When I was in my early 20s, my mother gave me her prized 18-person Villeroy & Boch dinner service with a pattern of blue trumpet-shaped flowers. I was living in digs with a weed-smoking housemate and a collection of mismatched furniture – but I had porcelain plates and gravy boats. When I use this precious crockery now, it reminds me of the dinner parties my mother used to host in the ’80s: three-course, slightly raucous affairs
