Field Notes - Old Fashioned

I love almost everything that is old. Old books, old times, old manners. One of the few enviable advantages of being British lies not only in how we have managed to preserve old things, but in how we continue to delight in them. We don’t simply store the past; we keep it in circulation, like a favourite chair, endlessly sat in.

Old things come to us already whispering their stories. They carry tattered handling and loved history at their core, stories ready to be un-boxed, retold and put on other shelves or in other lives. A battered spoon, a copper pot, a journal in scratched and faded ink - each stirs our collective imagination, inviting us to wonder who loved it, who needed it, who bought it where?

When gathered together, old objects seem to have converstationswith each other . The stuffed goose nods knowingly to the tortoiseshell trinket box. The worn walking stick leans knackered against a soldier’sportait in flakey oil. Juxtaposed, they form a nice little jumble of affinities, revealing connections across time and character that none of them could hold alone.

In their company, we are not collectors so much as curators of old, genuine affections. These things distil their individual experiences and give us new meanings simply by existing side by side. For me, it is not a clash of time and place but a reminder that difference and things not new tend to sing a greater chorus. Each piece is more fascinating because of the others it stands among, their obvious distinctions creating new memories that echo the old ones. To love old things is to love humanity — patched, lighty scratched and endlessly related.