Story Donated By Sarah Howells:
Another purchase for packaging, plus curiosity, plus having it for having it’s sake. Definitely no more than 60p.

I don’t know what the matter is with just using a spoon and mug, though I suppose the Horlicks Mixer allows for careful measuring as marked on the side of the heavy glass container, the implement is similar to a mini washing dolly, a long pole with a disc at the bottom with holes in for vigorous frothing I guess.

Always preferred Ovaltine myself.
Sarah Howells

Story Donated By Hearts Content

I bought this cake stand last year from a charity shop in Leeds, I love the chintzy colour and its funny prim chrome handle. The lady I bought it from told me that she’d been given a similar cake stand as a wedding present and that, more than thirty years later, she still uses it today. It all sounded really romantic and I imagined her and her husband gazing into each others eyes over the cake stand, eating lemon drizzle cake and sipping cups of tea on their wedding anniversary.

When she cottoned onto what I was thinking (well, maybe not the detail about the lemon drizzle cake) she roared with laughter and told me that she’d divorced him a few years after tying the knot and that the only thing worth saving from her marriage was the cake stand. Apparently it was the best decision of her life, and now she gets to eat all the cake.
Happy Valentines Day!
Hearts Content

Story Donated By Selina Nightingale
I started collected these upset dolls years ago, my first one was the beheaded doll sat centre front. I pulled his head off and glued it to my neck for a Halloween costume, which upset many people. It amazes me that these dolls are produced, someone was paid to design these and make them! They have also helped control my broodiness for many years. However the last one I bought is happy, so what does that say about my maternal clock, tic toc, tic toc…

Selina Nightingale

Story Donated By Susie Iveson @ Hearts Content Event

These sparkly pink ladies shoes - size 8 - were being bought by Susie Iveson for her friend Bill at a local charity shop. The shoes are the finishing touch to Bill’s drag costume - blonde wig, fuschia dress, fishnets - that he wears when they perform ‘Sisters’ together at St Peters Court Home For The Elderly in Leeds.

Bill and Susie used to sing in a choir together but decided it was time for a change.
Hearts Content

Story Donated By Kirsty
Photo donated by Fazen on Flickr

I rescued two gorgeous, bright blue sheets from an Age Concern shop in Mablethorpe. Originally I’d bought them to go to a fancy dress party but they also came in handy for loads of other things. My sheets have been reincarnated as a throw for the sofa, a tablecloth and, most important of all, as the major foundation in the construction of my nephews’ play den.
Kirsty

Story Donated By Lu Barker

I have always had a thing about accordions and have wanted one for many years (although musical ability for playing one is a different matter).  I came across this little beauty in Poverty Aid, Hyde Park when I was a student and particularly strapped for cash.  It was 27 pounds and was fairly wonky with buttons missing, broken strap and a couple of gaping holes in the bellows bit.

I immediately fell in love.  Also, it was emblazoned with the word ‘Barcarole’ - a name so similar to my own surname that I felt this was surely a sign that it should come home with me.  I called my partner to see what he thought.  Fortunately he agreed that, even though we only had 30 pounds to our name, that 27 of them should be spent on the broken accordion which bore a similar name to mine.  Five years on, it stills bring joy to the household and I don’t recall much about being skint the month that I bought it!
Lu Barker

Story Donated By Casey Orr

This jacket was in my dreams. I specifically wanted this exact jacket. Not a jacket a bit like it. No, it had to be this exact jacket. I came out of the dentist’s off Town Street and went into the charity shop round the corner. They had almost-this-jacket. It was very much like this jacket, but not exactly like this jacket.

Then I went to the charity shop across the street, opposite Somerfield’s. And there it was, this jacket. Just like I’d dreamed it. No, not ‘just like’ I dreamed it – exactly like I dreamed it.
Casey Orr

Story Donated By Jenny Hall

I collect antique textiles. I love table cloths, doylies, cushions and clothes but the one thing I have never found in a charity shop or flea market is a handmade quilt. One day I was browsing through the 20p basket in my Samaritans charity shop when I overheard the volunteers discussing an antique quilt that had been donated and sold that very morning, mere minutes before I had come in! I was heartbroken to discover that my dream charity shop buy had just passed me by.
Jenny Hall

Story Donated By Sarah Howells

Fancy going to the sort of tea party where plates are piled high with sandwiches, crusts cut off (naturally), with a marker is stuck in to help you with your choice. Tongue anyone? Egg ‘n’ cress? Ham? Cheese & Tomato?

