Chapter 19
Charity begins at home

Email To: Leslie Ann
From: Marty
Date: 7 June
Subject: Too shocked for words

Dear Leslie Ann,

You did what? There is no way you would go to a flea market. Remember I’m the one who had to pull you kicking and screaming into a WalMart. Hell, you won’t even shop on eBay. Please tell Bill to take a picture of you at your next swap meet. I want all your high school classmates to see what has happened to you. After all, what are friends for?

Laughing as I type,
Marty

I won’t kid you that country towns are replete with copious amounts of fashionable merchandise or that they can, in any way, compete with larger cities. Most necessities are easily available; however, not always in great quantity, variety, size or colour. Accessories such as shoes, jewellery and handbags are another matter and can give me cause to return to my old hedonistic haunts of London for a greater selection. It’s still a perverse challenge to spend my money in the capital with a sales clerk twenty years my junior who couldn’t care less whether I’m a satisfied customer or not, as it helps to keep my shopper’s claws razor sharp.

The fashion police, ever present in London, are rarely visible in the countryside so I have a free pass to wear fleecy jackets, comfortable shoes and the minimum of make-up and accessories. If I’m heavily sedated I will even consider going to the market in a quilted green anorak and head scarf, although this has never been documented on film. It’s a constant struggle to keep my wardrobe from being overrun with woolly pullovers and fleece-lined brown gilets and I try to avoid, at all costs, re-sale shops that sell clothes once fashionable when I was a teenager. Last year whatever sense of style I had became so negligible that I made a New Year’s resolution declaring I would wear more skirts and blingy jewellery. So far I have not mustered the courage to venture out in daylight hours in either.

English stores, primarily in large cities, are renowned for their lack of courteous, attentive staff. Rarely is commission included in their pay packet, which explains why customers virtually have to serve themselves. ‘If you don’t see it, we don’t have it’ is there collective mantra. This attitude puts a strain on the joy of shopping but not nearly as much as a the total lack of public toilet facilities puts on the kidneys. Shopping time is therefore more often determined not by how much money is in your wallet, but by how long your bladder can hold out.

Oakham, Rutland’s county seat and market town dating back to the Norman Conquest in 1066, is now the recipient of many of my English pounds. Dress boutiques, bookstores and antique markets comprise a significant portion of the shops that line the High Street and narrow lanes. The town is dominated by Oakham Castle, which was erected in the late twelfth century and is recognized as possibly the finest example of domestic Norman architecture still standing in England today. Within the Great Hall of this 800-year-old building hang over 200 horseshoes, an ornamental reminder of times past. This unique custom dates back 500 years to the period when lords and royalty were asked to pay tribute to the Lord of the Manor as they travelled through the region. It is recorded that ‘the first time that any peer of this kingdom shall happen to pass through the precincts of this Lordship, he shall forfeit, as a homage, a shoe from the horse whereon he rideth, unless he redeem it with mony’. One by one, an outstanding collection of wrought iron horseshoes has been amassed, including one of the most recent presented by Prince Charles.

The medieval Butter Cross, a meeting point for local farmers selling their produce, and the water pump stand in the middle of Market Place and serve as a constant reminder that once preaching, dairy products, fire prevention and corporal punishment administered in the stocks happily coexisted in the town centre. Life is far less harmonious today. The firefighters are volunteers and preaching is confined to the many new and old churches in town. Butter is no longer sold fresh from a churn, but rather dispensed in plastic tubs purchased in grocery stores, and the stocks have been replaced by proper lock-ups for any young lad who doesn’t know when to say ‘when’ on a Saturday night.

Charity shops seem to have a disproportionate hold on our local towns. Apparently the justification, notwithstanding the obvious axiom that charity begins at home, is that they benefit from reduced or zero taxes. Paying low wages or employing volunteers cuts overheads and allows them to occupy more prominent locations on the high streets while independent retailers often find it hard to turn a profit as they are forced to compete on an uneven playing field.

It was in one of these charity shops that we had a most unforgettable experience. I had made the decision, out of a pressing need for uncluttered space, to unburden myself of the contents of numerous flat packs of old clothing which had belonged to me and my mother. Some contained outfits that were vintage chic, others were fashion disasters and one was full of evening frocks once worn when my décolleté could part the Red Sea. Before the final goodbye, I photographed those with the sweetest memories. The rest were boxed up for collection, once they had been fondled and folded for the last time.

On one particularly blustery Wednesday morning several weeks later, we drove into Oakham to do our grocery shopping. Having parked our car safely on a side street, we strolled into the centre of town. What an extraordinary sight! Before us, in an enormous charity shop window was a display containing two evening gowns, both given to the charity the previous month. One was a creamy yellow strapless confection of chiffon with beaded bodice and shawl. The other was a sophisticated black-and-white check taffeta full-length dress with a cinched waist and ebony beaded bodice. The former was given to me as a gift to be worn at a most exotic royal wedding. At that time I was employed as an English tutor by the Saudi Royal Family in Riyadh, where I spent several interesting years. The latter belonged to my mother. I clearly remember my father taking me shopping as a child to Montaldos, a lovely old Charlotte department store, where he selected this particular dress for her to wear to a Christmas ball. I had never seen anything so lovely. Now, both dresses were reunited, side by side, owned by two different women, worn on different continents, purchased in different decades, yet part of the same family, sadly now departed from me.

