Unlocking the secrets of Lizzie’s and Halsey’s century-old miscellanea

Using old artefacts to gain insights into past events, figures and places has been all the rage of late – recent salient examples including the City of New York Scotland Yard’s History of Crime and the Battle of Waterloo . Such is its popularity, the technique even featured in an article in last year’s Bulletin on one of Tewkesbury’s most endearing eccentrics, the late Mrs Margot Greaves, whose husband, ‘Gee’, it now appears was once an honorary Ashanti chief ! For this new application, we focus on a collection of miscellanea accumulated around the time of the First World War by my grandparents, Lizzie and Halsey – to often fascinating effect.