years.....19.....yeah it's probably about 20, more than 20 odd years old, and now because of its present state and it's just wrecked, it has become the dogs towel for wiping his feet dry when he comes in from the back so it's still in use because I don't think.....well I could be mean.....it's still got the badge so I would feel bad about throwing it out.  So that's my object.

Well at least it’s functional.  And let’s face it when he comes in after the rain it’s our most treasured object.

Instead of getting it all over my trousers.

Was it your idea that the towel be used for...

Oh yes, yeah because it’s my towel.  All her towels are huge, fluffy ones and all mine are all shite, cheap ones.

Plus the eh bromance with the dog!

Well it’s just sandpaper now you wouldn’t dry with that now, it’s just grrrrruup!

Yeah it’s crunchy

Crunchy yeah

There’s nothing worse than a crunchy towel.

Some are for drying and some are for ‘drying’.

Honey Bunny

This is Honey Bunny and I have had him since I was one.  My parents always let us choose our first Teddy Bear when we were about one.  And apparently we were in Mosney on holidays, I went into a shop and there were loads of Teddy Bears.  He was the only Bunny and he was on the top shelf and they were trying to pawn me off with something else, but I just wanted him.  So Honey Bunny has always been there.  He’s come on holidays with me, been halfway around the world.  Yeah he always goes in my hand luggage apart from the last time I went to America when I said  I would put him in my suitcase, which I did and Honey Bunny ended up in Australia.  So he’s been there and I haven’t.

Picture

I’ve just brought this item, it’s a picture of the village I grew up in because my parents lived there for like 40 years and they don’t anymore.  So my mum gave me this picture, oh about 10 years ago and  I don’t have anything else left of the village and I’ll probably never go there again because they live miles away now.

So what I have done is I’ve brought this picture because it just has something to remind me of the village I suppose.  Their house isn’t in it but that’s the kind of crossroads in the village.....ehm I don’t really have any stories about it unfortunately but eh that’s kind of the main thing that I have that I wouldn’t want to be separated from.

Brownies Book and Toadstool

So here’s my item that is memorable to me.  It’s actually two items, but they kind of are linked together.  I was in the Brownies when I was a child and I absolutely LOVED, LOVED being in the Brownies.  That’s why I've kept my things from the Brownies.  This was my copybook, it said my name Alison and my address and age 8, 9, 10 and obviously I didn’t continue with it beyond that. But ehm I just love looking back through all of the little pictures that I drew when I was that age, and actually, looking back through it I didn’t realise how much we talked about God in the Brownies.

But nearly every page has something got to do with God and little pictures from magazines that we had cut out, and oh, it’s just so cute that we thought God was amazing......Thank you God for the weather......Thank you God for my bed.  And there is a picture of my Mam and Dad in their youth, and my Mam wrote “Alison set the table every day”, because we obviously  were told that we had to do special things at home.  But anyway it wasn’t really even about that, it’s just I loved being in the Brownies and I eventually became the leader of my group which was called a sixer, and I kept the neatest roll book for my group and because of that I won my own Toadstool and I still , I lost the door off of it but I still have my Toadstool and the box that it came in.  But it was very, very, very exciting to witness.  I remember all the other girls being very jealous that I had this and ehm actually in my school copies around the time when I was in the Brownies... Everyday for my news was ‘my news, today is Monday , I have Brownies tomorrow night'.  And then on Tuesday ‘My news, today is Tuesday, I have Brownies tonight’.  And then on Wednesday ‘I was at Brownies last night’.  Then Thursday was ‘I can’t wait for Brownies next week’.  So I always had news when I was in the Brownies.  If only life could be so simple now.