Use a cotton bud to get into textured brass designs, both to apply the peek and to remove any residue.
A light polish with some wax to protect it from the air - Renaissance Wax is best, it is available in small pots.
Aunty, you should have been the expert on 'Lovejoy's' programmes! You have some real expertise and skills there!
My grandfather made a coffee table back in the nineteen-twenties, and when we inherited it, it really did need some TLC and also a re-style, as the legs, although cut from one beech piece, (he somehow built everything from that stuff), looked a bit weedy, so Mrs Growster asked me if I could alter them...
The nearest I could get was some oak from a trade place, and although the legs look reasonably fine now, the finish always needs a good seeing-to!
I remade the table a year ago, so the oak has nearly met the colour, but your ideas and comments have spurred me on!
He also cast a brass centrepiece for the table, (he had a plumbing workshop in Letchworth), and if I can get a picture of it before Mrs Growster covers it with DVDs and other dross, I'll try and post it!