Of times gone by.

I was a child of the 70s.
A time when television meant three channels and a midnight curfew; an age preceding the digital generation of push button technology and Google.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3DcChXNyYQ

In this age, entertainment involved imagination, board games and making do.
Against a backdrop of  The Magic Roundabout, Sindy had a bed made from a cereal box, resplendent in purple nylon, Action Man mountaineered over egg boxes and many of my soft toys were handmade.

I learned to sew at an early age, and when Father Christmas brought me a wooden sewing box at age seven I was in fabric heaven!
Alas, a sewing machine of my own had to wait another ten years, when I took possession of the most beautiful Singer sewing machine from the 1940s.
I loved that machine, but by then I'd been seduced by the heady, alcohol fueled atmosphere of Art School in the 1980s, and my beautiful Singer spent the next six years languishing in dusty corners of various shared houses, while I was caught up in Kibbutz, various misjudged relationships and the airport.
I lost interest in sewing and lent my Singer to my grandma in the 90s.
She had regained her interest in sewing as mine had waned.
However, when I eventually rediscovered my sewing mojo in 2009, I also discovered my beautiful Singer had been mistakingly  sold.
SOLD!!!
I never quite got over that.
Or the fact that the (empty) wooden cover was unearthed in the dark recesses of my brother's bedroom just last year, destined for the skip...

But this particular ghost has now been laid to rest, as on Monday I took delivery of a vintage Frister and Rossman sewing machine, complete with a carved wooden  lid and inlaid wood base.
It dates back to the 1920s, and is truly special.
The history, the generations of women who have cared for this machine...the rusty needle tin, ancient toothbrush and elongated bobbin.
Sometimes, I catch myself just stroking the wood and smelling the beeswax.