"Cleaning the silver.....?"

Of course I am talking about QVC presenters. I can't sleep, so apart from checking out this lovely forum I have QVC beauty on in the background. For those of you who are on virgin media and don't have access to it- it is a badly edited mish mash of Q beauty products, different presenters one after the other and seemingly on a loop. Claire sutton has just been on with Caroline from Liz Earle. Clearly a snippett from pre-Christmas, Claire is describing how Christmas dinner is really just another roast dinner, but how your hands take a bashing at christmas from "bits of tinsell" and "Cleaning the silver.."she says how sometimes she gets the children to do this fiddly job.

Do we all have "silver" to get out to clean at Christmas? My Hyacinth Bucket Grandma who lived in a semi near Chorley used to display her silver and clean it regularly but we always rolled our eyes. It was like a blast from the past hearing Claire mentioning cleaning silver as if it is the most normal thing in the world. Maybe it's just me, but what planet is she on? Does the average Q viewer polish the silver once a year?

Goodness me, definately a blast from the past I would think. I remember my dad polishing the copper and silver every few months - newspaper on the kitchen table, all the stuff waiting to be cleaned by some god awful smelling stuff, LOL

Apart from silver jewellery in my lori greiner cabinet, I dont have any silver in my house to polish thankfully. Although, I know there are a couple of silver candelsticks lurking in my dad's cellar which will come my way one day!!

I'm from up north, We didn't have silver . when I was a kid, I was given a load of copper and brass to clean with a tin of bras so and a couple of cloths. God did that stuff stink

sharonk said:

I'm from up north, We didn't have silver . when I was a kid, I was given a load of copper and brass to clean with a tin of bras so and a couple of cloths. God did that stuff stink

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Same here Sharon lol

My mother had so much brass & I detested it.Every week it would be placed on newspaper on the kitchen table & Brasso-ed to within an inch of it's life!

I was always told to go out & play as I was too slow & my mother would fly through them in no time.

When she died,my sisters asked me if I wanted them *gulp* as I was the oldest,I declined but did take one of a little dog which I still have on my kitchen fireplace.

I don't mind polishing one lol

Oh lordy this brings back memories ....
My Mum had a sideboard and a display cabinet and both were full of her " treasures ". Pride of place on the sideboard was a silver tray complete with silver goblets, none of them ever used as far as I can remember and they`d been a gift for my parents silver wedding anniversary from my Dad`s boss. Come Christmas time the tray and goblets were polished within an inch of their lives, the 2 crystal decanters were fetched out of the display cabinet and filled with sherry and whiskey, the cabinet was also raided for glasses and Christmas Day was the day we all ate off the posh dinner service ( probably bought off the pot man who had a stall on Chorley flat iron ) which meant for one day we all ate off matching plates !
PS the flat iron was a big market, often known as the cattle market and in its heyday stall holders and customers came from miles around to buy anything you could ever wish for. The Pot Man juggled full tea sets or dinners sets, often throwing them up in the air before catching them and flogging them for knock down prices.

Marzy said:

Same here Sharon lol

My mother had so much brass & I detested it.Every week it would be placed on newspaper on the kitchen table & Brasso-ed to within an inch of it's life!

I was always told to go out & play as I was too slow & my mother would fly through them in no time.

When she died,my sisters asked me if I wanted them *gulp* as I was the oldest,I declined but did take one of a little dog which I still have on my kitchen fireplace.

I don't mind polishing one lol

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My dad was always polishing the brasses.

The smell of Brassouke: used to hang round the place forever!!!!!!! My granny was very into your brasses, one reason I never wanted the stuff.

No as far as I remember none of my family had any silver to bring out at Christmas. A great aunt did have a silver plated tea service on a tray, but it was never used.

Why did I read this thread? I have some really brown-stained silver upstairs that is desparate for a clean, so I guess I'll have to be one of the few who does clean my silver - as little as possible, though.

silver what's that.

We were given silver cutlery for our wedding but it's never been used and still buried under other boxes of stuff since we moved house 15 years ago. Every Xmas I fleetingly consider getting it out for Christmas Dinner but the cleaning & polishing soon wins that battle and it stays where it is.

When my mum died my brother and I both said we didn't want her Georgian silver candlesticks and so they went to auction and sold for very little. I wish I'd kept them.

I inherited a shed load of silver plated cutlery, a huge canteen of it. I am ashamed to say that after spending ages cleaning the stuff to use over Christmases, I have boxed it all up and it went in the loft, wooden box and all. What a palaver! It is all tarnished again now but I just can't be bothered because it doesn't stay nice and clean for very long at all, I like my stainless steel and we stick to that. My eldest daughter will get the good stuff when I fall of my twig, she likes all that type of fancy stuff, the other 4 will not be envious I am quite sure!

Inge x

I wonder if culturally it's a Northern thing (or just a thing common to past times), the idea of having posh "treasures" to hand on to you next generation. My "heirlooms" from my parents' families (both sides from Yorkshire) are silver cutlery and trinkets that were considered posh back in the day. These items coming from ancestors who had very modest lives, homes and jobs: coal miner, cabinet maker, railway station master, etc. These were the same family members who always made sure they paid weekly so that their funerals were covered and never used their front rooms except for wakes and possibly weddings; bless 'em!
.

Akimbo said:

I wonder if culturally it's a Northern thing (or just a thing common to past times), the idea of having posh "treasures" to hand on to you next generation. My "heirlooms" from my parents' families (both sides from Yorkshire) are silver cutlery and trinkets that were considered posh back in the day. These items coming from ancestors who had very modest lives, homes and jobs: coal miner, cabinet maker, railway station master, etc. These were the same family members who always made sure they paid weekly so that their funerals were covered and never used their front rooms except for wakes and possibly weddings; bless 'em!
.

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There's certainly lots of those sort of things knocking around in my family that were left to us by older generations.
I just think it's the way culture has changed, now cutlery (and furniture) can be made with cheap materials so my generation just go out and buy new stuff if we need it, whereas years ago (I come from a northern industrial working class city) you couldn't go and do that - so stuff kept for best really was only brought out at christmas or special occasions.


That said, I do wonder what planet Clare Sutton is on. I don't know anyone who gets that silver out round here - it's just shoved up in the loft somewhere cos no-one can bring themselves to chuck it away cos Nan would've gone mad!!

Akimbo said:

I wonder if culturally it's a Northern thing (or just a thing common to past times), the idea of having posh "treasures" to hand on to you next generation. My "heirlooms" from my parents' families (both sides from Yorkshire) are silver cutlery and trinkets that were considered posh back in the day. These items coming from ancestors who had very modest lives, homes and jobs: coal miner, cabinet maker, railway station master, etc. These were the same family members who always made sure they paid weekly so that their funerals were covered and never used their front rooms except for wakes and possibly weddings; bless 'em!
.

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My parents fit the above description perfectly. Dad was a bus driver then a lorry driver. Mum worked in the mill until she had kids and then worked part time. Her sideboard and display cabinet held her treasures which were passed on when she died and she had a thrift tin and when Dad`s weekly pay packet arrived she`d put so much into the compartments for coal, electricity, rates , food etc etc. Dad would be 100 if still alive, Mum would be 97 and my how they`d be flabbergasted at telephone banking, internet shopping, how materialistic we all are and how much we spend on what my Mother would have called " trifles ".