Cubby-houses and tea sets

When I was about ten years old I played in a huge cubby-house in the back yard of our home. My brother, who was a couple of years younger than me, and I, used to set up the interior as rooms mimicking a real home. We created spaces for a kitchen, a lounge room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. In true playful fashion, as only a pretend home allows, we changed the floor plan at will, and I sometimes frustrated my brother with requests to shift the kitchen from one end of the huge space to the other and replace it with the lounge room, and so on. We partitioned the rooms with fabric as curtained walls, possibly on stretchy wires, the sort used, once upon a time, for lightweight curtains.

I had three dolls: Sophia, Pollyanna and Mary Anne. With my brother, we played at being mothers and fathers. I’d rock my babies to sleep in wooden cots and make-shift beds. Of course, the babies (dolls) all came back into the main house afterwards, to be safe from the cold, damp winter nights, or from the excessive summer heat. I recall the heat generated by the roof. From memory, I think the roof was actually old lino flung over wooden supports! It made the cubby into an oven and reduced the time we could play in it during the long, hot summers in the central West Australian wheatbelt.

What was our cubby made from?

The great things about our cubby-house was the size. It was big enough for a car to have fitted in – because it had been a car crate. Long gone are the days since cars were delivered in crates such as this one. I don’t ever recall seeing a car in one, but I am told, on good authority, that our divine space, made from planks of wood, with a window and door cut into the side, and with a pitched roof added, was indeed the means of transporting a new vehicle to either the owner or the business from which a new owner could purchase it.

When I Googled ‘car crates’, I only found one image that remotely resembled the skeleton we played in. It concurs with the practice of transporting cars by Ford, according to an article aptly named Crate Expectations by Nigel Mathews, who claims ‘the combination of wooden shipping crates and automobiles date back to at least 1908’, and that ‘The practice of shipping cars in wooden crates continued until the mid-1960s.’ It may, therefore, have carried the Model T Ford my grandparents owned, and if not, clearly someone else in the district had purchased a car, otherwise it would not have arrived on our farm, sixteen miles from the nearest town, to be converted into a cubby-house that gave many years of pleasure.

My Rockery Garden

Outside the cubby, in an effort to resemble a true home, I had my own garden rockery. Occasionally I’d plant some flowers or rely on hardy succulents surviving lack of water. These leftovers from my mother’s garden occasionally burst into a vivid display like in her garden beds. Sadly though, I never acquired the green thumb my mother had and a few tough cacti and a plant with the inglorious common name of ‘pig face’ were the only survivors in the hardened soil. Much later I learned of other hardy plants, like daisies, lavender and a purple papery flower, as in the images below!

Inside the cubby, I had a child-sized kitchenette. Smaller than actually appropriate for the size of the cubby house kitchen, it nevertheless was more than adequate for our make-believe purposes. On this kitchenette I placed my tiny cups and saucers, plates and cutlery, all of which intermingled with overlarge offerings from the main house. My tiny kitchenette was thick with coats of chipped, pastel green (or was it red?) paint. It had tiny cup hooks, a shelf and cupboards below. I suspect it was the same one my mother used in her childhood.

The tiny dormice on the cups, saucers and plates seem stuck in time and certainly in my mother’s memory banks. They provided hours of childhood play for her many years before I used them. She ‘oohed’ and ‘ahd’ when I discovered the tin in the spare bedroom where I sleep when I visit her.

A single setting of the tiniest cup and saucer brought my own ‘ooh’ and ‘ahh’, as I recalled a set of gold painted china that was my very own.

I see myself in my cubby, at our child-sized wooden table and chairs, some with dolls seated on, serving tea and cake. The cake or biscuits were real, the tea, rather watery. Fingers were held out in grand fashion and with man a giggle!   Afterwards, the cups, plates and saucers were washed in a large green enamel bowl which I still own, dried and hung on their hooks or placed back on their shelves.

It was, in fact, a perfect playground, teaching my brother and myself how to keep house, redecorate, enjoy tea parties. and so on, having fun while doing so!

Grandchildren and their Cubby-houses

I wonder how many children today enjoy a special cubby-house space, and items to with it.

I create temporary cubbies with my younger grandchildren – rugs over chairs, hideaways in huge cardboard boxes and so on.

On a property in the hills we inherited a cubby-house that stood the test of time, until the roof leaked and floor boards gave way. Hours of fun were had by the grandchildren in this space with old pots and pans, kitchen cabinets and mini items.

What has this to do with a vintage tin?

I found the tea set wrapped in soft cloth in an old tine. I will pass these onto my granddaughter in due course. Right now, they belong with other pieces of memorabilia until memory is played out. When the time is right to relinquish them, maybe for play, I’ll bring them out again.

All the items are packed away for safe keeping. I plan though, to bring them out when the children visit over the Christmas break and hold a tea party.

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