Oxfam

Cues, Maps and Fishcakes

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In the greater scheme of things, see also the climate crisis, a week of full-on stuff in an Oxfam shop is small beer. 

But for those of us doing that week, it adds up.

And it is another week of unearthing stuff. It seems we have not (just yet) plumbed the depths of ignored treasures in the shop. 

And fishcakes.

For those (few) who are following this closely, a bit of an update. 

Though it is not absolutely certain, it looks like the cat is not coming back so the mice have a few things up our sleeves – remember the green sofa? it maybe happening – but more of that another time.

So, we have billiard cues, an 18th century large map, some more coins, a book or two, and a vintage typewriter to come.

So, let’s start.

In the corner next to the back door are some poles propped up and among them I spotted something which I thought might be a large and ancient telescope.

Now, dear reader, you might think that I should have looked closely at such a potential treasure but a customer needed serving and I got distracted and anyway it had been there for years and years so wasn’t going anywhere fast.

I mentioned it to the volunteer on the till and then went upstairs to do something, hopefully something important and useful.

A while later, he told me it was a billiard cue and he thought it was Edwardian.

Mmmm, interesting.

Next day, he tells me it is made by Riley so classy stuff and I make a mental note to do some research.

Again, I went upstairs to do something urgent/important/I meant to do last week but ran out of time.

Half an hour later, he buzzed up on the ‘intercom’ to tell me someone had just donated another one.

What? The original cue had been standing there for years and the week we start to look at it, another one comes in….

The other volunteer is now volunteering to take them both to the local snooker club to get some idea of what they are worth. 

I am not sure how we would sell online as how do you send something which is nearly as tall as I am…….

Meanwhile, we have more coins and notes.

There is a rule, at least in our shop, if you put something in the window or on the table you get more of them.

History books, cookery books, jigsaws, military history, paintings etc – and in this case coins and notes.

So, if you are an assiduous reader, you will recall that we have had a money tree in the window and alongside we have had bags of old British coins – farthings, pennies, shillings, florins, half crowns, threepenny bits, silver sixpences.

And they have sold – not least to people who want ‘real’ coins in their Christmas puddings.

Anyway, a large ice-cream box of coins duly arrived.

I went in early to see if I could make up some more bags of coins we could sell then before the table changes theme – and then send the rest off to Guildford Oxfam where they have a numismatist who can value them. 

Though we don’t get the value attributed to our shop.

Yes I know, I know, it is money for Oxfam so who cares which shop it comes from?

Well with a bit of embarrassment at this confession, I do.

So, of course I sent some off to Guildford, but I have kept back the George II and George III coins, the coins with Jewish symbols which look too old to be Israeli, commemorative Victoria coin/medal to celebrate the laying of the first stone of the Birmingham courts building and so on.

I rang our antiquarian expert to ask if he new any coin experts and whilst I was at it, did he want a look at our old map (more of that later) and he said, ‘Well no, but I know a bit about coins, I will come and have a look.’

At this point, I need to tell you he hasn’t been in yet so there is not immediate resolution to this story but I will keep you up-dated.

And likewise with the map and the model railway. But you will get fishcakes.

So the map was found by another volunteer.

I had been clearing out yet another stuffed set of filing trays when she asked me to stop.

OK I thought, she doesn’t feel it is appropriate to clear out the manager’s filing whilst he is away.

But I was wrong.

‘I love clearing out stuff, so can I do it.’

Last week she got round to it and, among the endless stuff to be thrown away, she found a couple of maps and an old guide to London.

One of the maps was a 1907 Post Office issued map of London – but it had come apart into two pieces and is probably worth only about £20 to someone who has a big wall to fill.

The guide is nice but not worth much either.

The other map, however, is as big as our kitchen table, dated 1777, a map of the 25 miles around Windsor, original and a real delight.

Now, and here is another coincidence ( remember the billiard cues?)

I went down onto the shop floor and was talking to the volunteer (the same volunteer who had spotted the cues) and told him about the discovery of the map.

The only customer in the shop was a young man of about 20.

‘I know a bit about maps,’ he said,’ Could I have a look?’

Of course he could.

He said it was not a copy and it was made in a time when turnpike roads were becoming more common and King George III had held a competition to get maps made – and of course, George lived in Windsor.

There was a flurry of map-makers doing their stuff and some were apparently more fast than accurate. 

And indeed, though we have not looked for inaccuracies, it is certainly keen to be nice to the king.

Want to see it?

I will get a better photo when we can lay it out on the floor and get a wide-angled shot from up a ladder, but this will have to do for now.

I am not sure what counts as a remarkable hill…. but clearly the turnpike roads and cross roads were counted as important. 

A similar map is for sale in a posh shop in Curzon Street for £750. Whether ours will be of that value remains to be seen. 

Now to fishcakes.

So, I have finally finished clearing out our stockroom.

It is not big. Think  very small prison cell or reasonably sized pantry.

It has been ‘home’ to a lot of stuff which really needed to be cleared out – a lot.

Getting to the final stretch of clearing out I uncovered a vintage typewriter (but you will have to wait for that story), and a small bin.

