Salvager December January by Red Square Promotion

Inside this issue DECEMBER & JANUARY

Rico’s Garden

DO YOU NEED RICO’S HELP

PASSIONATE ABOUT SALVAGE Pt 3

PAGES 20

10 30 IT’S CHRISTMAS

IN FEBRURAY

TIMS VERY GREEN HOUSE

OTHER CONTENT RICO’S “OLD STUFF NEW LOOK”........36 IDEAS & INSPIRATION for christmas...46 CLASSIFIED AND SALE ITEMS............60

Editors notes on this months issue Hello Not long till the nights start to get shorter and spring will be here, and if you have just found Rico and Salvager all the editions are still available here http:// www.facebook.com/pages/Red-SquarePublication/153141301423524 . Enjoy this month and keep those project pictures and stories coming in. There are Christmas decorations from salvaged and nature items in our ideas pages with lots of unusual Christmas tree idea made from salvage for our December 2011 January 2012 edition. There is no January edition due to commitments but we will be back in February with all the latest salvage news and new ideas. So enjoy your Christmas and new year, spare a thought for those that can’t be with us this year for what ever reason and raise to them and remember to clear the whole windscreen and side windows on your car and use your lights so you are seen and safe. Enjoy this two month edition and as Rico says “Keep Mooching!”

James

CARTOON

RICOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S GARDEN The biggest job I have to address at this time of year is pruning, and what a job but it is worth it. There must be close to a hundred fruit bushes in my tangled garden that seriously need a short back and sides, much like me own. I have been waiting for a dry day to do it as the idea of wading into a huge patch of bushes dripping with moisture from the thick fogs is a bit daunting as its like trying to breath under water.

Any pruning's will end up in a big heap ready for a springtime bonfire or the cuttings can be used to create a new patch of fruit bushes to increase production for the rum-toft fruit bowl and other preserve I will be making next year.

RICOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S GARDEN To do this all I have to do is spread a black plastic membrane where I want the new bed, that keeps down the weeds and I can cover it with mulch if I don't like the plastic. It isn't necessary to remove vegetation as this will die back underneath plastic and feed the ground and the worms love it. Once this is laid and its a good idea to make sure ground is moist before you do it. Take a four foot measuring stick and use it to space the pruning's which you simply push through the plastic to a deep of about six inches into ground, just stab the plastic sheet with a small knife and tread careful so not to make more holes.

RICOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S GARDEN These will rapidly take root and within a couple of years you will have a good productive bed of bushes from blackberries, raspberries, even some gooseberries, all lovely soft fruit with a nice yogurt. I know this works for all varieties of currant and gooseberries but I have yet to try it with latter but I suspect it will work for raspberries and mulberries too and I will let you know as I intend to try it and see what success I have, I may even try some more hardy exotics if I can get hold of the root stock and cover the plastic with a good layer of straw to protect them from the frost.

I also have to do something with my hazels though this is something I should have done the first year I planted them. I was going to coppice them and hope that the new growth will carry more nuts though if any of you

RICO’S GARDEN guys know how to improve yield of a twenty year old tree Ill be glad to hear it. There’s not much else I can tell you and apart from adding to my many compost heaps there is nothing to do as I always get a farmer mate to plough my veggie patch in March . Its a bit too big to touch with a garden fork, Oh apart from James the editor has been telling me about virmiculture, worm breeding to you and me, and from what he has sent me it seems a easy wat of producing some very nice compost and liquid fertilizer, but they don't like the cold so it will take a little thinking about. If you use it as a liquid it is alleged to increase growth by 150% in most cases so I’m up for that and the worms are great fish bate and chicken feed a double bonus, enjoy your Christmas and don't forget to recycle the tree....

Rico

PASSIONATE ABOUT SALVAGE Throughout history there has always flourished a parallel industry that drew its life blood from the detritus of mainstream society. In Victorian England this reached a high or low point depending on your perspective as even dog excrement, its public relations image polished by giving it the name ' pure', was collected in buckets and sold for use in leather tanning. It was often the only occupation that stood in the way of the workhouse door. The cities poor took the waste of mainstream society, cleaned and sorted it and sold it back for re-use. Scrap lumber was collected sold as it was if good enough or de-nailed, chopped up into kindling, split as spills for pipes, or simply thrown

intact onto the fire. Huge amounts of packing crates were recycled into sofa frames, chicken coops, and humble furniture. Bones, rags, metal and glass all had an easily realised economic value to someone and was collected avidly. The rule applied then as now that if you could make a big enough heap of anything it acquired a value and someone would pay you for it. The muddy banks of rivers and sewers were scoured for valuables and agglomerations of metal washed down by the rain. Second hand bricks and stone masonry were cleaned up, sold on and mortared back into new buildings.

Unwanted horses had a place as pet food or the favoured glue of cabinetmakers. Nothing was wasted, as even the ashes of refuse tips were re-excavated for the brick industry. Clothing worked its way inexorably downwards becoming ever more ragged, to end up incongruously as the threadbare clothes of a gentleman hanging loosely on the undernourished frame

of a street urchin. The itinerants that dealt in this industry survived long into the 20th century as rag and bone men and gipsies and I will always recall with pleasure their arrival in our street. I remember vividly the colourful gipsy dealer carts always pulled by powerful painted cobs as they rang their hand bells. Everyone had a different cry

" Rag'n old rag" and "OI' raggy lumber" are just two that I remember. My great grandmother was a

first time that this waste material had a real value ,if only as a way to subsidise a child's need for sugar based products. Since that day I've

Romany, her brother, Toddy, drove just such a cart and it was maybe a tribal memory that endeared their colourful arrival to me, oh so proud of their polished boots, brylcreemed black hair and silk 'diklo' scarves knotted ostentatiously around weathered brown necks.

never been far from a bag of scrap brass ,copper or lead or as I prefer to call it ,my" emergency" fund . After a spell living in South Africa, where my father worked in a power station we returned via Canvey Island to the same town but a different house .

ignoring all the prohibition notices and trespassing boldly on the council tip with my mates. We were looking for any scrap metal overlooked by the council workers who in those days were still allowed to subsidise their wages. The best place to look was at the foot of the enormous spoil heap and with hindsight I can see how dangerous it would appear as we tugged promising looking from the tangled metal

mass .Everything went into the sack., old aluminium pots, coils from radios and t v sets after first smashing the tube with a brick. Always fun to do as they imploded with such ferocity. