In the tradition of chocolate Easter eggs whose owners never quite got around to finishing them off, Sybil Cook’s excuse takes some beating.
In the then nine-year-old’s case, it was Hitler’s imminent invasion of Poland and the onset of the second world war that interrupted her enjoyment of the treat.
But after being left untouched for 84 years, the egg is now due to be sold at auction.
Cook’s daughter Gill Bolter, 61, said: “With war looming, her uncle said: ‘You be careful with that, my girl, there might not be any chocolate around soon.’
“He told her to ration it. Amazingly, she was so disciplined and respectful to her elders she never ate a single piece.”
Cook treasured the treat during the war years and never opened it throughout the rest of her life. She died aged 91 in 2021.
The “Mary Mary Quite Contrary” egg still has its blue and white paper, complete with a decorative garden scene of a little girl with a watering can.
A box containing it still bears the owner’s name, written in pencil, and the year 1939. It will be sold by Derbyshire-based Hansons Auctioneers on 18 May, with a guide price of between £600 and £800.
Bolter, a director of a hospitality company from North Rise, Cardiff, recalled how her mother “loved life and chocolate” and said that she would have just turned nine when her uncle gave the egg to her as a gift in 1939.
“When we asked mum how she’d managed to keep the egg for so long she told us that having kept it all through the war, it didn’t seem right to eat it,” she added.
“She did scratch a bit of the paper off the front when she was little, just to check there was chocolate behind it.”
Having kept it safe through her childhood, Bolter said that her mother had taken the egg with her when she left home to get married in 1955, and for 60 years had it tucked away on a shelf in her bedroom in the town of Neath, Wales.
“It would be lovely if the egg went to a museum alongside Mum’s wartime memories,” said Bolter.
Charles Hanson, the owner of Hansons Auctioneers, said the story was a reminder of wartime austerity, respectful obedience “and a little girl who was so strict with herself she would not allow herself the tiniest nibble of her favourite treat”.
He added: “Sybil’s egg is a reminder of those difficult days. She came from a generation that understood hardship. They learned to cherish and appreciate the smallest things. That’s a very fine character trait to have.”