In it was some rinse aid, a packet of pegs, some Gaviscon and three tins of pink salmon.

Really?

I presume it was some shopping that someone left behind and the manager put it in the stockroom and then, as with so much other stuff, promptly forgot it and/or ignored it.

I used on for our supper before I took the photo

I bought the cans – still in date I hasten to add.

So, to make fishcakes for you and the neighbours, take a can or two of ‘uncovered’ pink salmon.

Cook and mash ( coarsely) some potatoes with a good ‘dollop’ of butter –  but no milk.

Add them together with some nice capers, finely chopped parsley or coriander if you have that instead, and some dill if you have it – dill is really good.

Make into cakes with your hands – not too big – and put in the fridge for a while/overnight…

Lightly beat and egg ( or two if you are doing lots.)

On a plate put some plain flour or panko breadcrumbs.

Dip each fishcake in egg and then coat with four or breadcrumbs.

Fry in oil on moderate heat and serve with salad and the story of the day to your Best Beloved – and even he was a bit surprised to find Oxfam had provided supper.

Money Grows On Trees

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If you have enough information in your life about the inside workings of the Oxfam bookshop, now is the time to look away. 

This is all about money.

So, I may have mentioned before that our manager (aka as the cat) is away (aka off on long-term sick leave) and we (aka the mice) have been playing – actually not just playing but putting on a full theatre spectacle.

As I also mentioned before, we have been clearing out the boxes of ‘stuff’ which had been shoved under chairs or pricing benches/left/ignored etc.

And the latest (of many) were the two large plastic storage containers labelled  ‘foreign coins’.

They had been there for years and donations were added, and added, and added and nothing was done with them.

Well, us mice had better ideas.

A lovely mouse who had left the shop, came back to sort them out. This was someone who was a former assistant postmistress – so who better to put in charge.

She sorted. Found the UK money and put it through the till. She sorted the the foreign coins into bags to be sent off to Guildford where ( hopefully/presumably) they have a an expert.

She found farthings, pennies, a couple of florins, a few threepenny bits ( pronounced if you are young, or not from here, threpunny – just in case  you needed to know) and much more.

There were also foreign banknotes and I asked that she put them to one side on the basis that they were probably worth less than 2/6d (that is 2 shillings and 6 old pence – which of course if you are old, and British, you will know is a saying which means not much.)

But worthless but attractive notes could be made into a table display of some sort, I thought.

So she and I were looking through bags of farthings (which was 1/4d which means I/4 of an old penny and the name comes from Old English word fēorðing) and pennies which are much larger than current pennies and, and and…

And, I was also looking at the notes she had put aside and they were really interesting.

And here is Fernando Antonio Pessoa who it turns out was a poet, writer, literary critic, translator publisher,  philosopher and one of the most significant Portuguese figures of the 20th century.

When I first saw him, he looked like a unamused  Poirot to me – shows what I know.

Here is a lovely Seychelles note – just so pretty.

There were a lot to look through and I am no, no expert on how to value them but I have been learning a little bit.

Apparently what you want are uncirculated notes as in, in pristine condition. Mmm we don’t have any of those.

I am sure there are notes which even if previously circulated, are still worth a fortune but I am not sure we do.

And another thing, like books, prices you find from America, are not trustworthy, they always try and charge too much.

So, back to the story.

I was musing on how to display these notes and leafing through them whilst my ex-postmistress was painstakingly and cheerfully sorting through the coins and other stuff, when a passing volunteer stopped.

He said, I have one of those metal tree things and I clip notes and stuff that are mementos of my travels and some of them are notes.

I said, we could do with something like that.

And he said, I can make that.

We had a defunct stool ( the cat had said that despite the fact that it was missing a strut and dangerous to sit on, we could not thrown it away because it was Oxfam property. That was about three years ago and it had been sitting there – excuse the pun – and whilst he was away, it was going to the bin) and our volunteer book it up and took the seat as a base.

He also took one of our many donated/left walking sticks, and I got him some wire coat hangers from the local dry cleaners.

And hour or two later he re-appeared with a money tree.

He had drilled holes in the walking stick, bought some pegs, unwound the coat hangers and made us this.

So, I have put aside the notes which I think might have some value and they will go off to Guildford but in the meantime we will display a money tree with the ‘valueless’ notes .

Rarely does it happen that money grows on trees.

But on a good day, us mice are on a roll.

Oxfam Needs a Green Sofa

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I have an Oxfam plan  – but it may well not work out in practice so I am putting it out to you to imagine – because there will be only one photo. 

(Of course if it works, there will be lots more photos in another blog, or several….)

Assiduous reader, if you are still with me, you may well know that we have a window and table display to sort out.

The window lasts for two weeks but the table needs changing every week – you need books and extra supplies to keep them both filled when pesky customers start buying your display.

But this idea needs only one, or two, or a few books.

So, you walk into the shop and see a slightly battered old green Edwardian sofa.

It would be cleaner than it is now – but still not a pristine sofa.

Now, every week you would see a tableau.

Someone has just got up to make a cup of tea, go to the loo, answer the door, or whatever.

