Story Donated By Hearts Content

Well, Hearts Content have been a bit absent of late, so to make up for the lack of communication we’re sharing our lovely old skool telephone. I bought the phone in a fit of nostalgia last year and had to show my 15 year old daughter how to use it because she’d started tapping on the black receiver buttons in morse code style to make a phone call.

There are lots of reasons to like this clunky bit of technology: the dial makes lovely whirring and clicking sounds; the curly cord is great to wrap around your finger around whilst you’re mid-gossip; and the very loud and alarming ‘brrring! brrring!’ makes you answer the phone as if you were an emergency service operator from the Olden Days.

There are times when you feel like throwing it in the bin - like when you have to dial someones mobile number in a hurry, or if your bank insists on making you ‘press three now’ when you ring up to get an extension on your overdraft.
Hearts Content

This picture shows the fantastically named Avon Beeby showing off one of the many dresses made by ‘mother’ almost sixty years ago. Avon told Hearts Content that the dresses were made for the dance troupe she belonged to in 1950 - Ethel Ritches’ Dancing Class. There were six girls in the troupe and ‘mother’ made all the costumes which often meant sewing up to twenty-four dresses for each performance. If you look closely at the picture you’ll see that this dress had an Irish theme with shamrocks and wishing wells sewn on to the bodice.

Avon decided to give the costumes away to St Gemmas Hospice Vintage Fair and when Hearts Content spoke to her she was hoping to find someone who was going to give them a new lease of life and maybe one more encore.
Hearts Content

Hearts Content found Robert Burt sporting this fetching pair of Incredible Hulk gloves at St Gemmas Retro Fair.  He’d snapped them up at the fair for the princely sum of One Pound and was very happy to model his new purchase in the Hearts Content Portrait Booth. As well as looking extremely stylish they make impressive roaring sounds.

Robert told us that he’d bought them for his grandson, but we’re not sure we believe him.
Hearts Content

As told to Claire Anderson:
I am a very pretty ball-gown made from a beautiful silky, cottony fabric, with rich claret stripes. I was handmade in the 1950’s for a lovely curvy lady with pointy breasts. After that, I was altered to fit another lady, who had some funny ideas about straps and frilly bits. None the less, my useful upside down crumb catcher hid a multitude of stitching sins.

The following years were spent languishing in wardrobes, dressing up boxes and clothes rails of girls who were drawn to me, but weren’t sure what to do with me.

I’d given up all hope of living life in the limelight ever again until that rainy December day in 2007 when I found myself on a stall at Saltaire’s Vintage Fair. Peeping out of a packed rail, my fetching candy stripe skirt caught the eye of Claire, a blushing bride-to-be. She tried me on over her jeans and trainers in a cramped toilet (oh the indignity!) and didn’t seem that convinced. But there must have been something there because she did a deal with my owner - £44, with a pair of red Bally shoes thrown in - and I was hers.

I came to my new home, and waited.

Months later, I was pulled out, and my transformation began. Naomi Parker, a talented seamstress, got her hands on me and Claire, and worked her magic. She made me fit Claire like a glove. She removed my straps, took off the unsightly frill, boned me, stuffed me, sewed me, re-buttoned me, took parts out, but some back in, made me a petticoat - and there I was. The grandest, most beautiful wedding dress in the world.

I was so proud.

Now I’m stored away for Claire’s daughter to see, touch, try on and maybe even wear when she’s older. And then, who knows what the next chapter of my story might be, but I’m sure my journey is far from over.
Claire Anderson

Story donated by Paul @ St Gemmas Retro Fair

Hearts Content spied Paul strolling round St Gemmas Retro Fair with this gorgeous girl tucked under his arm. He didn’t need much persuading to let us take her picture in the Portrait Booth and she turned out be a very photogenic dolly indeed. Which is just as well because she was starting a new life as a film-prop. Paul told us he bought her for a music video and because,

“She had one sad eye and she stood out in the crowd. And thats all.”

Hearts Content think’s she looks very festive in a lonely dolly kind of way so, for today, we’re calling her Dolly Christmas.
Hearts Content

All Our Hearts Content are busy preparing for St Gemmas Retro Fair in Leeds this Saturday and pimping up the Portable Portrait Booth so we can take snaps of all the retro things people are buying. We’ll also have our Postcard Workshop on the go so, if you want to tell us about your favourite secondhand find but you don’t happen to have it in your handbag, you can always get busy with some paper and glue.

Cutsey Christmas is starting to get to me and I am really hoping to get some weird stories about strange things that people have bought. All oddbods welcome.

Me and Nomie will be there from 10am - 4pm taking pics, eating cakes and listening to weird stories. Its a hard life.
Abby

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