Naah, I’m having Fish Paste. These are china, pure class, and cost 50p for the lot, Barnardos, Harehills, ages ago.
Sarah Howells

Story Donated By Ella Dee

In 2002 my family and I went to Switzerland on holiday. I visited several charity shops around my hometown of Headingley. In the arthritis charity shop I came accross a bright yellow beauty! It was big and comfy and my 9 year old self felt wrapped up and warm, engulfed in its massiveness.

In Switzerland the fleece travelled with me on our many visits. It kept me warm and survived many a snowball fight. It has now visited Luxembourg, Switzerland, Poland and North Yorkshire regularly and never fails to be a welcome asset to any journey.
Ella Dee

Story Donated By Sophie Gleisner

I bought Peggy The Panda from a fairtrade charity shop in town.

I called her Peggy because the lady in the shop was called Peggy.
Sophie Gleisner

Story Donated By Hayley Avron

The first time I laid eyes on this dress was during my first week working for St. Gemma’s Hospice. I was working at the Street Lane shop, learning the tricks of the trade. The dress was hanging up in the sorting room downstairs. It was destined for the next Retro Fair and I was nowhere near confident enough to stake my claim on it so I held it up against myself when no-one else was in the room and then bid it farewell… When the fair came around, our paths crossed again and I gingerly asked to try it on, not entirely sure that it would actually fit me. Turns out, it was a match made it heaven…

It’s by a London designer called Russell Stuart and although I’ve not been able to find out anything about him, I have managed to find one other Russell Stuart dress (on EBay). I’ll keep hunting…
Hayley Avron

Story Donated By Wendy Young

In the summer of 2007 whilst on holiday Canada my cousin and I visited an ‘Antique Barn’at Niagra-On-The Lake in Ontario. There was so much to look at but as soon as we went upstairs my eyes latched onto a large 1930’s-40’s quilt entirely made of Suffolk Puffs (in the US they call them Yo-Yos). As if this wasn’t enough excitement there was a 40% off sale on all textiles!

My intention was to take it apart and re-use the vintage puffs in other design work but the more I looked at it the more I grew to love and appreciate the love and history that had been involved in putting it together and as a result I couldn’t bear to dismantle it.

This year I decided to make my own version and, as an artist working primarily in denim, I themed my design around the influence of denim in society from its humble origins to its current designer status. My new quilt is made from over 300 puffs embellished with reclaimed buttons collected from charity shops.
Wendy Young

Story Donated By Boff Whalley

I got this fantastic safari suit from a Charity shop in Armley about fifteen years ago. I thought it would be perfect for that Morecambe & Wise ‘Riviera Touch’ look. I love it so much.

Unfortunately I have never found the perfect event at which to wear the suit. It sits in my clothes pile and waits to be worn. Sometimes I get it out and put it on, then decide it isn’t the right moment. One day I’ll wear it in public and people will say, “Hey, you’ve got The Riviera Touch”.
Boff Whalley

Story Donated By Abby Dix

I’ve been collecting these chintzy pictures of flowers for a while now. They’re kind of creepy - a bit like the porcelain dolls that my Nana collects - but they have (scuse the pun) grown on me. The two large roses I bought in the YMCA charity shop when we were doing a Hearts Content event, much to the annoyance of my friend Nomie who wished that she’d spotted them first.

The roses are a nod to the lady who used to own our house. She lived here for nearly forty years before she died and in lots of ways it still feels like her house. I’d like to think that she’d be happy with how we’re looking after it and I know she loved roses because she planted loads in the garden, so I think she’ll approve of these pictures.

I’d not really mentioned the increasing collection of chintz on the wall to my partner but I did think I was pushing it a bit with the bigger pictures. About a week after I put them up he said ‘Are those pictures new?’ but I told him they’d been there for ages.
Abby Dix