For Auld Lang Syne

In amongst the 'precious' souvenirs I keep in the little brown suitcase there is a small group of objects for which there is little real justification. This is one but at least I know what it is - my mother's Mothers' Union brooch from her days in East Africa. One supposes she joined the MU when I was born but it never had the importance in her life which the YWCA had - for a time she was chairman of the Mombasa branch.

While I like this for its cheerful African colours I'm unsure what it is and why it is in my case. I suspect that it is one of those long, scarf-like things which priests wear round their necks - a 'stole' - and it probably came from my mother. Now that it has journeyed so far with me I haven't the heart to throw it out.

The same might be said for this necklace, made of unidentified small brown seeds and the little cowries which are so common on the beaches of East Africa. Again, I suppose that I kept it because it was my mother's.

However, of all the pieces this is the most puzzling. It's about six inches long and, because the 'sharp' end is broken, I'm fairly certain it is made of real mahogany rather than a more ordinary wood which has been stained with black shoe polish. It could well have been bought from the AKamba carvers who plied their trade along Kilindini and Salim roads in Mombasa except that the animals they carved were African while....

....the one on the end of this looks like a bear - though it might, at the stretch of one's imagination, be a mongoose. However, what intrigues me about it is - what's it for?

So it, and these other objects, continue to travel with me for little other reason than auld lang syne.