A year in the biscuit tin

Once a year I open Martha Marlow's biscuit tin, check her 1902 colour orders against the shop standard, and write down what changed. This year: nothing. Here is why that is the interesting outcome.

The tin holds four colour cards in Martha's hand: crimson, ochre, duck-egg, moss. Under each is a note on where the pigment comes from and what it must never be mixed with. The notes read like a recipe and a grudge at once. Crimson: grind fine, never thin with turps. Ochre: from the Felly clay, accept no substitute from town. Duck-egg: the blue must be tired, not bright. Moss: dark enough to hide the tar streaks.

Each review I test the shop standard against the cards. The comparison is not exact - pigments changed twice in a century and the enamel companies have their own opinions - but the relationships hold. The crimson must sit brighter than the ochre. The duck-egg must be the quietest thing on the hull. The moss must do the work at the waterline where the tar tells lies.

Anyone can copy the four colours. What the tin protects is the relationships: which band leads, which recedes, which is allowed to be tired. That is the actual design, and it took Martha one winter and, family legend insists, one argument with a boat painter who is not named and does not deserve to be.

So the review's outcome is the same every year, and the entry in the towyard book says so. Nothing changed. The paint is the company. It still is.

Nesta Marlow is the fifth generation to keep the shop standard. The tin is fictional, as is she, and both are in excellent order.