The Handkerchief

A simple everyday item, like a handkerchief, can send an unsuspecting sniffler time travelling to memories of childhood. Long forgotten times and incidents that lie buried in the subconscious for years can be carefully preserved within the folds of a thirty-centimetre square of linen. We keep articles of clothing or we grow out of them and pass them on. Occasionally we are the recipients of items from a relative or friend, that pass into our possession and lie in our drawers as small time capsules, waiting to explode their store of memories at unexpected times.

Betty and Alex on their wedding day, 1945.

That thankless task, the ironing, precipitated a rush of visions stored in the depths of my grey matter. I was ironing, with nothing to break the monotony. Between the shirts and jeans I extracted one of my husband’s handkerchiefs. He retains the old habit, looked upon favourably again by the environmentally conscious, of carrying pockets of hankies, for himself and forgetful family members. No tissues touch his gentle nose.  He always has a hanky in his pocket, after years of training by his mother.

I embarked upon the pile of handkerchiefs of various colours and stages of deterioration. Some barely a step away from tying up the tomato plants next summer. In the pile was a good quality, white linen handkerchief of the old style, with a half-inch hem and a blue ‘A’ embroidered in the corner. My husband’s name is does not start with ‘A’ and most of his handkerchiefs, if they have an initial, have an ‘R’. This handkerchief probably belonged to my father, Alexander. 

I am unsure how this handkerchief came into our possession. It may have been scooped up in the general cleanup after my parents died in late 1982. Probably shoved in a bag, or lost among the papers of his old roll top desk, or in the pocket of an item of clothing that has long since gone to the charity bin.

This the hanky could have been used to bandage those grazed knees that we had as children. Dad would lick the corner to clean up the wound and then carefully fold the handkerchief to bandage the afflicted knee or elbow, then, after working his minor miracle, he’d send us to mum for a more antiseptic treatment.

Was this the hanky Dad used to tie the knots in the corners to provide a hat on a hot summer day, when he was sitting on the beach before ‘Slip, Slop and Slap’?  He lay in the sun and baked like a beetroot, then rolled up his trouser legs and paddled in the bayside waters. I can’t remember him swimming. Just lying on the beach on one of those folding deck chairs, that you still see at old holiday homes along the Mornington Peninsula. Dad would read the newspaper, then fall asleep, and we would bury his pale, white feet in the cold, wet sand. His feet were the only thing that didn’t burn. He regretted his sun bake later when the sunburn glowed. Our childhood was full of the fishy smell of the ointment mum put on his and our burnt backs, legs and arms. 

Was this the handkerchief Dad tied two threepences into the corners for my sister or I to take to Sunday school? Our parents sent us to Sunday school without coming too. Did Dad know his daughters cashed the three-pence at the milk bar on the way to their Sunday appointment? Only two large brown pennies made it to the collection plate. 

Other memories of handkerchiefs flooded into my mind. Dad’s sneeze matched his rather large nose and large black eyebrows. He made a huge explosion when he feigned a sneeze into his large white hanky and then produced a penny, an Easter egg, or a lolly from behind the ear of a startled child. He would wave a hanky to attract our attention across a crowd of cousins, a signal to come and join an adventure, out the window or under the table. 

I remember my Mum borrowing one of Dad’s hankies to race at the annual Sunday school picnic. The picnic was in an open field. After the ride in the box-shaped furniture van, countless choruses of ‘Ten Green Bottles’, and sandwiches wrapped in the paper that used to come around the loaves of bread, there were races. Mum was not prepared to run fifty yards for the amusement of assorted, tired and sticky urchins. This was not the place for anything as serious as a running race. She made it a Dusting Race. My Mum lined up, and, with the help of Dad’s hanky, started ‘dusting’ her way to the finish. This was a curious surprise, as her housekeeping skills had not previously held such a high profile. Mum wasn’t lazy. She merely had other priorities.

A lowly handkerchief has many memories sewn into the flimsy fabric, a square of immortality, waiting to evoke long forgotten stories.

By Liz Wilks