by Quentin Cockburn

I understand people devote their lives to savouring the exquisite crystalline beauty of cut glass.  They talk of beakers, goblets and carafes dripping with silver.  They delight in adorning the flasks with those little medallions, not dissimilar to the breastplates we awarded to leaders in the aboriginal community.  They savour through trained nostrils the bouquet of an elegant shiraz sipped from long stemmed glasses.  Tumblers brimming with brandy, elegant sherry glasses for Bristol Cream, Tio Pepe and Pimms.  They talk of Stuart and Waterford, Lalique and Murano.  It is incomprehensible to me, a foreign language borne by a sort of knowing exclusivity.  I don’t care about the vessel, it’s the contents that really count.  I have been known to drink from jam jars, vases and the odd tankard, pewter preferably, as this is unbreakable and robust, a riposte of all that is fine and decorative.

However, on my frequent stays in Melbourne I am entrusted with the task of helping mother find replacement glasses for those that suffered breakage during the preceding week.  Gone is the crystal set bequeathed at her wedding, which is apt I think, as the husband has gone too.  The smaller sherry glasses, once regular, are irregular, and the other wine glasses, an assortment of the thin, the elegant and exquisite have long been exorcised from the sideboard.  Now its a utilitarianism in keeping with the wisdom of age.

Foremost in our search is that for the perfect whiskey glass.

Mother and I are regular.  On Thursdays, (pension day) it’s to that purveyor of fine liquor,  Dan Muphys, for a bottle (or two) of Johnnie Walker.  On Mondays, depending on when I get into town its a reconnoissance at Aingers, (the Auction House) and the Abbotsford Salvos Shop.  Both, like Dans’, are places of worship.  At Aingers they are friendly in a family sort of way.  We cruise the aisles, in amongst the detritus of deceased estates, almost as much a homage to Sandy Stone as Johnnie Walker, and then find another replacement whiskey glass, usually out the back amongst the odds and sods.  The article we choose is inscribed in the ledger of bids,  we put a value on it.  Sometimes up to ten dollars for a good set and then we go home and  await the call.  It’s exciting stuff.  I then hurry off on a Wednesday en route to the printers, exchange a greeting with the beautiful Paula, and return to mother, glasses in hand, a celebratory drink, and the another for good measure.

Yesterday, post Ainger, we ducked inside the Abbotsford Salvos shop. Mum found six beautiful long stemmed glasses, the price, neatly inscribed, $1.90 each.  She placed them in her basket.  Admiring the bookshelves and their assortment of Barbara Cartland, Max Bygraves and Reg Varney biographies she paused, and put the basket down upon a sofa.  This was unwise.  You’d think she’d learn.  I heard the crash and deducing the likely cause made my way towards the bookshelves.  She’d put the pieces back in the basket, ‘Hmm… Only three broken’?,  ‘Yes’!, she replied triumphantly!..  ‘I need six for my party, but this will do’!!  ‘How about we leave the basket here, (the evidence) and we make our way blithely to the counter’.

‘Excellent suggestion’.  And so, familiarity and good cheer our keepers, made our way onto the street.  Not whiskey tumblers, but wine glasses, and as the afternoon was upon us, we tested the glasses.  The Sav Blanc, a rhapsody in translucent greens and the glasses, the survivors, were found to be good.