#09 Pictures that conjure up important memories
They say every picture tells a story. They certainly do in my home and garden. I’ve been collecting ‘stuff’ for years – from markets, fairs, charity and junk shops and skips. Each one of these items triggers a memory - where I was and what was happening when I bought it, the friend who gave it to me, the person who made it etc. Then there are the interesting things I see and photograph when I’m out and about – a shop sign I like, a poster, an interesting building, a view, a plant, a flower. When I look back at these images, they too trigger memories. All of this together, makes up a life well lived. This series is about those objects, images and their stories.
You’re reading Home Truths, a newsletter from me, Susy Smith. I am many things: a parent of grown-up kids, a dog owner, a gardener and a compulsive mover of vases (I worked for years as a stylist). I am also a writer/editor and former Editor-in-Chief of British Country Living Magazine.
I write here on an eclectic mix of subjects about life, and a few of the lessons I’ve learned along the way. Subscribe now for free and join the community! You can also support me and my work by upgrading to a paid subscription at any time – for either just tap the button below.
My favourite things this time is a grouping of pictures that hangs on one of the walls in my bedroom. There isn’t really a theme, they just seemed to work well together and I am very fond of them all for one reason or another. As with many of the items in my home, some of them hold sentimental value and others are there simply because I like them. In most cases there is a story behind them.
Let’s take the easy ones first: the little square gold frame with the cherubs in it is nothing really. I just find the frame very attractive and I think the cherubs were on a card or some wrapping paper I once had, that I cut up to fit into the frame.
Then there is the deep frame box bottom left: one of the wonderful girls who worked alongside me as my PA at UK Country Living Magazine – there were five of them in all, over the 24 years I was editor – bought it for me as a gift. The plan was to fill it with lots of memorabilia, - and believe me, I have tons of that, but I have just never got round to doing it. I hung the frame on the wall with the intention it would make me fill it up it – it still hasn’t happened!
The one thing I have added is a piece of calligraphy by my friend Gina. She was Art Director alongside me at two of the magazines I worked at and is a really talented designer and craftsperson. The long label says “Congratulations Mr and Mrs Macleod” and “Drink Me”. It was attached to a bottle of wine Gina and her husband Ian chose when my husband and I were married in 2019.
We didn’t want gifts but said to guests that if they wanted to bring something, could it just be a bottle of a wine that meant something to them ie they particularly liked it, it reminded them of a happy occasion or was special to them for some other reason. We asked that they noted on the label their names and why they had gifted it to us. We have enjoyed drinking those special wines in the years since and every time we open one, we send the friends a picture of us enjoying it.
Next, in the top row, the pine frame, top right, and the little dark wood frame second from left are all vintage French postcards. They would have been sent to celebrate special occasions – Christmas, New Year, Saints’ days. The two in the pine frame are especially charming: the one with the swallows carrying a heart woven from roses reads “Loin des yeux, pres du Coeur” (Out of sight, close to my heart) and we can therefore assume it was sent between two loved ones. I framed them so long ago I cannot remember what it says on the reverse.
The horseshoe of four-leaved clovers is a name-day card. French calendars have a saint’s name attached to each day. If you share the name of the saint which appears on the calendar on a given day, it means it is ta fête (your celebration or name day). The tradition comes from early Christianity but is not practised so much in modern-day France. This one has the words “petite chère Blanche” written on it so it sounds as if it was sent to a young girl on her name day.
The stamps are stuck haphazardly on the front of the post cards potentially interfering with the image, but I rather like them for they add to the authenticity and date the cards to a period. All these cards were bought in French flea markets at one time or another and are a few of many I once had. I gave others away. Aside from them being pretty, I find them very poignant: I wonder who they were sent by and to and think about how those people will all be dead by now, but that, in a way, their memory lives on with my appreciation of their cards.
The appliqué in the long, pale, rectangular frame between these, is very important to me because it was made by my dear friend Amanda and given to me as a gift many years ago. It is a piece of vintage fabric with two little birds, some flowers, a butterfly and several hearts appliqued onto it and embroidered along the bottom are the words “La Coeur a ses raisons que la raison ne connait pas”. How true, I thought when I read it. I love the sentiment, I love the simplicity of the stitching and I love the whole thing because it is very reminiscent of Amanda, who loves anything white, lacy and vintage.