Their ‘life’ is left behind on the the sofa with room for a customer(s) to sit down if they need to.

( Our still-away cat has always refused to have sitting opportunities in the shop – one of the reasons why this might not work  –  but we have a demographic which appreciates the chance to rest while looking at books.)

You need to know that all the books mentioned are open and laid down – the sofa sitter has just put them down when called away.

So, back to your view of the sofa. These area few of the tableaus you might see.

You see some knitting, a cardigan and a pile of 1950s magazines.

There is a dog lead, a winter jacket, a bag of dog treats and a book on dog training.

Some wrapped Christmas presents, some sellotape, some Christmas cards and ’Twas The Night Before Christmas book or Its A Wonderful Life DVD.

And while I am on the festive theme, a dinner jacket and women’s sparkly bolero thrown over the back of the sofa, with her shoes discarded too. You could have a book on hangover cures…

A basket of clothes needing ironing, an iron (we still have four for those of you who have been reading for a while) and a copy of 50 Shades of Grey or The Handmaid’s Tale or The Female Eunuch.

A pair of binoculars, muddy boots on a newspaper sheet, a camera, a notebook and a book on bird-watching.

An Oxfam throw, a mug, packet of lemsip, a hot water bottle and a copy of Cold Comfort Farm.

Another Oxfam throw and some chocolate. DVDs such as when Harry Met Sally, Brief Encounter, or other ‘love’ films, and a copy of Graeme Green’s The End of the Affair.

A pile of old leather-bound books, a pair of slippers and a pipe.

A waistcoat and posh walking stick, maybe a hat, and a copy of a P G Wodehouse.

Laptop, notebook and phone and a novel – should have been working from home but got a bit distracted….

Cookery book, pinafore, shopping list, table plan, some napkins, and a note saying, ‘ You can’t get Yotam Ottolenghi ingredients in Petersfield.’

I think that is enough for now, but I have a longer list. Of course, I do.

We shall see if this ever works but I really hope it does.

Unearthed Treasures

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All gold mines must run out in the end, but we have still got some nuggets found in the dusty nooks and corners of the Oxfam shop’s upstairs rooms.

I could go on about how much this massive clear out is affecting us volunteers – who would have previously heard the sound of hoovering on a Wednesday afternoon? Who would have thought people would been keen to clean down the benches on a Friday afternoon or taken some mugs home to go through the dishwasher – and indeed who would have expected someone to say they were going to source a cafetière to make coffee a more palatable option……?

We mice are on a roll.

Now, to the uninitiated the back rooms of the shop would still look a chaotic mess, but to those of us who have been initiated it looks organised, tidy, under control, managed, purposeful  – and hoovered.

But enough of that, this is about more unearthed treasures.

We have amongst our number, a philatelist and when I unearthed a box of stamps and stamp albums, he was on my speed dial.

He took them home and I heard nothing more about it – though I did find a returned bag of worthless stamps which are now with out decoupage artist. I mentioned her before in case you need to back-track a couple of blogs.

Anyway, today he came in for a shift on the till. I was a bit (just a bit) cock-a-hoop because we have taken £600 on Tuesday and Wednesday (combined, let’s not get carried away) so it means we are again well on (my) target to get more than £1,000 for the week. 

But the takings for this morning were only £86, and I was a bit downbeat. 

‘I have got the money I have raised from selling those other stamps and it will go in the till this afternoon,’ he said.

I decided to wait until tomorrow to see the final total for today, so told him not to tell me how much.

I am pretty sure he thinks I am an idiot, or at the very least and most polite, suffering from a  bout of bizarre behaviour but I am going to wake up tomorrow with a small buzz of anticipation.

So the unearthed stamps have done their job.

Meanwhile as they say, I also unearthed four boxes of old and dated cameras. This is one of them (now dusted.)

And by unearthed, I mean some were under a bench behind yet another box of padded envelopes ( we could create a whole extensive ward of padded cells if needed), more under another bench behind three boxes of clarinet music….

Anyway, another volunteer does corporate filming and so knows his way around cameras.

He also knows about lighting so has fixed the lamps used for photographing the clothes we put online and has sourced some new special bulbs which had previously been declared as ‘too expensive’ to buy – they are £12 each. 

I have ordered two. Yes, me on no authority except that when we are taking £1400 a week, it makes sense to pay £24 to get the photos looking good. And yes, I am an unrepentant mouse.

So, back to the cameras.

He looked them over and knew what he was talking about.

Most were just those small cameras we all had for holiday snaps and are worthless, but some are lovely delights and some are worth putting on the internet.

The ones going in the shop are more attractive artefacts than anything a photographer would want to use, but when they are this lovely who cares?

I think this is a Kodak Junior?

So, we are doing a window on photography with books and the worthless camera stuff, and a table with the pretty delights we can sell. It is not done yet so if you want photos you will have to settle for these for now.

The cine camera works and has its own leather case and is yours for about £25…..

Meanwhile, under a previously mentioned stack of chairs, I found a sealed cardboard box – either never opened or opened and re-taped up.

Either way, inside was a whole collection of the postcards of first day stamp covers.

