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 Elsie Rose @ St Gemmas Retro Fair

Elsie Rose (aged 84) was helping her daughter with a stall at St Gemmas Retro fair and (after a bit of nudging from her daughter) shared one of her Twiggy Manequins with All Our Hearts Content. Elsie spotted the Twiggy lookalikes when she was walking along Blackpool Prom. Two fantastic sixties heads sporting Kiss Me Quick hats caught her eye in a shop window, looking gorgeous, even though they’d been stapled to the shelves and looked liked they’d Got ciggy burns in.

She made an offer for them there and then and, after a bit of negotiation, managed to agree a price for them both. This one is her daughter’s and is used to model vintage jewellery and hats.
Hearts Content

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 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 Charlie at Hearts Content Event
Armley YMCA

Photo donated by Andreea on Flickr

I like to find lonely tiles who have lost their friends. I reunite them with other orphans from all over the world – Brazil, Germany, Armley and the like. I put them all over the kitchen in a hotch potch of colour.

It makes us all smile!
Charlie

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 Nomie Parker

Me and my Mum spotted this lovely lady at a table top sale in Grassington. It had a post it note stuck to it that read: ‘Nina by Vandersyde- As seen in the film A CLOCKWORK ORANGE! – went for £40 on EBAY recently’

I was suitably impressed with the picture’s credentials and the level of research done by the stallholder. After a quick discussion with my Mum about the age old dilemma over whether something is Kitsch or just plain old bad taste, I negotiated a price of £10 and left triumphant. On my return home I put it on the mantelpiece sure that Stuart would love it and say, ‘Well done darling! What a glorious piece of retro paraphernalia’

He didn’t.
He said it was in fact an example of Plain Old Bad Taste.

It was in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE because I checked, and it’s still on the mantelpiece.

Nomie Parker

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 Martha and Hesta

Once upon a time, many years ago, there was a Sweetie Jar on a second hand stall. Martha and Hesta both paid ONE POUND each to guess how many sweeties were in the jar.

The both of them guessed one hundred and seventy four.

And they were both right! This meant that they had to SHARE the sweeties (and the jar) and they have stayed friends ever since!

Awwwwwwwwww!
Love From Martha and Hesta