History at treble the price …….

I am back with that simple and obvious observation that history ain’t just in books.

It is one of those ideas I frequently explore and yesterday it was sparked off by a visit to Pear Mill with its huge number of traders dealing in all sorts of bits from the past.

The Mill once dealt with textiles, but now has been re purposed into a number of trading outlets, of which the first floor is given over to what would once have been consigned to a second-hand shop and resold for pennies.  But with the advance of time much of the stuff now commands high prices.

Here can be found clothes, magazines, books pictures, furniture and pretty much anything that was once a cherished item or an essential object in someone’s home. 

And after the indignity of being part of a house clearance has washed up again ready to be bought and once again become the focus of attention in a home.

At 74 I should be careful of trawling such places.  

First there is that powerful pull of memories, as you come across countless objects you grew up with from a toby jug to those paintings of exotic and far eastern women, which mix with more down to earth objects like a kettle, wash tub and tired looking copies of The Saturday Evening Post and Lady Bird books.

I rather think they should carry a Government Health Warning in that with them come powerful reflections of mum, dad, my grandparents and how we lived in the 1950s and early 1960s.

More so because some like the advert for a washing machine look very un PC with the assumption that only women could get excited at the site of Hoovermatic washing machine or the very now questionable logos of some popular jams and drinks.

And then there is the staggering price that most of the things are sold for.  

An old enamelled sign advertising Bovril, much pitted with rust and more than a few holes had a price tag close to £100, while heaps of children’s books   were on offer way beyond what their authors could have hoped for.

But I guess that is the market, and if people are prepared to hand over heaps of money for a chipped vase or beaten-up poster for a long gone brand of coffee who am I to pass judgement?

Added to which it does mean that the thing will “live again” even if its purpose has been changed from a utilitarian kitchen jar to a feature on a shelf beside a box of 1940s marbles sharing space with box of cigarette cards.

That said some of their significance will have been lost, for how can a Millennial really get to grips with an old gas poker in the way that a Baby Boomer will, or feel the same sense of expectation at “The Children’s Book of Wonders”, when discovering the way the world works is now at the behest of an online search.

But now I just sound old.

So I will close by reflecting on the paintings of two people long gone which I encountered amongst the  stuff on offer. 

Both came with no name, and no discernible date.  One was a grand image on a huge canvas, adorned with classical figures in the costume of a mid-19th century gentleman, the other a more modest portrait which still commanded a price of £249.

I paused from a few minutes wondering about their stories, and who at one time valued the paintings, but I guess could never suppose that they would end up in a Stockport Mill surrounded and partially obscured by humbler and more mundane things.

Or who in the fullness of time might pay the price and take home the anonymous figure and where in their home the said "old worthy" would be displayed?

The historian in me hopes that they will go looking for the story, picking up perhaps on a name on the back of the canvas, or the likeness which can be matched to a historical figure.

That way the distinguished subject of the portrait can have a meaning all over again.

Still that is how it is ….. no one expects the “Spanish Inquisition” or that the bunch of plastic flowers given away in a 1950s promotion for washing powder would reappear as a highly priced and desired object.

But I still wonder who in Stockport might want a frayed and faded red fox hunt coat.

Answers on an old picture postcard or in the fly leafy of an overpriced Lady Bird book.

Location; Pear Mill Stockport

Pictures; History at treble the price ……. 2023, from the collection of Andrew Simpson