They are all pristine and absolutely lovely.

We have them out for sale at 5 for £1 and I think that maybe too cheap but hey ho, they will make money for Oxfam which they certainly were not going to do in a sealed cardboard box, under some chairs, upstairs.

When I was trying to corral all the padded envelopes – and do you know I found some in the electricity meter cupboard the other day – I wanted to put them on the top of some shelving.

We use padded envelopes to send out stuff bought online – but not by the box load, so they needed to be labelled, easily found and stored out of the way. Simples you’d have thought….

On the aforementioned top of the shelving, it turned out there were about 20 Oxfam produced cookery books.

They were published in 2010 so part of our new stock for that year, and maybe 2011. And probably not since.

So they could have been up there for a decade…..

But they were fine – if a little dusty – and though their barcode didn’t register on the till, we did not let that deter us.

I put them out on a bench and left a note to offer them to volunteers – a small thank you for all they have been doing – include hoovering.

When everyone who wanted one had taken one, we priced the rest and put them out for sale. They have sold.

Putting The Pieces Together

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This is a blog I wrote in November 2019 and apparently forgot to post.If you are interested in books, it will keep you going until more news of what is happening at the moment. It is not a bad read – though I say it myself and might well be wrong….

I have before complained about someone buying the very artefact I have built an Oxfam display around.

I know I have to sell it, but sometimes I wish that art gallery practice of just putting a red dot on it until we are ready to dismantle the display could operate – perhaps it could but I have never quite had the nerve.

This week artefact ‘stealing’ happened twice on one day.

Yes, really.

The table was, of course, a display of war and poppies. And recently someone donated a picture frame with a photo of a soldier, a notice of his bravery at Basra in 1917 and a very faded ( you would need a magnifying glass and patience to read it) letter presumably relating to what he had done.

I had piled up books and this picture on the table ready to arrange them into a display and gone out to go to get some milk.

Now, it is a rule that for Oxfam bookshop customers, there is nothing on the carefully arranged shelves as interesting as a haphazard, not yet displayed pile of books and stuff.

So, I was not entirely surprised when I came back to find my brilliant and unflappable colleague reporting that someone wanted to buy the ‘picture.’

Upstairs another good colleague was rootling around on Google to try and find mention of this soldier and therefore any idea if he was a little bit famous.

But nothing – no wikipedia, nothing except a mention in the London Gazette.

We did realise that to anyone from his family doing ancestor research, this would be a valuable item but tracking him down and then members of his extended family doing research would take a lot of time – time we don’t have lying around.

And, there is a bird in the hand argument.

So I went downstairs to talk to my colleague who had the customer’s number and my Best Beloved had called in, and was looking at the image.

Between us, we decided it was not a lot of monetary value but we would try say £9.99 and settle for £5.99 if haggled into it.

But my unflappable and brilliant colleague called him up and ignoring the collective ‘wisdom’, told the customer he could have it as the special price of £15. 

Ten minutes later he had called and collected it.

That afternoon, I was discussing the next window display with a good colleague.

Since our special window display person is currently indisposed, the role has fallen to me – this, it turns out was not a role I had to fight off all comers to take on.

Anyway, trying to maintain her high standards is proving a challenge and the current window was a good idea but not a success.

My colleague suggested using a small table with a half done jigsaw on it and lots of more puzzles on the wall along with puzzle books.

That reminded me that I had an old jigsaw on a shelf somewhere, waiting to be looked at, and how nice would that be half done with its wooden box propped up.

This was a puzzle with the counties of England and Wales on one side and the kings and queens of England on the other ( up to Edward VII if you are interested.)

I took to it my afternoon colleague on the till and asked if he would put it together to see if we had all the pieces.

The pieces were all in the shape of the counties so apart from the straight edges, none of the pieces were traditional jigsaw shapes.

I left him to it and then, needing some rubber gloves to clean silver, more on that some other time, I nipped out.

As I was leaving the shop, a couple of customers were talking to my colleague about the jigsaw.

When I got back, he had finished and all the pieces were there.

The customers had gone, but one of them had asked that when we found out how much it was worth, could he have first refusal.

So, again, I was upstairs Googling about to try and find out the price.

There was one which was the Scotland equivalent and someone was asking £600 for it but I did not think that was going to be realistic.

There was another on ebay for £40 but it had pieces missing – bound to severely affect the price.

Then I found an auction site which was willing to reveal the hammer price. Now, it was a lot with other things involved so I did some calculations and discussed it with my jigsaw-doing colleague and we thought £100.

But, inspired by my morning colleague’s efforts, I called the customer and said, ‘£150.’

He said, ‘£100.’

I said, ‘Cut the difference and £130’

He said, ‘I’ll be round in three minutes.’

And he was.

Of course, the displays will go on but sometimes its a shame not to have the A list stars on show.

Titivating

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The bread and butter of an Oxfam bookshop is re-stocking, refreshing, making look good, making the shop look cared for  – and that involves culling/rejecting/sending books to a central warehouse where they might get another life- chance.

( I am sorry if you are wincing at this point, but we have to be ruthless in our standards if we want to be a quality second-hand bookshop that happens to be raising money for very good causes.)

