My sister Anthea and I each have casket about 7" tall by 4" diameter, of turned wood, shiny black and an acorn to lift the lid. They sit on our mantelpieces, now 150miles apart.
We inherited them from our father who had had them on his mantelpiece since WW2. They look good but the real point is what they are made from: 2000- 4000 year old English oaks dug from our farm in the Cambridgeshire fens.
Today's conservationists may abhor this disturbance of the ancient fens. But it was war time. The country needed more land and more food and father even had a stamp of approval for his action in a visit from the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.
So the Bog Oaks came out and there they sit in our houses today, not only a reminder to us of our father, our childhood, and his war time efforts but of the many millennia that went before all of us.
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