The old willow pattern on crockery must surely be updated now that PM Julia Gillard has forged a close relationship between Australia and China. Those two immortal doves , sometimes at the top of a dinner plate or on a gravy ladle , said to be the runaway, ill-fated lovers Koong-se and Chang [ incidently , he seems to have been a better swimmer than Chairman Mao ] , could now represent our home grown Iron Lady getting lovey dovey with the new Chinese leader, President Xi Jinping.
Over the years, the meaning of that odd Chinese scene has merely been described as willow pattern because it contains Willow Trees . If there is any Australian china manufacturing firm still standing which has not been forced to close due to overseas imports , it could cash in by making Wattle Pattern plates to mark our new closeness with China. The great British china maker, Spode, established 1770, is said to have been the first to put the willow pattern on dinner services and other kitchen items. The prominent essayist, Charles Lamb, admitted to an almost feminine impartiality for old china .Whenever he visited a great house , he first asked to see the china closet , not the awesome picture gallery. With delight, he described the various scenes he saw on china – horses, trees, pagodas , a cow and rabbit couchant and co-extensive ... the latter appropriate diplomatic jargon to describe the new relationship between Australia and China?
The borders of some early plates contained artistic geometric shapes and even renditions of mosquitoes, gnats and flowers. Our distinctive Wattle Pattern could include Canberra’s Bogong Moths , gum nuts , white pointers and snakes . Also inserted could be a vignette showing Rupert Murdoch refusing to sign a chit presented to him by a Chinese waiter charging him the equivalent of $120 for a six dollar bottle of South Australian Jacob’s Creek wine in the Emperor’s penthouse suite during a business trip to the Celestial Kingdom .
The story behind the willow pattern , popular throughout the world, has never been properly explained. There are also variants in the designs, one known as Mandarin and other Canton, upon which Kevin Rudd insists his morning crumpet is served . One of the pattern segments depicts an odd oarsman in a boat, without any paddles. Does this sound like the political situation here as revealed by Gallup polls? Three Oriental gentlemen trotting over a bridge , one carrying a strange parcel, could now be interpreted as Tony Abbott , Chrisopher Pyne and trimmed down Joe Hockey running to a meeting , trying to get the Independents to change sides with the promise of a mess of steaming dim sims - so that the Mad Monk can become Emperor and inflict water torture on the workers.
While researching this post, Little Darwin took from its files a slim volume , carrying the trade sticker of Adelaide bookseller F.W. Preece, THE STORY OF THE WILLOW PATTERN PLATE ,at the head of this story, published by Alexander Moring ,the De La More Press, London . It contains an intriguing handwritten inscription linked with a story just as tragic as that of Koong-se and Chang. It reads : "Sweet Alice [,] Ben Bolt " with much love from Con . Dec.1923. The poem of that name ,written by Dr Thomas Dunn English in 1842, turned into sheet music, was the most loved song in England and America for many years. The maudlin poem reminds Ben Bolt of sweet Alice with whom he was very close, she now covered by a slab in a cemetery. Over the years, comedians and others played with the poem and songs, Ben Bolt given the same treatment as poor Alice .
LEFTOVER SCRAPS : A comic opera-WILLOW PATTERN PLATE- was produced at the Savoy Theatre, London, in 1901, but was not everybody’s cup of tea , as it had a short run. To mark our PM’s great leap into bed with the Chinese, Little Darwin took three of its willow pattern plates from the canteen , none made in China , one even produced in Australia , and photographed them against a bedsheet, above . The plates, naturally , were washed before being placed back in the kitchen cupboard so that we could show them to Charles lamb should he drop in to see our etchings and French postcards .
