Bank Holiday Boot Sale

Some of the more unusual things at todays Boot Sale

 

A quart beer bottle and a couple of old Milk Bottles, in the mis 1970's the local Off Licence still sold beer in quart screw top bottles, the milk bottles are from before the standard milk bottle was introduced on the old style bottles each dairy had a different size top. 

One stall had some amusing signs.

 

An exercise bicycle, most people did not try and sell them and took them to the dump instead, when I was working the women organising a raffle decided to get an exercise bike as the first prize, I brought tickets in the raffle but no ay did I want an exercise bike, well they did not put the names on the ticket stub, yours truly won it, I never claimed the prize they has suspicions' over who had won it but I had destroyed the ticket, the exercise bike was in the ladies locker room for ages.    

78's these have become rare at Boot Sales now I have not seen any for four or five years maybe longer today there were 2 stalls selling them. 

Miniatures, my mother used to collect miniature sprit bottles when I was young, she had a number of shelves full of them, then one day she decided to get rid of them, so they were all thrown out, under the Boot Sale rules you are not supposed to sell Alcohol or food there were several stalls selling food.

I brought 3 records today, an Embassy Single, one of the more obscure Tornados Single, and a copy of Lonnie Donegan's - World Cup Willie in a Picture Sleeve. 

  

Herman Emmink - Tulpen Uit Amsterdam

I found this record released in the Netherlands in June 1957 in a local Charity Shop, Max Bygraves i recorded the track in English and was released as the 'B' side of You Need Hands in April 1958, this reached #3 in the UK Charts.

At one Boot Sale many years ago I stopped at a stall who had a number of records, it turned out that they were all foreign pressings, on enquiring the price of the records I was told £3 each as they are foreign, I thought that's way too much and I'm about the only person here that buys foreign records, and I then to get them at for below 50p. I looked again at the records on the way out, none had been sold.

 Herman Emmink Tulpen Uit Amsterdam 1958

Monday's Boot Sale

 

On her morning walk yesterday Biscuit excelled herself by getting very grubby, a quick detour to the stepping stones on the way back for another swim cleaned most of the dirt off.

I am playing it by ear for tomorrows Boot Sale, I will go if there is no more rain today, where I live is on the Bourn Line where the London Clay meets the Chalk of the South Downs, Hook Road Arena is on the clay and readily floods, until 1950 there was a railway across the site that went into a cutting to pass under Horton Lane this was filled in I don't know what or where the infill came from but it has worse drainage than the clay in summer you can tell the course of the railway cutting by different vegetation growing on the infill, the area is now used for the Boot Sale car parking.

My laptop is playing up for some reason it is not charging the battery occasionally when it does charge the battery the battery is not holding the charge, when the laptop was last in for repairs I enquired about a custom build, I am tempted.

Sharron Tandy - World

 The first Bee Gee singles were issued in the USA in 1968, World was issued as a Single in the UK in November 1967, and was not released as a single in the USA, Sharon Tandy released her USA single of World in February 1968, this was not released as a single in the UK.

Sharon Tandy - World [1968]

A Quiet Week

Last week I set the alarm on my phone to 03.30  to get up early for the fishing trip guess who forgot to cancel the alarm, it went off at  0.3.30 today, on the route to the A3 I go past Hook Road Arena, I was passing it at just past 05.00 and sellers were queuing up to get in, as I went past the site of the A3 Boot Sale the sellers were setting up

This engine arrived during the week, I had been after an additional one for some time, this is probably one of the most unusual locomotive t appear as a Ready To Run model, three were in existence in 1948 when the railways were nationalised, one was on the Kent & East Sussex Railway though it had not been used since 1946, the other two were derelict at Eastleigh works, I think that the two derelict ones may have been kept to provide spare parts for the Kent & East Sussex Railway example. When the model came out in 2020 like all OO Works locomotives a limited edition, I brought one, I would have liked more but my budget kept me to one, the original cost was £279 + £10 P&P, a casual glance at eBay looing for something else the listing showed up, I put it in my watch list, the seller was also listing two other OO Works loco's, I put bids in for all three, I was outbid on the other two. the cost including  P & P £305, the last one that came up went for £350, I was unable to bid as my eBay account had been hacked and my Credit & Debit cards had been maxed out, the model arrived Saturday and I was able to sneak it in (I am on a model railway embargo), it was described as having little use on testing it sounded dreadful on quick inspection the oil and grease had dried out, a quick re-lube and some gentle running in and all was well, now I am waiting for one in LSWR livery to appear.

At last weeks Boot Sale another unusual item you would not expect to see at a Boot Sale was a 'Resussy Annie' doll used to teach mouth to mouth resuscitation, why I didn't recognise it at first it was a male one these are much rarer then the female ones, also it was just the upper torso, when I did first aid we had one similar but as a female and was known as Arthur, it was also a high end model as it had a tray of electronics open, some of the more sophisticated models gave print outs of the performance etc.

Fishing Sunday May 11th

05.00 Car loaded and ready to go, extra time added due to contra flow at Wisley and the A3/M25 slip roads being closed, I always join the A3 at Cobham so no problems for me, at 05.15 on a Sunday the A3 is not generally busy, there being only 2 other cars going in my direction, the estimated arrival time remained constant, eventually arriving at the marina at 06.34.

The fishing trip was booked as a Black Bream/Smoothound trip, however the Bass turned up so it became a Bass, Black Bram & Smoothound trip, on conformation of the trip the night before the wind speed had increased this would make it rough on the Bass grounds, the trio was changed to Tope, Black Bram & Smoothound, on the day the wind did was quieter than predicted.

Some views of Portsmouth Harbour on the way out.

