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 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 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

Story Donated By Emma Adams

I found The Spanish Lady at a massive car boot sale in Leeds. I was making a short film at the time and one of the sets needed to be totally rammed with charity shop glory. So, I was there with my Art Director (Mark Mathews where have you gone?) who is really good. He was holding the purse strings, trying to stretch the budget as far as he could. We were going round and I saw her and I just fell in love with her haughty stare, her creepy sprayed on lacey vail and her chipped nose. I said ‘Mark can we have her?’ and he was like, ‘She’s too expensive and we don’t need her’. I knew he was right but I was sad as we walked away from her box… But then it got towards the end of the morning and people were drifting off and I saw that she was still there! Her price had dropped. Mark bought her and gave her some dignity back by touching up her nose.

She looked ace in the film.

After the shoot I bagged her up and took her home. The Spanish Lady has ever since been my pride and joy. Her showbiz days are not over either. She had a cameo role in a play I wrote last year.
Emma Adams

Story Donated By Sandy
@ YMCA, Armley, Leeds

My favourite thing I bought from the YMCA was a lemon clock powered by the juice of lemons.
One lemon lasts a week.

I’m going to try an apple next week.
Sandy

Story Donated By Sarah Howells

Not a combination that immediately springs to mind when considering a snack, this Cheese Sardine Set is very prescriptive for a somewhat challenging taste sensation (in my book at least).

It is a celebration of stainless steel and teak, and, judging by the picture on the box they should have called it Sardines in Tomato Sauce and Edam Set - but if you felt rebellious I am sure you could serve something else on it. I’m sad enough to look at the box and really wish I also had that formica topped table that the set has been photographed on.

This was another 20p (!) purchase made eagerly by me, whilst the lady behind the counter of The Community Shop, Armley, tried gamely to hide her incredulity at my enthusiasm.
Sarah Howells

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 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

I bought this Panti-Hose And Tights Repair Kit a couple of years ago from Kirklands Hospice in Huddersfield. the thing I love about it is that its from a time when people really did make do and mend which is so different to how things are now. I’m sorry to say that I haven’t used it and and that whenever I get a ladder in my panti-hose I just go out and buy a new pair.

The picture on it really makes me laugh, its like an escaped pair of legs that will only be stopped by the Winfield Panti-Hose And Tights Repair Kit. Lord knows what those legs got up to whilst they were on the run, but they look like they’re up to some mischief.

When I was a teenager I remember reading in ‘Just Seventeen’ magazine that blobs of nail varnish stop ladders from running. But you could only really put the nail varnish on whilst you were wearing them which meant that you ended up with nail varnish daubed all over your legs. Hardly as sophisticated as the Winfield Panti-Hose And Tights Repair Kit.

Story donated by Abby Dix.