Let me tell you a story.....

 

Me and my welsh dresser

When I was in the Sixth Form we were rejoicing that we no longer had to wear the very smart brown and 'Champagne' uniform that we had endured for the previous 5 years. We could now wear our own clothes so we immediate felt like grown ups, even though we were literally still at school.

You didn't have to give me an excuse to express my creative side, to what I hoped was my smock top, cheesecloth, arty look - flowing clothes and hair, wooden beads, long skirts. I thought I looked different, I aimed to look different, and my day was made when my English teacher Miss Pritchard said something memorable to me. We always called her 'log legs' which was uncharitable, but accurate, and we always surmised that she had lost a fiance in the war with most of the other teachers at our all girls grammar school. She was on the verge of elderly and wore beige - cardigans, tweed skirts and thick tights with brogues. We were perhaps a little unfair to her, and now I am all grown up and middle aged myself, I would value a chat with her but she has long gone...

One day as all the girls were streaming out of the classroom, she called me aside and said quietly;

'I would have loved to be able to dress like you...'

There was a wistful look in her eyes that was the first realisation that I had that what we see on the outside of people isn't always what is going on inside. I decided that I was going to stick to my guns and dress as I liked because I had sort of got a blessing from old log legs, and I felt an affection for her for the rest of my school days. So I started to make more of the long skirts that I couldn't find in the shops; one memorable one was made out of striped yellow/cream/orange heavy woven material that I believe was made for curtains. I felt a bit farmwife-housey in it so I went for the complete look and made a huge cook's type apron out of an old white bed sheet. And this is probably what sparked my dream....

I was in a large long kitchen at a farmhouse table. Down each side of the table were 3 children, a mix of boys and girls, and we were baking together. I wiped my floury hands on my big white apron and looked up. There in the right hand corner was a lovely huge welsh dresser, full of china...

When I woke up, back in the reality of sitting my A levels in a Kent suburb, I just thought it was a nice dream. And it was.

However....

About 15 years later, after I had married and had several children, I was in my 28 foot long kitchen with my 6 children standing and sitting around my large kitchen table. We were making bread, and as I wiped my floury hands on my apron, I looked up. There in the right hand corner of the room was my lovely, large cream welsh dresser. Ever since then I have taken my large welsh dresser from house to house and it is the one piece of furniture that I never want to get rid of.