Anyway, I thought I’d close the Jeffrey Box posts with a
list of the artefacts I found at the
bottom of the box. I’ll list them as they come out:
1. The two plastic bases for a model of a Royal Navy
destroyer. A glimpse of things to come, of course. Pity I so loved the sea but
couldn’t stand being told what time to get up, what time to go to bed, when I
should be here, when I shouldn’t be there, what I was allowed to do, what I
wasn’t allowed to do, how to do this, how not to do that, being punished for
forgetting to lower a flag at sunset, etc, etc.
2. A lead weight for use when fishing in the sea. It’s
shaped like a coffin.
3. A metal key that I remember used to wind something up,
but I don’t remember what. I remember winding my mother up quite a lot, though.
4. A piece of flat, polished bone about 5” long, rounded at
the top end and pointed at the bottom. I remember it was originally part of a
pair, the trick being that they were held loosely in a certain way between the
fingers and shaken to make a rhythmical clacking sound. I suspect they were my
dad’s originally, and they’re probably responsible for the fact that I can
still play the spoons.
5. A semi-circular piece of green plastic. I’ve no idea.
6. A wooden spinning top for use with a whip, the T-shaped
type, not the barrel shape. Judging by its excessive wear, I think it was
probably bequeathed to me, probably by my much older brother. (I’m still using
his Boy Scout penknife.)
7. The real mystery: a white plastic brooch with a black
embossed figure of Cupid on it. What the hell was I doing with that? Why is it
in the Jeffrey Box? Something to do with an early girlfriend, perhaps? I was,
after all, a little precocious. (My mother frequently called me ‘a little
all-sorts-of-things’.) I don’t know.
8. A small, silver fob compass, which still works. Probably another bequest from my brother, or
maybe it was mine from my time in the Boys Brigade (or ‘the BB’ as we hip types
liked to call it. The BB was much more religious than the Boy Scouts.
Why me?)
9. A white plastic skeleton (human.) ??????? That’s as much
as I can say.
10. A 2lb Co-op bread token. The idea was that you bought
the token to leave out on the step for when the bread man called. It was a
security thing, you see, the fear being that if you left real money on the
step, some ne’er-do-well might come along and steal it to purchase dastardly
things. But of course, a ne’er-do-well wouldn’t bother to steal a 2lb loaf
token because all he could buy with it would be a 2lb loaf, which wouldn’t be
dastardly enough for any self-respecting ne’er-do-well. And the Co-op got the
money in advance, which is a more socially acceptable form of stealing.
11. The Piece-de-Resistance:
a safety pin, large. I have a theory based on the fact that it’s blue, not
pink. Could this have something to do with little JJ’s pre-potty training days?
(Actually, I only had one J then; the second one came with adoption.) I’m not
sure whether to find it cute or revolting.
So that’s about it. Maybe I should dig a hole and bury these
things. In years to come, somebody who likes digging things up might dig them
up. And speculate…
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