"These turn-of-the-century opera glasses belonged to my paternal grandmother who I never met as she died the year before my parents married in 1962. My father, who died four years ago, was a conductor, his father both a cellist and a tailor. He talked about my grandmother from time to time, sad that my brother and I never knew her. My entire childhood was steeped in music; both parents would sing Mozart, Brahms, Hayden, Beethoven to us, I learned to play piano and flute, my brother, the trumpet and then the drums. While my mother only gave me the glasses when my father died, they remind me of the first time he took me to the opera: I was seven and it was to see Carmen. I remember being utterly enchanted by the melodies and the drama, but was so sleepy by the interval he had to take me home to bed. The opera, as with all the music he introduced me to, has remained in my head forever."

Becky Sunshine

Journalist

"I think of myself as being pretty unsentimental about objects of the past. However, old cameras are an exception. When I was in my mid-teens and very interested in photography, my father helped me to buy a second-hand Mamiyaflex camera. At the time, the cool buy would have been a Rolleiflex twin-lens, but that wouldn't have given me a camera with bellows and the word 'Professional' inscribed on the front of the body. The bellows were important because they gave me a link with the past and big-format photography. I also regarded the huge weight of the Mamiyaflex as an asset: the owner of such a monster would have to be more than an amateur to be prepared to lug it around the streets. Today, the Mamiya C33 Professional sits as an ornament in our bedroom, looking across at our bed. Some might think that a bit kinky, but for me it reminds me of my father and a celluloid past which has almost disappeared."

Neil Hedges

Founder, Fishburn Hedges, the public relations group

This miniature pin cushion was given to me after my grandmother past away when i was 16. She used to work as a seamstress and i remember playing with it as a child while she was busy making me rag dolls. It sat in a drawer for years like most memories are left untouched in a part of your mind until you need them around you again....

Elise Dumontet

Photographer

These objects were lovingly made by my grandfather. He offered me the bowl and I received the two salt pots after he passed away. I use them everyday and they remind me of why I miss him so much. He never took himself too seriously and always managed to effortlessly connect to people through a beautiful sense of humor.

Katarina Nielsen

My "grandma" was a professional ballet dancer and these beautiful faded pointed shoes were passed on to me. I suppose there couldn't really be another item that could so perfectly describe her and her entire life which was devoted to the ballet world. For me they bring back memories of rifling through her wardrobes which were stuffed with tutus, feathered creations, Russian inspired costumes, lots of sequins and glitter – so exciting for a little girl (still is!). I also have memories of her dancing, stretching and teaching in her living room right up until the last few months before she died. And so I take these pleasures into my own life, and try to fill it with dancing, and beautiful things as much as possible.

Olivia Gregory

Creative Director

I inherited this bible after the death of my grandfather, Manuel Simeão da Silva, but the most important thing I inherited from him was his stories. My memory of him wasn’t so much as an ardent bible reader but as the adventurous young man he once was and for his playfulness. He lived in another state and I was about 4 years old when I first met him. I remember him swinging me on a hammock, feeling terrified by his wrinkly face and dark skin every time the hammock swung close to his face. He was a cafuso, his mother was Brazilian Indian and his father an African. It was only later when he came to live with us, after my father’s death, when I was 11 that I got to know him better. He had mellowed by then; he wasn’t the severe man I had heard about. In fact, I think his old age regression matched my age at the time. He was a great storyteller, telling me the wild tales of his youth and how he was quite the Don Juan. There were many stories about travelling through the jungle, and in particular his encounter with a dangerous snake. How he had eloped with my grandmother and how her father contracted bounty hunters to kill both of them. It was only much later that I realized I was the only one he told those stories to. At times, I would get bored of listening as he repeated them over and over again. In hindsight I can see the wisdom of the repetition, because I can now remember those stories.

Viviane Carneiro

Psychotherapist

This pair of jugs were always there in my Grandmothers kitchen, a place of security and inspiration. They had belonged to my Great Grandmother, and I was sometimes allowed to carefully hold them. I loved to trace the vivid turquoise edges and the golden painted flower patterns while my Grandmother would tell me stories of my Great Grandmother,her Mother. who danced and sang on stage, had long flaming red hair, and who took in other peoples washing when her husband was killed in the first world war. Sometimes she shared two boiled eggs between four children for tea. Her floor was so clean that you could eat off it, and she later sent a parcel every week to London and my Mother when my Grandmother married an RAF Officer, my Grandfather and moved to London. I now make ceramic and bronze sculpture and decorated plates.

