Wednesday, January 10, 2007



We prized plastic bags. We tried not to tear them. We washed them, hung them out to dry and then carefully put them away.

(memory painting)

8 comments:

Teri said...

This is so funny and so familiar! Your addition of the girdle is a hoot!!

Anonymous said...

Oh, how I love coming here. Another very poignant story and delightful sketch.

andrea joseph's sketchblog said...

I love these memory sketches - just so much more than a picture! So is this true? Why did you do this? I'm intrigued.

Alison said...

Andrea, Plastic bags were rare in the early 60's in St Andrews. Fruit and Veg was selected by the grocer and put in paper bags. Butter was wrapped in butter paper, saved for lining cake tins, ice cream came in a block wrapped in cardboard which folded in a certain way, tabs fitting into slots. There were no plastic cartons. I can remember when my mother went to a tupperware party and bought three round tubs for cakes and biscuits. Prior to them, there were just tins. In fact, there wasn't much plastic at all - a few toys, plastic pants to go over the baby's nappy - no, actually, they were prickly wool! Plastic bags were so useful and couldn't be bought on a roll - of course we saved them.

Anastasia said...

oh my mum still does that!! wonderful memory illustration!

littlemithi said...

Wow! recycling taken to another level! Love the floaty-ness of the bags...

Jana Bouc said...

Is that a girdle? Oh my goodness. What an interesting life you've had. My mother collects plastic bags...has a closet full of them...but that's another story. Now the trend is to go back to storing food in glass to avoid the stuff that leaches into food and the environment from plastic. At least your family were good recyclers before anyone else was doing that.

Jan Allsopp said...

I remember that! I also remember the air of disapproval when, as an adult, I started using the bags ONLY ONCE! My mother never said more than "aren't you going to wash those?", but I could feel it. Another fantastic memory painting Alison!