I have always been very interested in what people select to bring home as souvenirs.  I don’t think any of us think of our souvenirs as family keepsakes which end up being passed down one generation to another.  I still look at my Mother’s travel scrapbooks which are filled with shipping records, photographs, opera programs, and menus.  I have been saved the pain of wondering what to do with mounds of match boxes, thank goodness!  But I love to wander through the travel books which my Mother treasured.  My father always bought a few horse brasses which he attached to a leather strap which hung by the house back door which was a family tradition started by my grandfather.  I haven’t been very faithful adding to this little family tradition, but I know that the old ones are dear to us.

I have decided that I am going to bring this collection up-to-date with new horse brasses which are inexpensive and readily available on almost every souvenir stand in London.  I know it looks like a tacky souvenir, but I wonder if these bits of Kitsch might be family treasures one day.  Goodness, a couple pounds will buy a brass, and it will bring back a lot of memories–perhaps for generations.

It is just a lot of fun–for several years to come.

I am attaching an image of a few of the brasses which were on my father’s leather.  The top three are Victorian ones which belonged to my grandfather.  The second row has two brasses which were also my grandfather’s but from around 1900.  The far right brass on the second row is a brass which my grandfather bought in London in 1911 at the time of King George V’s coronation. The third row has one brass with the Royal Coat of Arms with one brass from the coronation of George VI.  The second George VI brass dates from 1952 when the King had died.

You can see that later events fail to appear on my father’s leather, so I shall go on the hunt to fill in the gaps.  I am sure the Royal Wedding will offer numerous designs.

Maybe Kitsch, but still a lot of fun.  A nice souvenir, for sure.

Thomas Moore   email:  TMooreSr@me.com    Telephone:  801.791.9918

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