White Rabbit A Journey Through Thrift
Notes From Discover Lost Follow The Past The Artifact Technology A LT C A R D I F F C U LT U R E M I N I M A G
Who are we?
White Rabbit believes in adventure, curiosity and treasure. We hope this magazine will inspire you to explore Cardiff’s many flea markets, car boot sales and charity shops to find unique, unexpected objects. You never know what you’re going to find down the rabbit hole.
Contents Introducing: Aunties Attic’s Fine China - III Ashes To Ashes, Dust To Dust: Australia’s disastrous cricket tour - IV Inscriptions: Stories within stories - V Whirring of the dial: A restrospective on old telephones - VI Thrift Ettiqutte: Bartering not bickering - VII White Rabbit II
Lovely Jubbly Fine China Hi Aunty Jubbs, how did Aunties Attics begin? My parents decided to clear out their attic so it was clean before they passed away, because they didn’t want someone else to do it! Various relatives started downsizing too, so they started giving me things to sell in my small pitch [at Cardiff Indoor Flee Market]. I’m an aunty and great aunty myself, so I decided to call it Aunty’sAttic.”
“It ’s like a drug deal with tea cups”
That’s how I started, and from there I’ve re-invested money, put things up for auction, dealt with private sellers. I’ve been doing this for about a year and a half. I’ve also got something called occasions finer china hire, where we hire the china out at weddings receptions, christenings, that type of thing. So everything here is available to hire as well.
different. I wasn’t well, my health was suffering and it was physically very hard work, I just needed a change.
What did you do before fine china? I was an operations manager for an interior landscapes company for 28 years. I changed career from tropical plants to china [laughs]. I just needed to do something
Who’s your average customer? Quite a few people from Cardiff cafes come in and buy. A lady from David Morgan Arcade came into today and bought five teapots! I also supply Pettigrew Tea Rooms within the Cardiff Castle grounds, and there’s a lady down in Lampeter [South Wales] that buys off me too. She rings me up and I meet her in an Asda car park, it’s like a drug deal with tea cups. I can sniff Royal Albert China out without even looking at it!
Aunty’s Attic is open three times a week - Wednesday, Saturday, Sunday 9-5pm, Cardiff Indoor Flea Market, Clydesmuir Industrial Estate, CF24 2QS
Ashes To Ashes, Dust To Dust: Australia’s disastrous cricket tour
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elving through Cardiff Indoor Flea Market’s hoard of unusual items my head spins. I am looking for something interesting to retell its story. Hundreds, if not thousands of objects could fit the bill.
lithograph, an image printed on metal. A greasy substance is used to help the ink adhere to the metal. Looking at the English and Australian cricketers it would appear the process has given shiny finish.
But one particular object pierces my gaze; A rectangular sheet of metal about a foot and half long, with that aged brown look so many items get from the years. The sheet of metal depicts a cricket game between England and Australia at Lords in 1886. “Now that is interesting” I turn around to see an elderly lady speaking to me. She had inadvertently snuck up on me whilst I was engrossed looking at the image. Agnes, 76 and a Cardiff local, kindly answers my questions and agrees to sell me the mysterious cricket match for £15. The object is in fact a
According to the National Library of Australia the lithograph was published by a John Harrop of 12 Ossian Road London and 56 Danzic Street Manchester, in 1887. It seems likely that Mr Harrop owned a couple of lithography printers in London and Manchester. Agnes tells me she bought the cricket lithograph about 30 years ago from a fleamarket in London. Agnes explains: “I bought it for my son who is bloody mad about cricket.” Well, now I own this little piece of history and it will hang proudly on the wall of my bedroom.
White Rabbit IV - Follow The Object
• Tom Gadd
The Australian cricket tour to England in July and August of 1886 was not a success. Australia lost all three tests. This lithograph shows the second test with England electing to bat first after the coin toss. Australia can be seen in their red, white and blue kit, which was based on Melbourne Cricket Club’s colours as they organised the tour.
Arthur Shrewsbury (above) was arguably the “finest batsman in the world” at the time and during this test got 164 runs in the 1st innings.
“I bought it for my son who is bloody mad about cricket.”
