You look at the photograph of this tea towel and I expect you must think “She must have boiled that tea towel to within an inch of its life”. Wrong. That is virtually how it was when I got it 20 years ago, pale sketches that almost look faded, very indistinct. It isn’t memorable to look at.
My friend Fee was invited to do a training session in Southend-on-Sea. 20 years ago she didn’t really approve of a tea towel collection; it definitely wasn’t cool. I said to her, that if she was near a tea towel shop, could she buy one and I would pay her back. You would have thought I’d asked her to do something illegal or immoral. I thought nothing of it again; I knew full well that there wasn’t a hope in hell of getting a Southend-on-Sea tea towel. Wrong again. She returned from Southend-on-Sea; the training session had gone well, she came into my office and flung a paper bag on my desk and said “A tea towel. I have never bought a tea towel in my life. You can have it as a present”. It was one of those moments when I sat with my mouth hanging open, stunned. As Lyra would say “that’s not what I was expecting”.
If you read Fee’s story in Guest Tea Towel in http://www.virtualteatowelmuseum.com you will see that 20 years later she still hasn’t bought a tea towel. But that tea towel of Southend-on-Sea was a lovely present because Fee had had to put a lot of effort into getting it and I have always appreciated that. However, Fee wasn’t able to tell me anything about Southend or where she bought the tea towel; no little tidbit that would add to this blog.
myteatowels 