This is the result of the alarmingly many donations on Saturday – yes just one day – again I am sorry but we do have to do it.

Anyway, the word of last week was titivating.

I was surprised that some of our volunteers didn’t know that word, but one fellow (young) volunteer looked it up and said, ‘Ah now I understand.’

Oxford English Dictionary says: ’titivate something – to improve the appearance of something by making small changes.’

So, once you have done the ruthless bit of culling books, you have to look around the shop and titivate it.

For example, do you know what a front-facer is? Of course you don’t, why would you? but once I have explained it, it will be obvious.

It is a book (on a stand) which had its cover facing you. You might be surprised to know how many of them sell compared to books which only show you their spine. 

Have a look when you are next in a bookshop – they will all have them.

So, front-facers need to look good, and then they sell and then you need to find another one which looks as good – and repeat.

Shelves need to look full. Half empty shelves never sell – they look too sad and tired.

So, you have to fill up shelves and that means having stock to fill them with. 

Given that we can’t order our stock, that can mean juggling.

We were short of history – which we never usually are – but we were.

So, we moved a shelf of Folio Society books and used them to fill a shelf and used the history books on that shelf to ‘fatten’ up the shelves above.

When we get more history, we will move the Folios again.

But you can’t just fill up any shelf with what you have lots of. You can’t put ‘humour’ or ‘self help’ under history – not really….

And whilst I am on the subject of history, let me tell you about some treats of books which are now for sale on the internet.

One small book and three weighty tomes.

The small book is a ‘finger book’ and was given to young men going off to WW1 by, I am told, by godparents and was designed to be slipped into a uniform pocket.

I have no idea what story this little book has to tell, but it is a lovely, and possibly, sad thing.

And, if that book could tell a story, these books actually do.

They are a glimpse of the social history of Portsmouth.

They are the record of the council’s deliberations and decisions in 1913,1914 and 1918 – not least the Education and Distress Committees.

It is the index which gives you an insight into the attitudes and decisions of the policy/rules makers of the time.

I will leave you with some images of that.

But just before I go, I will tell you that the result of all of us titivating, we took £1411.10 last week – we are very ‘chuffed’ which according to the Collins dictionary is ‘pleased, delighted, gratified, etc.’ And we are.

and some more

Councillor Windibank?

A therapeutic clear out

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I am back in Oxfam (temporarily) and it is lovely – filling an Oxfam-shaped hole in my life – and below are some of the reasons why.

Now, I am a probably a bit over-excited so the list will be a long read, actually several long reads, so might put off all but the most hardened readers. 

(And there are no interesting photos but there will be in the next post, promise.)

Please don’t worry if you are not that hardened, I will never know that you went off to take up knitting.

So, the shop was looking rather thin, tired and sad.

Upstairs, there were crates of unlooked-at old books because no one had checked their value and put them out or online, the shelves were stuffed but chaotic, there was stuff /rubbish everywhere – stashed down the side of lockers, on the high shelves, under  stacks of chairs, under sorting benches, on the high tops of shelves, down the sides of cupboards, and and …..

We had alway known that, but with the agreement of the amazing new area manager, more of her in later instalments, we could clear out – and I mean really clear out.

Meanwhile donations had been turned away because those that were there, were not being sorted and shelved – and you can’t do that because who knows what value that turned away donation would have had.

And the takings were down to about £700 to £850 with weeks when only £600-something was the order of the day.

Now, of course, there were the pandemic and lockdowns to consider – and with the new ‘freedoms’ (don’t get me started on the handling of all this) bookshop life is easier – but even so….

This is only the pre-amble so again, you might want to heave a sigh and turn away. But if you stick with me there is a the (temporary) happy ending.

The shop is now looking fat, sleek and refreshed and last week we took more than £1200.

I will come back to that fattening later, but for now, upstairs – the behind-the-scenes work.

The shop manager is a hoarder and while the cat is away us mice have been having a therapeutic clear out.

We found whilst clearing/cleaning out for example ( not an exhaustive list by any means) :

Four irons and two ironing boards – we are a bookshop. 

We do indeed sell clothes online but our amazing online-clothes person takes them home to wash and iron, and even if she didn’t, we wouldn’t need four irons and two ironing boards. Even clothes shops have steamers, not irons, so goodness knows how long they have been stuffed down the side of those lockers.

Size cubes dating from 2004 – we know that because 2004 was the year of the Boxing Day Tsunami and that was the year we turned into a bookshop. 

Size cubes in case you are wondering, are those little bits of plastic that are on coat hangers to tell you that something is size 10 (I wish I was looking at those), 12, 14, 16 or XL or whatever. They are now on their way to an Oxfam clothes shop.

Three till drawers for tills that no longer exist in Oxfam, they are in the re-cycling bin.

Left-over red nose stuff from 2017 – apparently you need to take those back to Sainsbury’s and are in my car boot ready to do just that.

A broken hoover – we have two working others.

It has gone to the local tip thanks to a volunteer 

And another volunteer is taking one of the ironing boards – the one with no cover and just, just in case we need an ironing board in a bookshop, we kept one.

