A lovely tin to put things in

A rather lovely tin has been sitting on the island in our kitchen since we returned home from The Newt, some weeks ago. Inside is a selection of preserves and chutneys; a gift from The Newt to bring home from our stay there. Very generous, but since we don’t eat such things very often, it sat there waiting for the answer to the question of what to do with it?

It’s not as though we don’t have more than enough tins sitting on one of the shelves we needed to clear in the storeroom. I’ve kept them because they seemed useful, for taking cakes, biscuits and so on to WI meetings and suchlike. But more often these days, I use a tupperware cake carrier which is more practical and easier to clean.

My Grandmother had a beautiful tin with a country garden on it, where she kept her embroidery silks. I loved to take a look inside when she was working on one of the tablecloths she’d buy with a transferred design on it, ready for her to embroider. I’d sort the silks into colours and when I’d finished that, I’d pull out the other tin in the same cupboard, this one filled with buttons.

She had quite a collection of these tins, which had usually come filled with biscuits. Huntley and Palmers, one of our best known biscuit manufacturers created a range of collectible tins and a museum near their works has a section dedicated to these treasures.

The tins on my shelf are nothing special. There could be one or two which have a story to tell or a particularly sweet association. There’s a drum tin, given to Edward by an elderly friend, who thought a small boy would enjoy having a drum to play with (!) There are a couple of others with Janosch designs on them, which I’m particularly fond of. But most are just left over packaging.

So why did we keep them? Well in some cases - the Altoid tins, for example - they have been used as part of a project. A couple of times, I’ve been part of a swap, where the small, standard sized tin has been used as a container for art materials, a small travel-sized paintbox for example or a collection of cards.

I have one here on my worktable with a nicely decorated lid, which is filled with a selection of fabric and thread. It was part of a challenge to swap a palette of materials between friends and then see what we could create with them. Hmmm. I think I know what I created with mine…oh dear.

But generally speaking, tins like this are not that practical. They don’t stack, the lids get lost and worst of all, any hint of dampness and they begin to rust. I don’t use them for foodstuffs any more without a lining of waxed paper or foil and really think that they have been superseded by the plastic box or Ziploc bag in this household at least, far more practical but nowhere near as attractive.

So we decided their fate was the recycling centre and my sweet OCD Hero delighted in fitting them all into a box (almost) like tetris blocks. I say “almost”, because he’d just done that when I found another one. Oh dear, never mind!

And what of the other lovely tin; the one from The Newt with the chutneys in it?

This morning, a friend mentioned that she was catering for the village tea party to celebrate the Coronation this weekend and was glad to have the preserves to share as part of the buffet. “What a lovely tin too!” she said, delighted when I told her to take that as well. “Useful to keep things in” !