We found this newspaper in an old iron safe that had previously belonged to my Great Aunt. The newspaper’s a whopping one hundred and fifteen years old and it felt a bit weird knowing that we were probably the first people to have looked at it since it had been stuffed into the back of the safe all those years ago.

Reading through the news from 1896 it was the adverts that really caught my eye. Produced in a time long before anyone had dreamt up the idea of brand identity or trading standards they come across as wonderfully naive. The Victorian copywriting trend for repeating words in capital letters is definitely an attention grabber. Who could possibly resist the charms of HAMS! HAMS! CHEESE! CHEESE! BACON! BACON! from Liptons grocery shop?

Sufferers of blood impurities must have been reassured by this very confident advert from Clarke’s World-Famed Blood Mixture. The typesetter has created a helpful column that screams THE BLOOD – just in case it wasn’t clear that Blood Mixture was for your, erm, blood.

Carters took a more playful approach to convince readers that their sugar coated pills really were the bees knees. Their little rhyme is ever so sweet, quite modest in-fact, when you consider that they’d found a cure for liver disease.

Hearts Content

When I become a very old lady I think I’ll end up living in something that resembles a Womble’s house which comprises of tunnels burrowed between walls of old stuff that I can’t bear to throw away.

In the meantime I’m trying to at least be more organised in how I store the objects that I keep accumulating. I gathered these gadgets together after a recent sort out in the attic. My kids have told me on no account must I throw away the old PS1 and Gameboy, which makes me think that this hoarding thing must be genetic.

The Walkman Sports is also staying with us. It belongs to my other half and I love how it symbolises the 80′s in its jaunty yellow casing. It makes me want to get a perm and then go for a jog whilst listening to Now Thats What I Call  Music 4.

The first time I used a Sony Walkman was when I was thirteen and the song was Malcolm MacClaren’s Madame Butterfly. An older (17) and wiser (had more cash than the rest of us) friend had turned up with his Walkman one evening and we all took turns listening to it and saying ‘WOW ITS AMAZING!’ really loudly. But it was amazing and I’m glad that I’m from a generation that saw this bit of technology appear for the first time because it felt completely new to be able to walk down the street immersed in your own world.

I’m also eternally grateful that the first song I heard on a personal stereo was by Malcolm Maclaren when it could so easily have been Wham.

I found this clunky typewriter discarded in the undergrowth of the park near my house last September. It looked bizarre sprawled in the autumn leaves with its dislocated hinges and wonky metal arms. At the time I was rushing on my way to work and couldn’t drag it along with me so I took a quick picture instead and made a mental note of its name – Imperial Portable.

We already have a typewriter in our house and one mechanical writing machine is enough for any family so I admit I did consider leaving it in amongst the shrubs looking weird and rusty.  But I felt responsible for it and was compelled  to walk through the park on my way home,  just to check it was still there.

That evening I showed the photo to my good friend Sarah who insisted we rescue it and promptly marched me to the park to fish it out from its hiding place. Once home the Imperial Portable lay neglected in my cellar for a few months before it found refuge with a kind man who rehabilitates poorly typewriters. Apparently its been restored to its original regal splendour and is now in good company. I’m expecting a type written postcard from it any day soon.

Well, its been a long time, but Hearts Content is back home from the Charity Shop and has plenty of hand me down bits and pieces to share. We’re looking forward to dusting down the blog and soon have it looking as lovely as a bit of old tat from the Sunday Car Boot Sale.

To get our house in order we’ve upgraded to WordPress 3.1 (we were previously operating on a steampowered version from the olden days). Our upgrade is thanks to some sound advice from the good doctors at the Social Media Surgery followed by some technical geekery by Mr Cliff Manning.

This post started off as a test photo from Cliff to make sure the cogs were all working so, in the spirit of Hearts Content, we’ve borrowed it to welcome in this new era of secondhand stories.

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