She has also taken a box of old postcards to be valued by a local auction house.

That box was on a shelf she decided to have a look at. 

They had been there as long as she could remember. They had been ignored for say, oh I don’t know, several years. Certainly all the eight years I had been working there and thought it was a box of official Oxfam paperwork – after all it was on that shelf.

Two large and heavy boxes of foreign coins – we can send them to be re-used in some way but have yet to find out where and how – but I should point out, we are volunteers holding the fort and this is not top of our list. Anyone who has any ideas, please let me know.

Five boxes of mobile phones – now we know there was an Oxfam contract to re-cycle these and I learned that all the gold medals at this year’s Olympics we made from gold from old mobile phones.

And they had been sitting there for say, let’s say accumulating, for several years. 

At the moment, there is a hiatus I understand, between contracts, so they are sorted, boxed up, properly stored and ready to go when we know where they need to go.

There is a stack of chairs for shop meetings that never happen –  we don’t have shop meetings because they ‘are a waste of time’ so when on a whim, I decided to pull them out and hoover – we still have two – I discovered another box full of old postcards in amongst the deep, deep dust and rather surprisingly, another box of light bulbs – we have about 40 of them found in nooks and corners and now in one place.

They, the postcards not the light bulbs, will be part of a lovely display on the newly installed display table.

So, that is enough for now but stayed tuned for how we mice have in the words of our new area manager – and there will be more about her – have started ‘breathing and making the shop sing.’

From books to beans

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Looking for an alternative to Oxfam, no one who knows me well will be surprised to learn,  I have turned to food.

My grandmother who taught me, among many other things to make good pastry, and was no mean cook – her meat and potato pie was a legend in our family – was also of the generation who thought food waste was a crime.

My mother was a more adventurous cook – my grandmother thought olive oil should be bought from the chemist, and warmed so cotton wool could be dipped in it and put in your ear to sort out earache. My mother wanted to make an interesting salad dressing.

So, with these inheritances, I am embarking on a new volunteering career campaigning against food waste.

( Living on the cusp of Deepest Sussex and Hampshire, I contacted both county councils and Hampshire won hands down – a phone call a day later and a friendly and welcoming man talking to me about how welcome I would be – Sussex, not a word…)

I know quite a but about rootling around in the back of the fridge and finding a few ingredients which need using up – a poor childhood with a mother and grandmother behind me, worked wonders.

But if I am honest, I waste more food than I would like to.

At the start of lockdown, I was really good.

The fridge ( like the rest of the house) was cleaned and organised within an inch of its life ( that I must add, was a one-off.)

And I couldn’t nip into Waitrose at the end of an Oxfam shift to pick up a little something for supper. No Oxfam, no Waitrose, no driving anywhere….

Getting a few things added to next door’s Occado delivery was a heady delight.

And not a thing went to waste. 

But now, for the moment, things are easier and I am being more free and easy with my stocks.

Neither have I ever learned much about food waste except to know there is a lot of it and it isn’t good.

So, if dear reader, you have got this far and only really read my blog for interesting books stuff, now is the time to (hopefully) regretfully turn away.

Thanks to a friend here is a link which might you stop and think – only read if you are a meat-eater – 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/09/shelf-life-of-21-days-or-more-could-save-red-meat-waste-say-uk-industry-bodies?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Outlook

Who knew?

I will be talking to my local butcher about this.

Meanwhile, here is a recipe based on a desire not to waste food and the belief that a tin of tomatoes can be the basis of a hundred meals. ( I am lucky and therefore buy good quality Italian tins, but I can see Jack Munroe wincing as I write.)

Since lockdown, I have supplied some friends and neighbours with food – I can cook for four as well as for two and not everything will freeze so they have had my surplus.

I say that because my neighbour loved this.

We have grown french and runner beans this year. I was not a fan of runner beans until I ate them in Greece last year. And we now have a glut and I wanted to make something using them.

The Greeks cook them long and slow in a tomato sauce.

( Yes, garden space to grow veg, shopping in Waitrose, holidays in Greece – they are not a precursor to cooking this but I do realise how privileged it all is.)

Anyway, my friends and neighbours will attest to the fact that I rarely have a recipe so I will just talk you through it.

Aubergine Pie

So this is a pie which uses aubergines instead of pastry. You can fill it with anything you like – I have done lamb and mint, courgettes and lemon, sausages removed from their skins and broken up to cook with mustard and greens…… this version is vegan.

All you need to remember is that you need a tomato sauce and to make the filling thick enough to cut into ( maybe a bit sloppy) slices. Pasta helps with that but so would potatoes, lentils or just a sauce packed with vegetables or meat of whatever kind you fancy.

For four people:

Make a tomato sauce.

Fry some onions slowly for a while ( say a gentle heat for 20 minutes) then add some garlic to taste, some dried oregano to taste, or any other herb you fancy – fresh or dried. The only thing I am sure makes all the difference is a couple of bay leaves.

Add a tin of tomatoes, and keep the tin to one side. Cook, stirring and add some salt and pepper and/or my favourite Marigold bouillon. 