The square white frame in the middle at the bottom is another embroidery, this time made by Willemien Stevens. The images are all Christmas related: a stocking, a Christmas pudding, a fox in snow, a naïf Christmas tree, a heart with snow, a partridge in a pear tree, a star, a house with a snowy roof and a festive wreath. It says Joyeux Noël at the bottom.
I bought the picture a long time ago at the Country Living Magazine Christmas Fair in London’s Islington. The Fair always provided five days of temptation for me as I walked round the hundreds of stands selling crafts by the artisans who exhibited with us. I was there primarily for work purposes, but of course could never resist buying far too many things I didn’t need.
This was one of those. I didn’t need it but I just loved it and the workmanship (workwomanship?) is so meticulous. Incidentally, in case you’re wondering what is tucked behind the frame, it is the skeleton of a lace-cap hydrangea that I found in the garden and thought was rather pretty. The flowers in the little metal bucket on top of the chest are also hydrangea flowers, in this case dried mop-heads, also from my garden.
And so, to the flower pictures. These are the most important to me of all the images here and you’ll understand why in a minute. The central image of three anemones in the white frame is a watercolour by my mother. I remember the day she painted it. I would have been about five years old and my sister two. It was a dreary, rainy afternoon. My mother set up her easel and began to paint the anemones she had picked from the garden onto a sheet in a pad of watercolour paper. She gave me and my sister some paper and paints to keep us occupied.
I don’t remember what I painted that day, but I so remember watching the images my mum made come to life. I was entranced by how the colours and shapes appeared on the page. It is a modest piece of work, but I thought it was amazing. I thought my mum was so clever.
What is really sad is that she could have been an accomplished artist. That is what she wanted to be. She won a scholarship to Leeds College of Art when she was 18, but her mother would not let her go as, at the time, being a painter was considered unacceptable for a young lady. (Her father had disappeared when she was 12 and she never saw him again, so he was not a figure in her later life). I have written about this in more detail in “Why my parents were practically perfect” – see my Home Truths archive.
When my siblings and I were helping my dad clear out my mum’s things after she died, I found the pad of watercolour paper in a cupboard. This was the only painting in it. Instantly, I was transported back to that rainy afternoon in Belfast and how much I had admired my mum’s talent. I asked my dad if I could have it. I framed it and have had it ever since. It is very precious to me.
The large print of anemones is for no reason other than that the minute I saw it, I thought of my mum and her watercolour, so I bought it. I don’t know when it dates from but has a feel of the 1930s/40s about it.
The final picture is the one of a rose, top left and this is again connected to my mum. I wrote about it in one of my columns for Country Living Magazine a couple of years ago. It used to hang in the hall in the family home where I grew up in Belfast. It is nothing special in that it was a page torn by my mum from a women’s magazine. She put it in the cream frame and there it has remained ever since. I have a mirror in a matching frame that also hung in the hallway of my childhood home.
The picture is a reproduction of one of the prints from the popular collection, “Les Roses” by Pierre-Joseph Redouté. A painter and botanist, Belgian born Redouté achieved success working for the French royal court as a tutor to Marie Antoinette and later from 1798 when he was appointed to paint the flowers of Malmaison by Josephine Bonaparte. My mum and dad didn’t have a lot of money when we were growing up and so I’m sure, for my mum, finding this as a “giveway” in a magazine, she saw it as an opportunity to have some “art” on her wall without the cost. It was another item I asked my dad for when she died, as it held such strong memories for me.
I had it for years and never hung it. When I was having a clear-out at home three or four years ago and gathered up a number of paintings and prints for a friend who was holding an art sale for a local homeless charity, I included this rose image.
After I had parted with it, the loss preyed on my mind for several days and, at the last minute, I contacted the friend to say could I please have it back. It felt like a betrayal somehow for it to pass into other hands when it held such strong memories for me. She understood completely and gave it back.
It’s not just the rose image that provokes memories: on the back, the frame is padded out with a yellowed page from the Radio Times. The date on it is August 26th 1955, two years before I was born. Aside from the funny old fashioned advertisements, there are also the TV listings, including one for the BBC’s “Watch with Mother”. That too brings back such strong and happy childhood rememberings. Now I see the framed picture every day and this, along with the anemones, brings back lovely thoughts of my mum and how special she was.
And that, my friends, is the story of some of the things I most treasure. I’d love to hear yours. Please feel free to share them with me and your fellow subscribers by clicking the button below and I shall respond
This is a reader supported publication. You can either become a free subscriber or, if you enjoy my work and wish to support it further, you can take out a paid subscription, which allows me to be remunerated for what I do. Please click the button below