I have no idea where it came from. It wasn’t the sort of thing any member of my family would ever have intentionally owned. Probably a jumble sale find. My arms were lost inside its sleeves and as I struggled to walk in high-heeled shoes far too big for me, it trailed on the ground behind me like a magnificent, regal train, but I thought it was the most beautiful garment I had ever seen and of all the odd collection of clothes that I had acquired for my dressing-up collection, this coat was my favourite. It was made of deep, plush velvet, with a mandarin collar and patterned in shades of russet, orange and red that swirled and eddied together. I would lie for hours, idling away the time by tracing the flow of the colours with my fingertips, brushing the soft textures against my cheek. I have come to suspect that it may have been quite old. It had the most exquisite buttons. They were orbs of red, layered glass, held in the tiny palms of silver hands. I have no idea what became of that coat, but many times I have longed to catch a glimpse of those amazing buttons again. I have never seen anything like them, since.

    Our clothes, nearly all home sewn, were made oversized and to a design deemed to be ‘summat sensible’ – a term which loosely meant, ‘nothing within the realms of fashion during the last twelve hundred years’ – to be passed down the line and then some, before being cut and put into service as dusters or neatly hemmed handkerchiefs. Vests became dishcloths. Sleeves were cut and sewn into mitten shapes. Squares of thicker material were utilised as pan holders. When they became too worn for practical household use they were used as rags. Jumpers were carefully unravelled; the wool held over the steam of the kettle to remove the kinks and then rolled into neat balls.   Nothing was wasted. Every zip, button and piece of knicker elastic was carefully removed and stored, to be used again.

    My mam’s red, button tin had a picture of a begging dog and a precocious child scoffing Thornes toffees and bore the slogan, “It’s too good for you, Spot”. The buttons it held were nothing like the beautiful, red, glass ones, although there were some delightful items. I loved scooping up handfuls and dribbling them through my fingers. There were ones made of rubber, tin, celluloid and bakelite. There were uniform buttons with their pressed, brass insignia and a very pretty, glass millefiori set in shades of green. Mother of pearl, leather, plastics in every shade of cardigan we had ever possessed and some hideous, orange crimplene-covered ones that came from a dress I had despaired of ever growing out of. Tiny lemon, lamb shaped buttons from a baby’s coat and even tinier, bootee fastenings in glazed, tan ceramic with golden, stud shanks. An inch-long, flat-backed owl carved in ivory with two holes in his stomach and eight miniature landscapes executed in oils on rounded plastic surfaces. Amongst the tens of utilitarian tortoise-shell and wooden duffle-coat toggles were the more unusual; two dull metal, shield and sword cloak fastenings and pierced, carved bone, fan sticks with mother of pearl grommets. Thrown into this eclectic mix was an assortment of Kilt pins, a piece of yellow painted meccano, collar studs and stiffeners, suspender clips and nappy pins with blue and pink cap-sheathes, hooks from sanitary belts, buckles, gallusses fastenings and a bronze League of Ovalteenies badge. Shirt-waister dresses often had buckles and buttons that matched, so these were strung together in the salvage process, on oddments of Petersham or thread and I would slide them over my wrists to make jingly bracelets. I would run my tongue around the edges and over the surfaces of the buttons, feeling the textures, the coldness of metals, the intricacies of embossing and raised areas. I can still hear the noise as I tipped the tin and the buttons rushed out, splaying over the dining table, the satisfying clicks as I moved them into patterns, categorising colours, shapes and sizes. My mam wasn’t one for revealing memories or telling stories, so I knew nothing of the provenance of many of the contents of that tin, but, no doubt, all had some story to tell of the garments that they had adorned and, more importantly, of the individuals who had worn those clothes. The soldier, the infant, the labourer and the mother, their essence captured and preserved in a Thornes’ toffee tin.