Remembering Patti Bateman

REMEMBERING PATTI BATEMAN


COUNTRY ANTIQUES AT FLAWED AND FABULOUS



This Large handmade copper jam pan with handles, is really substantial. It is quite heavy and constructed of a thick gauge copper,the outside has a lovely aged verdigris. My dear old friend Patti Bateman, a well known dealer from Beaumont St Newcastle told me once that it was a good old piece if It was constructed with these join lines (see in the bottom)
She had a wealth of knowledge and the most wicked sense of humour. We became good friends while I was at Swan Murray and Hains antique centre in East Maitland as she was also a stall holder there. She was in her 70's then, and becoming quite frail. I used to pick her up and we would go to the auctions together or op shopping. She had a great love of good linen and a keen eye for quality needlework.

She used to make me laugh at viewings, because she would want me to look at something , but motion towards something else completely, needless to say I did n't always follow because what she was saying,didn't relate to what she was pointing at. This caused me endless amusement. She said the reason she did that was because other people would watch what she was looking at and then she would have competition on the items.

Patti had a shop on Beaumont st in Newcastle when the Earthquake came. The buildings along that street were substantially damaged in the earthquake and she had to close down .
That was a couple of years before I met her. Patti didn't buy a lot of stuff in her later years, she had piles and piles of stock in suitcase stored on her daughter Neta's property, at Dunn's Creek.
Whenever she needed to stock up, she would just raid another case.
I think all dealers are horders and Patti kept a keen interest in Antiques until she was bedridden in a nursing home. She deteriorated very rapidly following a fall and suffered from demetia, but Neta said that on good days she would still take patti out for a coffee and a bit of Op shopping!

She was a special friend and I miss her. Her son Piers is an artist of repute in Melbourne. Daughter Neta was involved with horses and her other son Eddy, was a handy fellow who was making slab furniture when I last spoke to him. Patti loved art and loved to travel a passion that her children share in different ways. I have enjoyed so much remembering the fun we had together I think I will retitle this page for patti.