You need a thick sauce but you may need to rinse the tin of its last dregs of tomato-ness with some water to make a sauce not a burnt offering.

Of course you can make or use any tomato sauce you fancy or have.

Take the stringy sides of the runner beans and chop into any size you like, along with chopping up any other green beans you have.

Boil for a few minutes, drain and then put into cold water to keep them nice and green.

( If you have no green beans to hand, think about a tin of butter beans, or any other beans you have in a tin at the back of the cupboard.)

Add to tomato sauce and keep cooking until everything is nice and soft – this is not a recipe for crisp veg and indeed runner beans are not nice like that if you were of a mind to ask me.  

Stir now and then whilst you are doing something else – I have some good book recommendations and you could easily get through a chapter whilst this is cooking.

Take four aubergines and slice them lengthways and thinly. Doesn’t matter if they have been in the fridge for a while but is nicer if they are fresher.

Heat a griddle pan on a medium heat for say five minutes if you have one, or a frying pan. Brush one side of the slices with oil.

Put in the pan oil side down. When they are softening and there is not much less good to eat than an undercooked aubergine – brush the dry side with some more oil.

When they are cooked put to one side  and get on with the rest of them.

When they are all cooked get a flan or cake tin or a dish.

Lie some of the aubergines on the bottom – pretend it is the pastry bottom of a pie. If you have a small dish or enough aubergine slices, you can bring them up the sides.

Then cook some pasta – short of any kind, broken up spaghetti, tagliatelle or whatever. 

Pasta/sauce ratio is up to you, but bear in mind you want to be able to cut the finished rest into slices

Add a the pasta to the tomato sauce with a drop of the pasta cooking water if the sauce will take it without turning too runny.

Stir and pile on top of the aubergine slices. 

Cover with the rest of the slices. Drizzle some oil on the top or indeed, if feeling flashy, some grated cheese.

Put in the oven at 180 fan and leave for about 20 minutes or half an hour.

Eat hot or cold and send a slice round to the neighbours and then wait for appreciative comments.

Two things I have learned so far:

Blimey, it is hard to write anything approaching a recipe if you didn’t start with one. 

I am not a food stylist. See below

Leaving Oxfam 1

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My days at the Oxfam bookshop in Petersfield are currently over. 

Here is my long, and rather self-indulgent, elegy to those days so do feel free to get on with other important things in your day. 

But if you stay with me on this, next time you go into a charity shop, a bookshop or indeed any local – and please shop local – shop, have a thought about the work and thinking that goes into making it happen.

People are it.

You might think that people who volunteer in a charity shop are all ageing women who have led sheltered, domestic, rather boring lives and –  of course – you would be wrong. For a start, not all our volunteers are women – but that is just the start……

I have worked alongside someone who has sheltered children during the Biafran War.

Someone who has survived, and dealt with, two brain tumours and gone on to spend a lot of time out and about and at the theatre, been a stalwart of Oxfam, and who gently manages all of us who are in her orbit.

Someone who spends her other time dealing with disadvantaged kids and refugees as well as her children and grandchildren and will call to say she is a bit late because she is juggling all those things.

The book sorter who races through sorting donations as quick as he (apparently) cycles, the other book sorter who  deals with ageing and indeed dying parents and a business selling bee homes, and has chats with the DVD volunteer, who by the way is a film-maker.

A volunteer who made, among many other creative stuff, a street of snowy houses as a backdrop for the table in winter and has more creative ideas of how to make the table look good than you can shake a stick at.

The expert in old books who taught me all I know about every old book – binding marks, pagination, half-calf, the importance of maps at the back, the delight of period adverts …. and who always got a cup of tea, and sometimes a chocolate biscuit.

People with illness, disability, difficulties of all sorts going on in their lives.

People who have moved on from death or divorce, dealt with cancer whilst still coming into the shop, and people who are willing to be (sometimes) bossed into doing extra stuff.

An artist, a full time environmental worker who gives up her Saturdays, two vinyl addicts, a classical music expert, an immigrant over here to be near grandchildren, an engineer, a brilliant ex-teacher who taught me so much in my early days and who makes the shop a lot of money by putting clothes online – yes even a bookshop takes clothes and makes money out of them for Oxfam, the woman who has children in school and had a bored brain and wanted to give something back, a friend roped in to come and help, and the volunteer who (very surprisingly) introduced me to the books of Game of Thrones. 

I hope I have covered everyone but a sure I have missed someone(s).

Volunteers do everything from being at the till and dealing with difficult regulars, taking the towels home to wash, tackling a huge pile of donated books, pricing, shelving, re-arranging the books front-facing, re-stocking the shelves, moving stock to create space for new goods, checking off barcoded goods, looking up the value of a donated dress, measuring the inside leg of a pair of donated trousers, putting on the gift aid stickers (which bring in an extra 25% of the value of a sale), making sure the paperback fiction is in proper alphabetical order, spending an evening searching for the value of a donated book from the 18th century, putting out a display of special classical music and much more.

And that was all before Covid, So, now their brilliant contributions, thoughts ideas of this might work should all be brought together to make the shop work. 

