On the Kitchen Mantelpiece

My house is an old, three storey Victorian terrace and it has fireplaces in seven of the rooms (that's actually most of them, it's not a mansion). I only light fires in one of them but the others look nice and, of course, they all have mantelpieces - ideal for displaying favourite things.

The kitchen mantlepiece is higher than a small child which is handy as it means I don't notice the dust. It gets dusted only very occasionally.

In the middle is an old clock which gains time steadily through the week, one of my many tea related cards and a small, china sheep (obviously).

The rest of the mantelpiece is taken up with two of my favourite collections. First, there's my commemorative china.

Most of these mugs were made to celebrate various royal occasions and a few are old family ones. I particularly like the mugs for the coronation that never was. These two were made for the coronation of Edward VIII in May 1937 ... who abdicated in 1936, less than a year after coming to the throne. Monarchs become King or Queen on the death of the previous monarch but are crowned later; let's face it, organising a coronation probably takes a while.

The arrangements for Edward's coronation were kept in place for his brother Bertie who was crowned in May 1937, becoming George VI. 

Coronation Mugs for George VI and his Queen, Elizabeth

Our present queen, Elizabeth II was crowned in 1952; many children were given mugs like these to mark the occasion.

More mugs were issued to mark various royal jubilees, such as the Silver Jubilee of George V and Queen Mary in 1935. She always looks rather cross in her pictures, I think.

The next mug is the only black and white one I have and was given to me at school to mark the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977.

In 2012 the Queen celebrated her Golden Jubilee so I had to buy new mugs to add to my collection.

These both came from Whittards; the one on the left is a traditional mug but the other one is a bit more quirky. It shows the Queen drinking a nice cup of tea, flanked by her iconic corgi dogs.

I also have one commemorative mug that doesn't mark a royal landmark but a national one - the First World War.

And the commemorative china doesn't have to be mugs - or in fact china at all. I have an Edward VIII plate ...

... and an Elizabeth II child's teapot ...

One day I hope to find more pieces from this lovely little tea set. This little tin beaker is from George V's Silver Jubilee in 1935 ...

... and here is my Granny's coronation pyrex dish (she did like her pyrex).

I even have a coronation spoon in my tea caddy which you may or may not be able to see in this photo.

So, back to my kitchen mantelpiece. At the other end from the china is my collection of tin money boxes in the shape of post boxes.

Did anyone else have one of these? These two belonged to my brother and I; I think mine is the smaller one.

For those of you outside the UK, the 'ER' stands for Elizabeth Regina with the 'II' showing that she is the second Queen Elizabeth. On the backs of the tins are these two jolly figures.

Most of the rest of my collection are older than these (which date from the 1960s).  These are small, basic ones; the one on the left is the oldest.

These two look like the big, double post boxes you get on city streets.

The older one looks like it would originally have had a key to lock it and the 'GR' (George Rex) shows that it dates from earlier than 1952. Both of these have interesting backs too.

They both have the letters of the alphabet on them, while the older one has a picture of Dick Whittington and his cat. I particularly like the list of coins on the newer one; who remembers those? There were threepenny bits too and half crowns. When I was at primary school, we had lists like this on the back covers of our exercise books so that we learned essential facts such as how many chains there were in a furlong. England's currency went decimal in 1971 and metric measurements followed, although many people still refer to 'real' measurements (especially when asking how much a new baby weighs).  I still use Imperial measurements for most things, except for yarn which I've got used to in grams.

The last three money boxes are smaller versions of these oval ones.

The one in the middle even has a picture of the King (George VI) on the back.

There are just two more things on my kitchen mantelpiece, the biscuit barrel given to my Grandparents when they married in 1935 and a small model of a yellow 2CV car.

More than thirty years ago, we had a car just like that. It was great. You could take out the back seats and take the roof off to fit more in (we once carried a fireplace home from the Old Kent Road like that) and the window folded up to open. You couldn't listen to the radio if you were doing more than thirty miles an hour as it was so noisy but, when you met other 2CVs, you would wave to each other. We sold the car when we decided we couldn't afford a baby and a car but I've kept the little model ever since.