Today is the third day of my 21 Day Family Connections Experiment.
The family treasure today is a well used Bensons English Toffee Favorites tin. Usually now it sits atop bookshelves with a number of other old tins, all on display.
I do know that this was my mother's. I remember her using it and her pointing it out to me in later years. In our old house, it used to hold sewing supplies. I don't know when she got it, or how. Or why it would be so battered as Mum usually kept her things in good shape. I wonder if she took it from home when she left to go in the Army. Or did someone give it to her? Certainly now I wish I'd asked her to tell me its story. A genealogist's lament!
The image on the lid shows the RMS Queen Mary1 ocean liner. This tin seems a little older than the other similar Benson Queen Mary tin design I've seen. The Queen Mary's maiden voyage was in 1936 so it could be from the 1930s or 40s. I'm sure my mum would have loved the thought of a someday voyage on such a luxurious ship.
And she'd know something about the Queen Mary's history. During World War II, the Queen Mary was refitted as a troop ship. Several times, she brought the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, to North America for talks with Allies. On one of his trips, he was in Washington, DC when Mum was working there. After the war, the Queen Mary brought war brides to Canada. Certainly then the accommodations on board would be much more utilitarian.
If Mum got this tin new, I'm sure she'd have liked most of the candy, but especially the chocolate eclairs and probably the chocolate cracknels, "crunchy butterscotch candy with chocolate centres..." 2 I'd have wanted the nut caramels and the rum & butter flavor toffee. And we both would have wanted to try that chocolate grapefruit - at least once.
The image on the lid shows the RMS Queen Mary1 ocean liner. This tin seems a little older than the other similar Benson Queen Mary tin design I've seen. The Queen Mary's maiden voyage was in 1936 so it could be from the 1930s or 40s. I'm sure my mum would have loved the thought of a someday voyage on such a luxurious ship.
And she'd know something about the Queen Mary's history. During World War II, the Queen Mary was refitted as a troop ship. Several times, she brought the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, to North America for talks with Allies. On one of his trips, he was in Washington, DC when Mum was working there. After the war, the Queen Mary brought war brides to Canada. Certainly then the accommodations on board would be much more utilitarian.
If Mum got this tin new, I'm sure she'd have liked most of the candy, but especially the chocolate eclairs and probably the chocolate cracknels, "crunchy butterscotch candy with chocolate centres..." 2 I'd have wanted the nut caramels and the rum & butter flavor toffee. And we both would have wanted to try that chocolate grapefruit - at least once.
Benson's Toffee Favourites. Only 69 cents a pound! Wednesday, 17 November, 1954 – p. 38 · Calgary Herald (Calgary, Alberta, Canada) · Newspapers.comI do like the design with the waves all round the tin and lid, the ship's wheel and anchor on the back, with the lifesaving rings on the sides.
REFERENCES
1. The Queen Mary is now an attraction in Long Beach, California: https://queenmary.com/
2. Hudson's Bay store ad, Benson's Toffee Favourites. Wednesday, 17 November, 1954, p. 38. Calgary Herald, Alberta, Canada. Accessed and clipped at Newspapers.com, May 2020.
For more about the 21 Day Family Connections Experiment, see my first Experiment article here.
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