The Blue Willow Plate. Magpie Tales#14

The plate had always been on my grand mother’s dresser alongside some pretty flower patterned ones as long as I could remember. As I saved blue coloured china bits I would have loved to have that plate and thought it would look rather nice on the shelf in my room.

I always looked at it first when I visited her and sat at the side of the kitchen table so that I could look at it while we drank tea and chatted. She couldn’t remember where she got it from, somebody gave it to me when I was first married she once said. I asked her about the story behind the design and she had laughingly said.. ‘Oh you don’t want to know that, it is too sad and we are having a lovely chat. I want to know all about your new boyfriend. Happy talk not old stories.’
But I wanted to know and so I looked it up the internet at home, I thought it was a lovely story and that the star crossed lovers were forever together now as doves. ‘That’s why,’ I thought 'Cross stitched Wedding Samplers often have doves.'

When I called in to see Gran the following week, the plate was gone, it was no longer on the dresser. My grandmother was busily making the tea and getting out her cake tin. ‘Where’s the plate Gran?’ I asked hesitantly.
‘Oh that old plate I have put it away, I kept thinking about past times and the plate made me feel sad, I can’t be thinking sad things, not when I have my lovely granddaughter here with me to cheer me up.’ And she smiled as she spoke. But behind that smile I could see that Gran was near to tears.
‘I love that plate,’ I said, ‘especially now I know the story of Koong-se and Chang, is that the story that is making you feel sad?’ I asked.
That story is nothing compared to the truth and real life,’ she answered. And by the way she was putting out our cups and saucers and how her face was set in that stubborn way, I knew there was no point in asking anything further about it. Once I was back home I settled down to my college work. But I worried about Gran, she wasn’t herself that afternoon and I had never seen her like that before.
Gran died later that year and it was my mother and I who had to clear her house, as it had to be sold. It seems I was to receive some of the money from the sale. ‘Good old Gran,’ I thought, but really I would rather have had the plate. Mum and I went to Gran’s house a couple of days after the funeral and we started the sad task of sorting through Gran’s things. Everything was very tidy and almost as though she would walk into the kitchen at any moment to offer us tea and cake, in fact there was a fruit cake wrapped in grease proof paper in the tin. And packed ready to go to the Home where Granddad was, were his clean clothes for the following week. He had already been there for two years with Alzheimer's, Gran used to visit him every Sunday but he didn’t know who she was, so he wouldn’t miss her, not like I would.

Mum’s eyes were very wet and I had tears too. ‘Shall we have some tea first?’ said Mum, ‘I brought fresh milk with us.’ We sat at the kitchen table just like I used to with Gran. I looked up at the dresser where the plate used to be, another now in its place.
‘Do you know what happened to her Willow pattern plate Mum? I asked. ‘I would have loved to have had it.’
'I expect it will be around here somewhere,' she answered. We gradually packed up all the small things that Mum thought we’d like and the rest was packed for a charity shop. The furniture was being collected for a Charity that helped people out of work. ‘My dad won’t need any of this’ Mum said. ‘ So it might as well go to where it could be of use.' The plate was nowhere to be found. I found some old cards and letters in a shoe box and Mum said to bring them home so we could look at them.
And we did, there were cards and post cards, letters and news paper cuttings that Gran had saved over the years, for her own reasons no doubt. One was about a soldier killed in the war, he was from our village, 'I expect Gran knew him,’ I said as they would have been about the same age. At the very bottom of the box in a paper envelope was a folded age spotted piece of fabric and as I unfolded it I could see two doves cross stitched in blue thread, under the doves were two names, one was my Gran’s and the other was the name of the soldier in the newspaper cutting. Then I knew why my Gran was sad that day and what the plate meant to her. Real life was just as sad as stories, I thought and like Gran said... sadder. I showed the stitching to Mum and she sighed.’ ‘Do you think he might have been her first love, her childhood sweet heart?’ I asked,
‘Possibly, Mum never spoke a lot about her life when she was young and before she met my father.’ She said.
We both looked at tiny piece of sewing again and our tears fell as we hugged each other. It was much better than the plate, it was stitched by my Gran and it was beautiful.

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