My Grandmother always said that the jugs were to be mine, as I loved them. They sit in my far less tidy kitchen (though I love cleaning floors) and are for me a symbol of strength and beauty, gaiety, courage and love.

Julie Goldsmith

Artist

Leatherman utility knife

From my grandfather

Stan Chick

Rosie Nicholls

Grandad’s Radio

Rosie Nicholls

“During the last few years of my father’s life, I rarely saw him out without this slightly battered hat. We travelled a touch together and my abiding image is of him during this time is perched on a stone just inside the gates of the Guggenheim in Venice with stick and hat, watching the young go by. It hangs on a chair opposite my desk, and always will”.

Andrew Derrick

Creative Director

Grandpa's camera

This Kowa camera used to belong to my Japanese granpa in Osaka. He died when I was 19 and I inherited it.

He was a keen amateur photographer, loved taking photos in camera clubs and used to show off the images of beautiful models posing.

He was also a keen English learner who would translate his favoruite ABBA records into Japanese and wrote to his Hawaian pen-pals in English. Now he must be enjoying his second life living inside me, speaking English every day and being a photographer in England.

Without his influence, I would not be what I am now.

Mayumi Hirata

Photographer

Paperweight

Luke Cave

Biochemistry Student

When I was a child I would spend long summers with my grandparents in Shamokin, a small coal mining town in Pennsylvania. They lived in a quite ordinary and modest house, but I remember it being full of the most extraordinary objects.

When I got bored of lazing around on the porch, I would climb up to the attic and sit there amongst the discarded furniture, peering into wooden chests full of furs and feathers, pulling out hats from dusty boxes and rummaging through piles of piano music – popular show tunes and radio hits from the 1930s and 40s. Even now, there is a particular smell – a mix of heat and dust and old varnish - which transports me back there in an instant.

After my grandmother died, my mother shipped many of her things back to England. I don't think she could bear to leave anything behind. This lamp used to sit on my grandfather's desk and was probably bought by his father. I remember being fascinated by the metal dragons and how, when the bulbs were lit, they seemed to breathe fire. It is very precious to me, not only because it is a thing of great beauty but because it has this magical power to evoke very loved people, places and times.

Liz Corcoran

Journalist

Book

This is the day book kept by my step-grandmother, Monica Sherston, from January 1923 to March 1927. It was not unusual in 1920s English society to keep such books and this is a beautiful specimen, packed with mementoes of dinner parties, hunts, county balls, political meetings, European cruises and family life. One of many highlights is a luncheon in Burnley, Lancashire on 5 February 1927, hosted by the Burnley Conservative & Unionist Association for the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchill. A warm, handwritten thank you note from Winston to my grandfather Geoffrey, his host as president of the local Tories, is proudly pasted in the book.

Kasper de Graaf

Writer and Editor

This type of clock used to be known as a granddaughter clock. It is a French timepiece in an English cabinet and an engraved plaque on the front reads: “Presented to Capt. Geoffrey W. Sherston by the tenants of the Grantley and Brimham Estates, March 1935.” The tenants were farmers on large country estates in North Yorkshire and the recipient, my grandfather, was the manager of the estates. The clock and chime mechanism both have to be wound with a large key once a week, and there is a highly sensitive adjustment lever to adjust the speed of the clock if it’s gaining or losing a few seconds over that period.

Kasper de Graaf

Writer and Editor

This old Swedish book, a manual on photography my father gave me and a little picture of my god father seemingly trying to stare into me, both gives clues to me being a photographer, as well as my permanent curiosity about what makes people who they are and what goes on behind the facade

Joakim Blockstrom

Photographer

My grandmother's rocking chair. It reminds me so much of afternoons spent at her house getting bored while the grownups were busy lunching or conversing or just being boring. I remember sitting in it and rearranging the matching nest of tables she had. And trying to think of ways to play with the wooden monkey and stacking soldier she had – pretty much the only toys in the house and they got boring pretty quickly. My grandmother was not one to fuss over small children but she was very conspiratorial with me – I sat in the rocking chair and she taught me to play backgammon and cards instead. The other 'toy' I was given to play with was a tin of foreign coins and banknotes – much more fun – and useful in backgammon games! It's funny now, doing what I do, to be so frequently appraising the design of mid-century Ercol furniture and Rosendahl wooden toys, I certainly didn't appreciate that at the time and I'm not sure my family did either. They probably did though. Nature or nurture - who knows?

Henrietta Thompson

Writer

Cassie the Doll

From my mother

Suzanne Stankus

Creative Director/ Stylist