Story Donated By Amy Seaward

Here is my charity shop lady, ain’t she divine. I enjoy looking at her in all her soft focus glory, she was next to another lady in the RSPCA charity shop on Kirkgate, Leeds but she was far more beautiful. She came into my life in 2002 when I made my (then new) boyfriend carry her through the streets of Leeds, little did he know what he had let himself in for.

She wasn’t expensive (shame I know) I think £2.99 was all she set me back.
Amy Seaward

Story Donated By Nomie Parker

I bought this for a very good friend of mine after enjoying the pile of snoopy reading matter that graced her loo. I happily handed over my 50p to the lovely ladies in the Armley Community Charity shop [ now closed and sadly missed] and trotted home – congratulating myself on my purchase and feeling smug about being such a kind and thoughtful friend.

We’d just had our bathroom done with a rather dinky corner loo that lacked an ornament .So out with the snoopy mirror which fitted perfectly and has remained there ever since.

I have since admitted my selfishness and will swap it soon for a book.
Next time I will buy her something that is easier to photograph.
Nomie Parker

Story Donated By Tina Small

My favourite brooch is from the second hand jewellery stall at Shipley Market. I was with my friend Claire and told her I liked it so she sneaked back and bought it for my birthday.

Story Donated By Sarah Howells

A few years ago, to the delight of my son, I bought all new matching bed linen, a first for me in my whole life. However, my inner junk junkie was never far away and it just didn’t feel right. The knitters of Armley Helping Hands have eased my discomfort with their gorgeous squares blankets, picked up for £5 at I Heart West Leeds or Charming Armley Cake Competition.

The flowery pillow slips are from St Vincent de Paul (20p the pair, that’s 10p each!), the disgust/incomprehension of work colleagues when I return to the office with them makes it doubly worth it. The iron bedstead was found in the overgrown back garden of a house in France, brought to London and given to my sister, after 10 years she gave it to me to make way for Ikea bunk beds for the kids, her loss my definite gain. One piece was badly bent, but I happen to have a friend who is a blacksmith so problem solved. The rage/disappointment of my puritanical 16 year old bounces off me, I’m shielded by a forcefield created by my version of shabby chic.
Sarah Howells

Story donated by Pete Z / DJ Booth

I bought these DMs in Armley in the late 1990’s. I think it was in the British Heart foundation in about 1997. I needed a new pair of boots to do shows in and up until that point I had always bought handmade boots from “made to last” in Woodhouse. Its quite odd to find a pair of size 12’s in a charity shop and they fitted a treat and I needed some boots that didn’t look ‘hippy’ and a bit more mainstream.

With these boots and a fake leather jacket from a charity shop in Morley I created DJ Booth for Cabaret Heaven. For the first few cabaret’s nearly all of the playlist came from vinyl bought in charity shops across Leeds, but eventually I switched to my first mixer and cd players.

DJ Booth at that time always wore the jacket and boots and jeans and a big bunch of keys from my top desk drawer that holds lots of useless things, including keys that we don’t know what they are for anymore.

PeteZ

Story Donated By Sarah Howells

What the…????? Yes this is a skirt marker, it does exactly as it says on the box. No, I don’t know either. Thing is, I bought it for the box cos it just looked inexplicable, but someone has defo used it. How accurate is it? It involved puffing some chalk dust out onto the skirt by some very complicated contraption, there is a measurement along the pole, but I keep wondering why? Why? Why? Anyway, I put it together to show you.

Dressmakers amongst you – don’t be jealous, even though I’m not sure what exactly it is, I’m fairly certain it’s rubbish. Another Community Shop, Armley purchase, and it definitely wasn’t more than £1. Are you surprised?
Sarah Howells

Story Donated By Sarah Howells

When I was a child my Mum was a teacher at a primary school in Seacroft, Leeds and, without consulting any of us, gave all our books to the school library to give it a boost – I never got over the loss of Gobbolino the Witches Cat, The Little Red Fox, Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf, all Laura Ingalls Wilder, Harry the Dirty Dog, The Land of Green Ginger yada yada yada – even joining the Puffin Club didn’t ease my pain. So from my late teens to date I set about buying them all back, from charity shops. Gobbolino, the Little Red Fox, Clever Polly and the Stupid Wolf, Laura Ingalls et al and Harry are back in my life, along with a few more including 13 Dr Dolittle books (no I didn’t know that either). Once I even had them all in alphabetical order by author, but then the shelves fell down.
Sarah Howells.

Story Donated By Abby Dix

I bought this for one of my best friends. No prizes for guessing what her name is? The red colour used on the front cover of this book is amazing, its really rich and it looks great against all the gold leaf. Its hard to believe that the book is over a hundred yeras old, its in such good nick. The inscription on the inside cover says that it was given to Sarah Illingworth whilst she was at Beeston Sunday School at Whitsuntide in 1905. Although the front cover looks like its a book about enchanted castles its actually a hefty biblical tome. My theory is that Sarah Illingworth put the book on her bookshelf in 1905 and it didn’t see the light of day until I bought from a charity shop in Pudsey 2008 which is why it still looks brand new!

I haven’t given this book to my friend yet. We have a bit of a thing going where we buy each other presents from charity shops but then can’t bear to part with them. She has a fine collection of Snoopy paraphernalia that is, by rights, mine. Maybe she’ll swap them for this book?
Abby Dix