We had a cup of tea last night in teacups which I’ve barely used before.   They were bought by my parents in August 1940 from Thomas Goode, then as now on South Audley Street, as wedding presents to be shipped out to India by way of the Cape as the Suez Cansl was closed.   My mother never liked them and thought they were deeply impractical, too broad so that the tea got cold.   I took it that they were redolent of everything she disliked about imperial India – the exaggerated ceremony, the false display.   So, we never used them as a child and I have never liked to use them since: