Once upon a time, almost two thousand years ago on the Indian subcontinent, there was a tortoise in his pond, and one day he met two geese. The geese said they would hold a stick in their beaks and if the tortoise would hold on with his mouth, they’d fly him to their home in the Himalayas. As they flew, the children below made fun of the tortoise and when he opened his mouth to answer back, he fell from the sky and split in two.
Once upon another time, only a hundred and thirty-five years ago, a Russian man named Vsevolod Garshin changed the tortoise into a frog. The frog had a happier ending following his fall, landing in a muddy puddle and living to tell the tale of his great migration.
So far and wide, through seas and streams, did the frog’s tale travel, that by no later than 1922 it had made its way to the banks of the Rolva River in Stará Role, Czechoslovakia. Here, in the Altrohlau Porcelain Factories, some of the 1,200 workers transferred the frog and his friends, layer by layer, onto porcelain tea set, in seamless borders.
Large quantities of tea sets, candle holders, flower holders and bonbon dishes would migrate to places including North and South America, Holland and the Dutch colonies. So soon enough, the frog and his friends travelled again and found themselves in England.
A pretty spot for a frog and his feathery friends to stop was the Thames River, where the village of East Molesey sat, just across the way from Hampton Court Palace.
The frog and geese more than likely went to live with a middle-class family. Tea sets could be thought of as semi-educational toys that gave girls the opportunity to imitate their elders and practice social niceties. The set would have had more pieces originally, including a tea pot. Frog fell from the sky again at one point, when the remaining bowl was broken, not surprising with fragile china in the hands of children, and it was carefully repaired with staples and dabbed with paint. The repair remains, as a memory of an unknown incident and a testament to the love and care that led to it being repaired.
Perhaps with the family grown up and the children since moved on, the frog and geese travelled onwards to the Molesey Carnival in the late 1970s and found themselves as a tombola prize.
It is thought Molesey Carnival began at the turn of the twentieth century, as an annual fundraiser for the hospital, known as a ‘pound day’. Growing in popularity, with the involvement of local societies and businesses, it included a float parade. It ended in the 1960s, before being revived in 1977 for the Silver Jubilee.
The frog and geese were taken home that day by a local woman, who passed them straight on to her (adult) daughter, Dorothy.
Dorothy Beard, with her husband Frank, ran The Pond Stores off-licence on Beauchamp Road, the trigger of childhood memories for many a local person, be it buying liquorice after school or a sneaky packet of cigarettes to smoke somewhere out of sight.
It is fitting that of all the things one could win at a carnival, that Dorothy would end up with a tea set. Dorothy was known for her involvement with the Molesey Welcome Club, a social group for over 60s. Feeding a party of 230 people? No problem. Dorothy had prepared a turkey, ham and salad lunch. Still hungry? No problem. Dorothy had also made the iced Christmas cake and mince pies served at tea-time. The club’s 22nd birthday celebration? Dorothy was there with a huge blue-and-white iced cake with 22 candles.
But as her granddaughter Kirsty remembers, that was only the tip of the icing nozzle. In the 1990s, after school had finished for the day, Kirsty would pop down the road to give Nana a hand. What with? Why, delivering roast dinners to all the widowed men in the street of course! “Take this to number 21 and tell him he’s still got my plate from last week.”
Dorothy had a long track record of feeding people. A decade or so ago, Kirsty met a lady in Kingston and on mentioning the off-licence in Molesey, the lady exclaimed, “not Dorothy and Frank?” In her house, Dorothy was a legend! For, as the story told to her by her mother went, when handing over the ration card in the shop, Dorothy would always give the mum of four a little bit extra and a wink as she returned the card.
Dorothy and her daughter Sally also sold items at the Hampton Court Emporium. Having grown up around the shop, Kirsty joined as a dealer twenty-three years ago. Of the things they’d gathered over the years, Sally would tell Kirsty, “sell anything you don’t want! You didn’t know them!” And so the frog and geese peeked out from their safe spot in a cupboard and toddled down to the Emporium to find a new owner.
And find a new home they did. They were gifted to a pair of newlyweds living in West London. The teaset being the perfect match for the bride and groom who themselves had migrated from foreign lands before meeting each other in the city which sits on the banks of the River Thames. Pieces of the now seven-piece set sit on the sideboard, the yellow plate a sunrise, watching over a new marriage, and a new home for the little frog and his friends, the two geese.