Legacy of readers D
ear Reader,
Secondhand books carrying messages have an uncanny magic about them which other forms do not. They are words from another time, serving as a form of communication between the reader of the past and the reader of the present. Compressed within the creases of those yellowed pages you might find a history inked out in black, scrawled handwriting. A history that was possibly not popular enough to be published but suppressed in its 10 words the love story that was one of the common man. Inscriptions by previous owners can add layers of meaning to the book. Sometimes it might just be a note from a father to his daughter, reminding you of your first book. Or a note thanking an uncle for a wonderful holiday, taking you back to your own journeys. You feel the hint of a smile curving up at the corners of your lips as you lovingly caress the page, submerging yourself in nostalgia. At other times it might speak of a revolt by two women in love, forced to stay apart because of social norms. Two women “Darling, As I could not gift who find their story you a dodge ring, violets picked reflected in a book from lesbos, I gift you this book of letters, separated to remember me by. La noche viene, el solse pone. from them in time Yours truly L.” and space but brought together by their tragedies. As a reader you find yourself giving into your “To Michael, with all imagination, building stories out of those handwritten my love, hoping this words. So the next time you gift someone a book, don’t go conveys to you what I can never fully say. All for a newly printed one. Dig one out of the dusty shelves of a second hand bookshop and fill it in with the words of my love, Eileen” your own story. Add to the legacy of the readers.
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Oindrila Gupta White Rabbit V
The whirring of the dial It all boils down to “the whirring of the dial,” Iris said. “With the dial, it gives you time to think, “do I really want to make that call? Now you just press a button. With these you’ve got to really think about it. You can’t quickly ring your boyfriend and say right, we’re through. And then afterwards think, well, did I really want to say that?” She believes phone calls have became too rushed, too fleeting.
This telephone, one of Iris’ favourites, was used by her for 20 years
I
ris Namurach walks me into a corner filled with shiny,
colourful telephones. Polished and vibrant, they are a strange, hybrid blend of new and old, alive and dead. Most have dials, and the earpiece rests on upright gold prongs. Somehow seems that their shrill ring could pierce the air any second now. They are a far cry from the iPhone, this retired flea market seller is crouched over, speaking into.
When asked where she finds them, Iris replied: “I just look out for them. I started off with one, an onyx one and then the one after that was on a wooden pedestal, and then there’s the tall telephones…”
“It gives you time to think”
The word shed describes the phones as whimsical. “I find them amusing, interesting. Especially the dial up ones.”
White Rabbit VI
Her favourite one is a translucent black phone which exposes its insides: coiling multicoloured wires and mechanisms she doesn’t quite understand. She found it on ebay, where she sources many of her phones. She relishes the way they symbolise a slower and more thoughtful time.
She also laughed that angrily hanging up on someone is no longer the satisfyingly dramatic act it once was. It’s not the same tapping the iphone’s little red circle. Slamming down a handset is much more ejoyable, she tells us. After thanking Iris, I checked my phone to ensure the audio had recorded properly. First thing on the screen was a missed call from my boyfriend. “I’ll call him back later,” I thought.
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Lauren Brown
Never been thrift shopping before?
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hopping at markets is a very different experience to high street shopping, and one must behave accordingly. Prices float, unfixed and negotiable. Stallholders are often more attached to their finds than commercial shop workers are to theirs. White Rabbit has spoken to some of Cardiff’s flea-market stallholders to help you understand the art of bartering. The first rule: don’t be intimidated. One of the best curiosities available in these magical places are the stories and the conversations you can have.
Stephanie Jones, Jewellery stall “Anything more than what I paid for it, I’m happy with. I like to give someone a good
Do’s
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Be polite and respect the stall-owner’s space and items Be friendly and strike up conversations Give yourself enough time to properly look around; there is so much to see and you have to be prepared to seek it out
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Don’ts • • •
Assume you know more than the stallowner Assume you can get everything cheaply Be aggressive in your bartering. But: don’t be afraid to negotiate
Patsy Cochrin, Jewellery stall owner “If you can get 15 to 20% off you’re doing really well. But don’t push it and don’t become too aggressive with people. But just have some jolly banter! Be friendly. Just play the game. But we’re all different.”
Julie “Jubbs” Bowen-Lewis - Aunty’s Attic
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I hate it when people come into the store and say ‘it’s not really worth much is it? I’ll give you a couple of quid for it. It’s very disparaging.
“It’s not good etiquette to come into someones store, point at items and say you don’t like any of them. You’d be better off saying It’s not what I’m looking for, or it’s not my cup of tea. You won’t upset the store owner and you’ll get a better deal. Bad etiquette ruins the relationship, the bond, it’s all about people skills.”
Thrift Etiquette White Rabbit VII
Volume I: Flea market edition