My Great Aunt Henrietta unfortunately has had to move into a home, at 97 years old she has done a good job up until recently! But after a few nasty falls, they decided she was no longer able to look after herself. She is a very independent lady and travelled quite a lot in her younger years.
Mom went up to her flat a couple of months ago to make sure anything important was moved to Ettas new home and found some treasure which she bought back so it wouldn't just get cleared out by one of those house clearance places.
There was various bits and bobs, some costume jewellery, this old tin, which is 100 years old, was an idea from Princess Mary who was 17 at the time. It was World War I and she put an ad in the national papers asking for donations so Christmas gifts could be sent out to the troops. Over 2 million of the boxes were sent out over the duration of the war. Depending on who received the box depended on the contents. Officers and those of the front line got a pipe and tobacco, non smokers got a bullet pencil and candy, those in India got candy and spices and nurses got chocolate.
We're not sure but we think this was maybe Aunt Etta's fathers tin.
Aunt Etta was also a guide leader for many years, so there is a whole box of guide and scouting badges...
And also a bag of old money, Ebi-kun was really excited to look through these, the oldest coin we found was from 1860, there were also coins from India, Australia, Spain and Canada. Looks like we will be bringing them back to Japan!
There is also a bag of embroidered linen to go through, but I haven't started on that yet!
