Do you still have Easter eggs lying around at home? In England, a chocolate egg survived Easter for the 84th time. The egg was given to nine-year-old Sybil Cook in 1939, but with war looming, her uncle advised to keep it for a while. Despite her love of chocolate, she never touched it again for the rest of her life. The Easter egg is now being auctioned after her death at the age of 91. The egg in authentic, luxurious packaging is especially special because of the beautiful story behind it, says the auction house.
The Easter egg given to Sybil in 1939 looks significantly different from how we know chocolate candies, dressed in blue and white paper complete with a decorative garden scene of a little girl with a watering can. Sybil was born on March 4, 1930 and would have just turned nine when she got the egg. “With the war coming, her uncle said, ‘Be careful with that, maybe soon there won’t be any more chocolate.’ As a young girl during wartime, she was so disciplined and respectful to her parents that she never ate a piece of it,” says Gill Bolter, one of Sibil’s daughters.
“When we asked Mum how she kept the egg for so long, she said it didn’t seem right to eat it because she kept it all through the war. The egg was very precious to her, she kept it during her childhood and took it with her when she left home in 1955 to get married. It sat on a shelf in her bedroom for 60 years.”
After Sybil’s death, one of the nurses at the nursing home wrote: “I used to offer her a piece of chocolate at night after her medication. She would smile mischievously at me and say, ‘Why not? It’s the best medicine.”
As a tribute to Sybil, her family has decided to part with the exceptional Easter egg. “It would be nice if the egg went to a museum, along with Mum’s wartime memories,” says her daughter Gill Bolter. Auction house Hansons estimates that it can fetch between 650 and 900 euros.
Charles Hanson, owner of Hanson’s auction house, says: “The story surrounding this Easter egg melted my heart. It’s a wonderful reminder of wartime austerity, respectful obedience, and a little girl so hard on herself that she wouldn’t allow herself the tiniest morsel of her favorite treat. Food rationing lasted 14 years in Britain, from 1940 to 1954. 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.”
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