Candlesticks....

Continuing the theme of my fav items of sentimental and not monetary value....

Isn't it funny when you grow up with something, an object that never moves from its place, is always there come rain and shine and you see it every day yet actually you never really see it at all?

Well until 2 years ago, that was my relationship with these candlesticks.

All through my childhood, these candelsticks sat at opposite ends of my gran's mantlepiece. In my younger years, if I ever thought of them at all, I probably labelled them as useless articles as I have never seen a candle in them. The necks are very narrow and it would need to be very thin candles to fit. So thin it would hardly be worth lighting them since I suspect the burning time would be minutes rather than hours!

They originally belonged to my Great Grandmother - my mum's, mum's mum and when my beloved wee Gran passed away 2 years ago, the candlesticks were passed to me.

Yet for all they seemed useless to me as a child when my mum gave them to me the day after my gran's funeral and I held them for the first time since I was a child, I could not believe the memories and emotions they stirred. The smell of brasso and watching my gran kneeling before the fire, polishing them within an inch of their life!! Sometimes she would let me polish them and I had to be very careful to set them back on the mantlepiece using the duster so as not to get fingerprints on them!

I remember her telling me about them being her mother's most treasured possession. My great grandmother had 10 children and was married to a coalminer. Her sons upon reaching the age of 14 also went down the mines and my gran's memories are of a house where there was, at times, not enough food to go round..... but a house never short of love.

My great grandmother slaved daily to keep her little house free from the coal dust brought home on the men's pit clothes....a losing battle I suspect, and my grandmother's fondest childhood memory was of helping her mother polish and dust these little candlesticks every day.

My Greatgrandmother died from stomach cancer at the age of 46, leaving 8 motherless children, my gran age 9 and her sister age 6, being the youngest. For my gran, the candelsticks represented precious moments spent alone with her mother and I remember her telling me that when she held them it was like holding her mother's hand.

And as I hold them now I know exactly what she meant....