And not for money, just for appreciation, a thank you, and of course for a very good cause. 

Chafing with Frank

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It has been a while since I sat down to write something which wasn’t an application for money.

Before you think that Deepest Sussex and its reluctant housewife have been plunged into penury, roasting badgers and growing lentils, I would like to say that this is money for a work project.

And that is something I have not been able to say for some years.

So along with all the usual stuff of life I, maybe, just maybe, be about to embark on a lovely, sparkly new work project- but there is many a slip between cup and research funding so will be biding my time and just hoping.

Meanwhile, the Oxfam bookshop carries on and I cook, and the two sometimes come together.

The aga is back on – though the weather has hardly justified it up until the last few days, I don’t care.

And when stuck on how to construct just the right paragraph for the money proposal, I will always go and rustle up a soup, or a supper, and sometimes will rustle among the dead geraniums and prop up a dahlia or two.

I have a lot of cook books and they fall into categories:

Ones I use a lot

Ones I use one recipe from 

Ones I used to use a lot

Ones I would like to cook from but am intimidated by ( see also Yotam Ottalenghi’s Guardian recipes for which buying the ingredients in Petersfield is a hopeless task. Think Odysseus or The Lord of the Rings in terms of difficulty and length of mission.)

Impulse buys from Oxfam – which tend to sit there for a bit then get taken back to the shop and re-sold.

And a grey folder with all those recipes I have ripped out of magazines, sent to be by my mother, scrawled on a envelope by a friend, wrestled from a chef in a restaurant…..

But I am a sucker for a cookery book and a great book title.

This is written by a man, Frank Schloesser, and brought to the public by the delightfully named publishers Gay and Bird in 1905.

( Apparently they published 113 books which included Frank’s other book, The Greedy Book, but also such interesting titles as Japanese Girls and Women, The Arab, The Horse Of The Future, Penelope’s Irish Experience and then her Experiences in Scotland – the mind boggles.

My favourite title is a book by one John Cutler: On Passing Off. The Illegal Substitution Of The Goods Of One Trader For The Goods Of Another Trader. Splendid! )

Back to Frank and his plans to convert the world to cooking with chafing dishes.

( From Wikipedia:

A chafing dish (from the French chauffer, “to make warm”) is a kind of portable grate raised on a tripod, originally heated with charcoal in a brazier, and used for foods that require gentle cooking, away from the “fierce” heat of direct flames. The chafing dish could be used at table or provided with a cover for keeping food warm on a buffet. Double dishes that provide a protective water jacket are known as bains-marie and help keep delicate foods, such as fish, warm while preventing overcooking.)

He explains that a chafing dish means that you have more in the way of tasty morsels than huge helpings of food, and quotes a Chinese proverb which says that ‘most men dig their graves with their teeth, meaning thereby that we all eat too much. This is awfully true and sad and undeniable, and avoidable.’

I have to say it is both undeniable in our house and we haven’t got round to the avoidable bit yet.

He doesn’t take his light suppers lightly and quotes Ruskin ( who knew Ruskin knew anything about domestic cookery.)

There is a chapter on Preliminaries which includes not only the recipe for Jellied Ham but an idea of what you should eat before and after different kinds of theatre experiences:

I am at a loss to know whether and East Room menu might be Indian food? And as for an A.B.C shop, I need a friendly food historian to tell me.

And Frank is a friendly food historian. His recipes are peppered with interesting historical references.

But he is also stern:

‘ By the way, in cooking soups, as indeed in all Chafing-Dish cookery, I cannot too earnestly insist upon the use of wooden spoons for all stirring manipulations. Metal spoons, even silver, are abhorrent to the good cook.’ 

And insists on ‘ the most scrupulous cleanliness…..

‘The Chafist who neglects his apparatuses unworthy of the high mission with which he is charged, and deserves the appellation of the younger son of Archidamus III, King of Sparta.Cleanliness is next to all manner of things in this dusty world of ours, and absolutely nothing conduces more to the enjoyment of a meal that one has cooked oneself than the knowledge that everything is spick and span, and that one has contributed oneself thereto by a little extra care and forethought.’

( And, no I have no idea what Achidamus’s son’s appellation was.)

I have looked through Frank’s recipes and although I am tempted by some including The Alderman’s Walk ‘a very old English delicacy, the most exquisite portions of the most exquisite joint in Cookerydom, and so called because, at City dinners of our grandfather’s times, it is alleged to have been reserved for the Aldermen. ( It is a saddle of Southdown mutton done in a sauce with bread.)

I am less entranced by the idea of eels with nettles though Frank assures me that ‘they give a peculiar zest to the dish which is quite pleasant.’

As for Frank himself, I can find nothing about him. 

I know he went on to the write The Greedy Book and they are both still around in second hand book sites, but of Frank there is nothing in Wikipedia or easily found.

I am sure there are food historians who know all about his Gallimaufrey and Ham in Hades, and love his short essay on the merits and otherwise of sauces, and could tell me everything from his boyhood onwards and if so, could they let me know.

Frank and I are cookery friends though I am not about to invest in a chafing dish however a useful present it would be.