Harkness – MacGillivray Stories

What are valued items without the people and story behind them? My mother had preserved our iconic family keepsakes and their sentimental value over the years. Wherever city or house we moved and lived in, these items remained the same – pictures on the walls, furniture, and of course, the iconic ornaments on the pelmets and mantelpieces. These managed to always give us a sense of permanence in all our various homes.

Pelmets and Mantelpieces

The importance of pelmets and mantelpieces in British post-war homes may have escaped the younger modern-day readers. The only way they might know what they are is if they have historical knowledge of the interiors of British houses. A pelmet is a framework placed above a window to conceal curtain fixtures. Owing to its solid construction, the pelmet can function as a high shelf under the ceiling in a living room or other rooms.  

My mother usually placed various ornaments and gewgaws on the living room ‘pelmet shelf’, such as a Toby mug, a ceramic ‘Beswick cat’ figurine, a coronation mug, and so on. The Beswick cat was of course an incarnation of our cat Poppy! She also had an antique display cabinet in mahogany with curved glass doors. This was also full of gewgaws, such as small, brightly coloured and hand-painted coffee cups.

The mantelpiece eventually became irrelevant with the discontinuation of coal fires and fireplaces in British homes. But in houses with a proper fireplace and a coal fire, the mantelpiece would be adorned by a mantelpiece clock. As my mother grew older, she had occasionally bestowed upon us these valued items, or had indirectly given it to us when any of us ‘filched’ them.

The Items and Their Stories

In conclusion, I can’t resist in waxing a little philosophical here. My mother collected various objects over almost a hundred year period. As mentioned, if you asked her about where these objects came from she could tell you. But this was not something to which she gave much conscious thought. It’s the same with my brothers; ask them where these came from and they will no doubt tell you a ‘little story’.

But what happens when they die? The little ‘stories’ attached to the items will disappear. An antique dealer will have a ‘little story’ to tell you about the item he is selling. But the junk shop dealer will probably not have any such stories. Thinking deeper about this, the items in junk shops all probably have their own stories, but sadly, they have been mainly forgotten.

Hopefully, this book gives ‘eternal’ life to all these ‘items’. Of course, it is a futile ambition to attempt to write the experiences of the past in stone. I always feel like I have to revert to the ‘cigarette smoke’ metaphor here – that it is futile to try to ‘fix’ a certain smoke ring you happened to exhale one day when smoking your pipe.

If you liked this story, this next post is about how my brothers and I have divided our mothers’ keepsakes: Furniture Brothers