One of the Aircraft Carriers was in port, the close up pictures I took were a bit fuzzy and didn't come out well

One of the many Black Bream I caught the vast majority were returned, this one is a female, the males have blue makrings

One of the Tope caught, I did not target the Tope on this trip.

And proudly displayed by it's captor before being returned.

 

Strawbs - The Man Who Called Himself Jesus

 

I first came across this record on the now long gone Red Lion pub in Hampton Public Bar Juke Box, someone saw the record on the Juke Box in the early 1970's and was trying to buy the record, he was offering £7 (more than a weeks wages for me at that time), the offer was refused as the record was not owned by the pub or the Juke Box company, I don't know who owned the record, I do know who it was given to when the landlord left and all the privately owned records were removed, the price the person was prepared to pay for the record made me think it was a rare record as there was at that time no books giving the value of records, later I acquired a copy for £1 and given a second copy later.

On the CD of the Strawbs  greatest hits this has a spoken introduction that goes over the start of the track, the single does not have the spoken introduction, the Strawbs were a local group to Hampton  where I was living at the time, they were known as the Strawberry Hill Boys, just a couple of miles away.

 

Strawbs - The Man Who Called Himself Jesus

Boot Sale Memories Stolen Records

 At one boot sale there were three stalls that all had a number of records, the oddity was that some were missing their covers, if the record was on one stall the cover was on one of the other two stalls, I brought a number of records, one thing I noticed that although the records were UK pressings they had been sold in Sweden and had stickers with the one of the original owns name and address on it, I posted one of the records a Gospel EP, the sticker with a name & address of a previous owner fell off after 50 years the glue on the tape had dried out, I left it by the side of my keyboard, about a week later I got an email stating that was my record, and it had been stolen in the early 1970's, it was given to her by a friend who was going to throw it away, the record started her to collect records of that type, she was burgled and amongst other things her record collection was taken, the burglar was caught, but her stolen items were not recovered, a search through the recently posted records in the box found it, as the record was not an essential part of my collection as a goodwill gesture I returned the record to her, I have forgotten the title and artist but seem to remember 'Professor's'  as part of the groups name, I would loved to have the story of the record from it's theft to its appearance at the Hook Road Boot Sale.

I never saw the sellers at the Boot Sale again, there were (maybe still) sales of Tea Chests of items to sell at Boot Sales, it was batches of 10 if I recall it was the equivalent to 2 chests of unsellable useless junk, 3 chests of stuff that may sell and 5 chests of decent sellable stuff, I think the sellers had brought one of these deals and divvied up the records between the three stalls or they were in different chests, all the sellers were near to each other two were next to each other, with one other seller between them and the third seller.

May Bank Holiday Boot Sale

Todays Boot Sale was much larger than the Easter Monday one, there were more dealers with large vans.

 

One stall had some model railway items, it is unusual to see locomotive kits the last time I saw locomotive kits at a Boot Sale was a number of years ago at the Leg of Mutton Cobham Boot Sale, there was a table piled high with MTK kits, a make I and many other modelers avoided like the plague, I brought one Bachmann wagon, passing the stall on the way out all the model railway stuff had bee sold.

This picture disk was causing a bit of discussion as no one knew anything about it although it was made in the locality.

Todays oddity a boot sleeve.

Todays Post

 For some reason todays post has decided to insert itself with last weeks post.

This used to happen on the original blog some posts would randomly insert themselves at an earlier date, or when amending them some would stay on the date originally posted others would appear as we posts.

Blog historic

 There used to be a site called Grumpy's Golden Oldies, when I first found the site there would be several downloads a week of obscure tracks, the tracks were recorded at 192kbs, and filed as Artist name the Track Tile, I adopted the format for my files, now I save the files at 320kbs, later Grumpy's Golden oldies went over to taking requests, I would check the 'wants' regularly, one Boot sale that I had brought a number of records from, included a Procol Harum record on checking the wants list that morning some one had requested the Procol Harum record I had just purchased, I started the blog not long before the demise of Grumpy's Golden Oldies, the end of Grumpy's Golden Oldies  came when he said he had a trapped nerve and the site would not have any uploads for about a month, I thought the site would not return, my wife had a trapped nerve and despite many treatments she suffered with it for years, one day she was in Epsom and slipped on an escalator after the jolt the trapped nerve was released, my thoughts about Grumpy's site were unfortunately true and the site closed.

Fishing Brighton

 I was up very early, taking Biscuit for her walk at 03.00, the walk went without incident including the obligatory swim/paddle at the stepping stones, not surprisingly we did not meet any other people, in the past when my son was not living at home when I was going fishing I always took our previous two Golden Retrievers out early in the morning often we would meet other dog walkers.

For a change it was a fine day with virtually no wind, before we had got out of Brighton Marina I was putting on the factor 30, the destination was the Kingmere Rocks off Littlehampton, the area is designated a Marine Conservation Area, you are allowed to take four Black Bream there is a minimum size limit and surprisingly a maximum size limit, I do not take Black Bream home my allowance was either given away or more likely returned, the Black Bream were coming in at a constant rate, hen the person fishing next to me caught a small Smothhoud the first of the season caught on the boat, later I was into a fish and it did not behave like a Black Bream on getting it to the surface it was a Smoothhound, it turned out to be the best Smoothhound of the day, as it was 'in pup' it was returned straight away without being photographed, other fish caught were Mackerel, (small) Conger eels, Dogfish, Pouting and Ballan Wrass, in all a good days fishing.

I did not take any photos of the fish I caught as I accidently left both my phone and camera in the car, some photos were taken by the skipper, these have not yet appeared on the boats webpage, this is a Black Bream of similar to the ones I caught.

The Smoothhound I caught was much smaller.

I am out fishing again on Sunday 11th May this time from Gosport.