Tea Caddy
My Parents own a rather old, battered and bright green tea caddy*(the green was a later addition by my mother colour coordinating her kitchen). My father claims it as one of his only inherited items from his parents. Looking at the tea caddy it seems a rather bizarre thing to have inherited and I think opposed to it being given as a gift, it probably is better described as coming to him by default. His parents had left it with him when they returned to live in England. Its significances is probably mostly sentimental. It originally was my grandma’s as she had been provided with it during the blitz, a container to hold her gasmask. After the war she had little use for the gas mask but a sealable tin container was quite a useful item and it became the family tea caddy. Tea drinking has always been part of daily routine or ritual often involving sitting round the kitchen bench and conversing over a cup, the tea caddy is always a common sight in our kitchen
*a tea caddy is generally an airtight container for storing tealeaves or teabags in.
My Parents own a rather old, battered and bright green tea caddy*(the green was a later addition by my mother colour coordinating her kitchen). My father claims it as one of his only inherited items from his parents. Looking at the tea caddy it seems a rather bizarre thing to have inherited and I think opposed to it being given as a gift, it probably is better described as coming to him by default. His parents had left it with him when they returned to live in England. Its significances is probably mostly sentimental. It originally was my grandma’s as she had been provided with it during the blitz, a container to hold her gasmask. After the war she had little use for the gas mask but a sealable tin container was quite a useful item and it became the family tea caddy. Tea drinking has always been part of daily routine or ritual often involving sitting round the kitchen bench and conversing over a cup, the tea caddy is always a common sight in our kitchen
*a tea caddy is generally an airtight container for storing tealeaves or teabags in.
The early Rotary Lawn mower
Rotary Lawn mowers had been tried in the 1920s and 30s but the engines ran at an insufficient speed and it wasn’t until after WW2 that the engines improved and they became widely manufactured in Australia.
The end of WW2 saw the migration of the average Australian family into the suburbs, “the great Australian dream” the idea of owning your own home on a quarter acre block. Being able to cultivate and manicure a patch of lawn held a social, material and sentimental significance. The smell of freshly mown grass and the vision of a sweeping lawn would have brought forth a memory of a more rural past or seen as originally the precinct of the wealthy.
The rotary lawnmower’s predecessor; the reel lawnmower had although produced a cleaner cut was a heavy and cumbersome machine that required regular maintenance and struggled in wet and rugged conditions was no match for the cheaply, mass manufactured, easily pushed, all weather, most terrain rotary type.
The end of WW2 saw the migration of the average Australian family into the suburbs, “the great Australian dream” the idea of owning your own home on a quarter acre block. Being able to cultivate and manicure a patch of lawn held a social, material and sentimental significance. The smell of freshly mown grass and the vision of a sweeping lawn would have brought forth a memory of a more rural past or seen as originally the precinct of the wealthy.
The rotary lawnmower’s predecessor; the reel lawnmower had although produced a cleaner cut was a heavy and cumbersome machine that required regular maintenance and struggled in wet and rugged conditions was no match for the cheaply, mass manufactured, easily pushed, all weather, most terrain rotary type.
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