THE GREEN BOWL

When I was a child growing up in Tasmania (1950s) there was a small green bowl sitting on the mantlepiece above our wood burning kitchen stove. It is human nature that an empty container becomes a receptacle for small objects, and our green bowl was no different.

What was in it? Well any small object a child might be looking for really; rubber bands, pieces of chalk, dice, erasers, drawing pins, tacks etc etc.

A search for missing dice often took place when board games were brought out on wintery Tasmanian nights; Ludo and Snakes and Ladders were the main ones as I recall.

Tacks scrounged from the bowl were hammered into old cotton reels for French knitting. We were always going to make Mum a mat or a pot holder, but we never did of course. Mind you, one wooly rope I made was almost long enough to encircle the house 😎

The chalk (only ever white for some reason) was for marking out hop-scotch squares on cement paths. We also used it to write on old, iron rimmed cart wheels while playing ‘teacher’ beside our big lucerne tree.

Rubber bands? Well they had far too many childhood uses to record here. For example, wide ones could act as a means of propulsion for a slingshot (which we called a shanghai), or for a tiny boat that could putter along in a dish of water.

I would love to think the green glazed bowl is Tasmanian made pottery, but unfortunately it doesn’t have any maker’s mark on it. It probably dates from the 1930s or 40s. It has pride of place in my own home now, 60 years later. And yes, is still has a lot of (potentially) useful odds and ends in it. 😍

IT WOULD BE GREAT TO HEAR WHETHER OTHER PEOPLE GREW UP WTH AN EQUIVALENT