What does our drinks cabinet says about us?
“We’ve had many parties around it, and with it – Henry’s a retired pharmacist, but now he’s dispensing a different kind of medicine,” says Judy.
What this cabinet says about Henry and Judy
Look at Henry and Judy and their cabinet of conviviality! What a lovely piece of furniture, and how happy they seem with it. This cabinet represents leisure and fun, relaxation: enjoying yourself with a few drinks, instead of moaning about your aches and pains. It’s an easy talking point: it nods to Henry’s old life as a chemist, and enhances his current life as a happy husband with Judy. It’s Henry and Judy’s Dispensing Department and from it, they hand out joy.
This cabinet contains geography, as well as history. They’ve furnished it with classic European drinks (Ricard, proper Scotch – no WKD here) and with a few holiday mementos, like the cute tourist drinks mats and the pewter tankards. They’ve travelled a bit. I bet they talk to everyone when they go away.
The dresser looks over 100 years old. It makes me think of how Victorians and Edwardians regarded pharmacy: as one step up from magic, with miracle medicines advertised as remedies to nervousness, insomnia, consumption – anything, really. Now, our health is less precarious, and alcohol is our universal panacea. You could call it self-medication.
There’s a type of person who prefers second-hand furniture to new. It’s to do with reuse and reclamation, a liking of the useful and the well-made, as well as a search for originality. Nobody else will have a drinks cupboard like this one. It is wrapped up in stories: of Henry and Judy’s lives, of the lives of those who were ill, who Henry helped. And it creates new ones. Every good party leaves party-goers with stories to tell, and Henry and Judy clearly give good parties.
If you would like Miranda to cast an eye over your favourite possession, send a photograph to magazine@observer.co.uk
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