A few of my favourite things #3

This old treadle Singer sewing machine used to belong to my maternal grandmother. She bought it in 1942 (I think) and I do have the original certificate of purchase framed somewhere (somewhere safe, so safe that I cannot quite remember where I've put it!)...

But the thing is that although she bought it and paid for it outright (not on hock or anything), and was a working woman at the time, she could not buy it in her own name - it had to be shown to be bought by her husband! (My mother's father died some years before I was born, so I never got to meet him.)

How times have changed, eh?

Anyway, Mr A stripped the old, badly worn stain & polish off it in the mid-eighties and it is now just waxed and allows the natural grain of the wood to show through. The sewing machine itself is still in perfect working order and is immaculate in glossy black with gold leaf finish, so that might be worth another blip another day.

And on the top of the wooden sewing machine casing is an oak ladies glove box from the thirties. My friend picked it up in a junk shop and french polished it (at her adult education class), before presenting it to me as a birthday gift filled with fizzing bath bombs. I treasure this glove box for the care and attention she worked into it for me.