Whether it be a car boot or tabletop sale, tombola or raffle there is no shortage of how or where to dispense with unwanted fondue sets, souvenir teacups, assorted old spoons or dresses so dated they are only recorded in sepia photographs. Even ‘civic amenity sites’, a splendid name for rubbish tips, can lend a hand. Operated by county councils, they provide convenient locations for discarding bulky items such as refrigerators, car batteries, motor oil and outdated computer equipment. The array of items sitting on the bitumen is a commentary on a disposable society that is quickly catching up with America. The good news is that this site, and I presume others like it, send their unwanted electrical items to underdeveloped nations, in our case Zimbabwe. There, clever men, unhampered by government restrictions, rewire and make almost anything functional and saleable.

By far the most popular form of recycling in England is the car boot sale or flea market, as it is more commonly known in America. You haven’t lived until you have experienced one, not as a shopper but as a seller; the thrill of negotiating, the sorrow of parting with a family treasure, the jingle of coins in our pocket all come to mind. For some depraved reason, these events usually get underway at the crack of dawn. They are better attended when the elements are kind, but you can always count on the stalwarts to be there rain or shine. Many sales are held in support of a charity, but there are several for heathens like ourselves who just want to flog stuff while making lunch money. As we had never been to so much as a garage sale or a swap meet in America, we were unaware of the modus operandi for such events and thus created our own system.

Our first, but not last, car boot sale was at the community grounds in the nearby village of Ryhall. Cleverly labelling the sides of our boxes ‘£1’, ‘£5’ and ‘£10’, we sorted our paraphernalia appropriately. Ties, socks, earrings, small picture frames and boxes of unused Christmas cards went into the first carton. Cookware, bundles of old kitchen knives, belts, golf balls and unwanted hostess gifts went into box number two. The more pricey items such as a vase, tea set, tape recorder and stereo ended up in the third. Any feeling of pride about who we were or why we were displaying such junk was abated when we wandered around neighbouring tables on the pitch and saw even worse rejects than ours for sale.

We arrived early enough to park our car in a well-located site; however, before Bill could turn off the engine a crowd of what could only be described as trance-induced figures began approaching us at a considerable pace. While Bill unlocked the hatchback in order to remove our treasures, I blockaded myself in the front seat for protection. With the speed of a head-on collision, hands and heads were poked so far into the trunk that Bill had to stand aside. These were the professionals who made a living out of spotting that certain something that could make them an overnight millionaire while the unsuspecting seller went home with a fiver for their efforts. Once they determined we had nothing of any particular interest, historically or monetarily, they moved on to another pitch and another patsy, leaving the field clear for the amateurs.

For six hours Bill and I minded our stall, watching utter strangers handle our belongings while at the same time totally ignoring our existence. Talking over us as through we were street people not worthy of direct eye contact, they bantered on as we listened, all the while sharpening our negotiating skills with the real punters. The first item to sell was a soiled blue suede, wide-brimmed Aussie hat we had purchased second-hand in the outback years ago. Bill and I placed bets on if a new model, unused Braun coffee maker, still in original wrapping, would be the first to go. It was neither the first nor the second, or the last. In fact, we brought it back home with us for our next sale. In the end, several weeks later, we simply gave it away. Strangely enough, used is a trusted commodity, new is not. A boom box with detachable side speakers almost gave Bill a coronary. One gentleman wanted the speakers without the boom box. Bill said he could have the entire piece for £10 and throw away the stereo. He politely refused stating he only wanted the speakers. It was amazing reasoning on the buyer’s part as the price for the whole unit was never in question.

As the afternoon drew to a close I decided to spend some of our earnings on a late lunch. I passed the makeshift dog-show ring that had been erected next to the pit-roasted, pork barbecue stand, a situation I considered to be cruel in the extreme to the performing pooches. Attracted by the dog show, I watched in awe as matronly mums in knock-off Laura Ashley print dresses and portly, T-shirt clad dads proudly put their pups’ talents on display in the ‘dog with the waggiest tale’ contest and the wonderfully athletic ‘hot sausage catching’ competition. Comically, once the animals escaped the ring and the watchful eye of the judges all hell broke loose. Dogs, masters and mistresses all tumbled down in one twisted heap as pent-up emotions were released. Whatever decorum existed in the show circle just minutes before vaporized into a memory. The queue for food and beer disappeared as spectators tried to pull the combatants apart. It was the best part of the day: certainly after we did our sums and discovered our total profit for six hours work excluding our entrance fee, food and drink was £27. However, on reflection, I have only one outstanding memory: that of the zombie-like professional antique dealers who moved through the pitch like hungry ghouls from the American horror classic film Night of the Living Dead, giving new meaning to the phrase ‘treasure hunt’.

Not entirely daunted, for the next several months we continued to load up our picnic-hamper-sized car for weekend sales opportunities in the hope of clearing the upstairs bathroom, which was acting as a holding bin for all our clutter. Local knowledge directed us to Bottesford, a field about 20 miles north, with room for hundreds of car boot sellers. More sophisticated now, we arrived with a thermos of tea, sandwiches, folding chairs and newspapers. We could be just as aloof as our customers. Since the English seldom exercise their prerogative to demand good service, it did not matter whether we opened contact with ‘good morning’ or closed with ‘have a nice day’. In fact, the less interest we displayed, the more likely the sale. That effort netted us £128.

Feeling completely frisky, if not cocky, we booked ourselves a stall at the Castle Bytham street fair. This was a full day event complete with the Battle of Britain flypast of a Lancaster, Spitfire and Hurricane, all heroes of the Second World War air campaigns. Competing for attention in the village streets were a dog show, balloon race, a Napoleonic battle re-enactment and a beer festival. The sunshine, the party atmosphere and just possibly the lager put everyone in a spending mood and sent us home with pockets full of pounds. We had finally cracked the car boot sale nut and defeated the pack-rat dragon, hopefully once and for all.