What I treasure My mother’s button box

My mother’s button box by Jacquie Waterfield

One rainy afternoon, when my mother wanted to work, she first introduced me to her button box: an enormous, sturdy old Black Magic box with a lustrous, deep red ribbon tied around the lid. Inside were hundreds of buttons of all shapes, sizes and colours; a treasure trove to curious eyes.

I was enchanted by a tiny, white button with a black Scottie dog on that had been snipped from one of my baby cardigans – a link to a past I couldn’t remember. That first afternoon, I spent a happy couple of hours playing with the buttons; making up stories and patterns all across the table top. The sparkly diamond round button was ‘The Princess’; the large, jet-black toggle buttons were her guards; this big, square, purple one was the wicked wizard, and so on.

Thinking about the tactile pleasure of running my hands through the rivers of buttons makes me happy. There were teeny tiny pearlescent ones, big, wooden duffle coat ones, jewel-like red and gold ones and intricate silver ones from some longforgotten uniform. The button box and I shared many happy hours over the years and some unhappy ones, too. One day, in a fit of temper over some childhood injustice, I took my mother’s dressmaking scissors and cut through the silky red ribbon – an action I immediately regretted.

For a little girl who spent a lot of time in her room, the buttons opened up a whole world of make-believe. I had my favourites: the delicate pink ones shaped like tiny flowers, a set of three ball-shaped clear buttons with a heart etched on the front and, most of all, the original Scottie dog.

Years went by and I forgot about the button box. I left school, went to university, married and had a family of my own.

In time, I also acquired my own button jar – far more functional, and full of practical, not pretty, buttons. Then last week I went to pick my daughter up from a day at her grandparents’ and there it was: the battered Black Magic box, sitting on the coffee table, smaller than I remembered but otherwise the same, right down to the ruined ribbon (I still felt guilty…). And how all the memories came flooding back when my daughter ran up to me, a beautiful beam on her face, and proudly showed me her favourite button: a small, white one with a black Scottie dog on.

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