General Chat

Sometimes think of how frequently I was out and about in the car with Ellen prior
to my injury / impediment. Seldom local. We'd do a different town on different days.
But whether it was Hexham or Ashington or Morpeth or where ever, the focal point
always seemed to be Charity shops. Car park, cafe, Charity shops. Ellen and I must have been in every Charity shop in the four northern counties. Exciting ? I've taught her some strange habits.

Going to the charity store was your strangest habit...could be worse no doubt.

Nowt wrong with Charity shops.some good recylcing goes on in them.

I can't resist a good rummage around a charity shop and I have had lots of good bargains.

Before Kindle I bought all my books and videos & CD's at Charity and when they had
served their purpose I donated them to Charity. My In laws and parents clothes were donated to Charity as have most of mine.

I gave a full set of tools to a bog standard joiner in the next street.
I do wish I'd given them to Charity.

Wonder what people did with outgrown clothes before charity shops? I seem to remember giving stuff to jumble sales so maybe that was it, and you don't see many jumble sales around these days.

When I was a boy, before Charity shops there was jumble sales, and Paddy's Market.

Churches were always having jumble sales, good fund raisers for any group.

If clothes weren't fit to wear, there was always the Rag and Bone man :-)

When I was at primary school, it always held a jumble sale around early November, which largely funded the whole school trip to the pantomime at a theatre in Southsea.

When my children were young, a similar sale was useful for sourcing items to adapt for the coming Christmas plays at school.

With my having two younger brothers, clothes I grew out of went straight to my middle
brother. When he outgrew them they went to the youngest. Then to the "rag man".

I was once talking to the woman who ran a Charity shop in Ashington. I said, I've got other stuff but it's too worn out for you to sell. She replied bring it in she could still sell it Apparently she sold "rags" by weight and turned everything into money.

I recall a time when some people wouldn't go near Charity shops.
Now those same people do use them, they haggle, and pay by Debit Card :-0

David,
We have a charity shop near my daughter's house that will take any clothes, like you mention. They will also recycle shoes, sending them to somewhere where they are taken apart, remodelled and sold on.
As a charity supporting a local group, I take a lot of items to them. Their prices are realistic too. So many charities charge quite high prices, for goods eg. T shirts, which cost very little more for new ones in local retailers.

My mother would spend every Saturday at a jumble sale and would come home with armfuls of hideous clothes I had to wear whatever they looked like and toys with bits missing that I ha to look grateful for.

Everything was a bargain so she bought it and brought it home where it became treasure
and stayed in a pile somewhere.

As you know, I will buy a book from charity,especially if the alternative is Amazon,but,other than that, I try not to buy second hand and then only if I can't get by without it.

Now I have the loom and the time to knit and sew, I am hoping to start turning my old clothes into serviceable things that charities might be able to sell.

One day as I entered the Heart Foundation Charity shop in Gosforth a man was coming out of the shop that I recognised. He has a market stall in Blyth and on different days in Ashington. His stall always has an excellent selection of of books and CD's and videos. The shop he had just left had sold him two full rows of donated books that he would sell from his stall. The Charity shop won in selling these and he would win by selling these on from his stall ;-)