There weren’t many moral dilemmas when I was at the Oxfam bookshop. Once you got over the difficulty of throwing away books – and you had to – it all fell into place.

Sell books, make money for a good cause, go home.

The Free Shop turns out to be a minefield of such dilemmas, and Christmas is bringing more and more of them.

The Free Shop was initiated, planned, and runs as an anti-food waste project. So, we get leftover food from local supermarkets, allotment growers, those with too many apples, and we offer them for free to anyone who wants them.

We are not a food bank and we do not ask for anyone to prove they are in need. 

But when I turn up on a Saturday morning with some soup I have made from some of the (rather surprisingly) 20 celeriacs we had donated last week, to find 15 people queuing up in the pouring rain half an hour before we open, you know they are not there to polish their eco credentials.

One of the local pubs, shut obviously, has turned its kitchen over to making food and I have to tell you it looks a whole lot more professional than the savoury bread and butter pudding I have made this week. (But more of that later.)

I am in the shop on a Wednesday afternoon.

Ostensibly, we are open from 2 to 3.30 but often my lovely colleague and I, have ‘sold’ out by 2.45.

So, back to the dilemmas.

If you are anti food waste, can you/should you ration what someone takes?

Do you make judgements about the person who comes in with two really big carrier bags and literally sweeps food into them? 

What do you think of the man who walks three miles to get to us along the main and rather dangerous road? Well, you get the best beloved to print off an ordnance survey map and highlight how to walk off road. When the man says it will be muddy and points to his loafers and you ask what size feet he has so that you can ‘source’ some wellies, and he says he wouldn’t be seen dead in wellies and by the way do you still not have any decent green tea available? Do you laugh and save him the only packet of green tea we get that week. Well that is what I did.

When you have five packs of cornflakes donated one week, and one person takes four of them, do you ask her to just take one as there are other people with kids in the queue, well I did.

Do you get just a bit cynical when people say they are ‘shopping’ for their neighbour as well as themselves. I do. If every person who said that in our ‘shop’ was actually doing that, then there are a lot of well fed neighbours.

Yes, I am not proud of those reactions and I know that I, as an extremely privileged person, can know nothing of what it is like to try and make very thin and far away ends meet.

I am just explaining that, for me, it is very hard not to make judgements.

So, Christmas.

I was charged with making a Christmas happen in the ‘shop.’ 

Being me, I flapped my hands and asked for help and contacted my sewing group ( the people who made a sterling amount of headbands and scrub bags during lockdown – I didn’t sew I need to make clear.)

I asked for those gifts that people have given you and they are perfectly good quality but you are not going to use them.

Anything they fancied making.

I was clear that everything had to be good quality – just because you are poor or you have found yourselves falling from ‘just managing’ to not, or you both worked in hospitality on a zero hours contract and those not longer exit, you shouldn’t be expected to be grateful for a half empty bottle of body lotion.

As ever, I have been so impressed by what I have received. 

Handmade stockings and puddings and teddy bears, a chess set, endless good quality ‘smellies’, candles akimbo, there is Christmas bunting on the way, lavender bags, a pristine Paddington, and so on.

One of ‘my’ sewing group said although she did sew, she was really a potter and would make some porcelain tea light holders. And she has.

And there is more to come.

My dilemma is how to sell/distribute these lovely things.

This is not anti-waste. This is re-distribution of wealth and luck.

Do we ration? Yes. 

How – not sure. 

Should you be interested, I will let you know what we do.

Meanwhile, one thing we are never short of is bread. The local Tesco in particular, is rubbish at the bread baking and ordering so there is always lots and lots and lots.

What can you do with stale bread.

Well you can make savoury bread and butter puddings which seem to be popular and when I do them, they fly off the shelves – all so very gratifying.

So, take some stale bread. Make some garlic butter. Cook some mushrooms, chopped and cook in oil and a knob of butter for quite a long time ( say half an hour).

Add some defrosted spinach or fresh spinach cooked down you fancy it.

Either make a ‘sandwich’ of bread and butter and mushrooms ( spinach maybe) and top with tomatoes. Or do them in upright triangles with mushrooms and tomatoes scattered.

Of course you can add ham, or whatever you fancy.

Mix some milk and eggs together and pour over. Scatter with grated cheese and put in the oven ( 180 degrees) until cheese is bubbling.

Yes I know it is not a proper recipe but for me, it is not full of moral dilemmas.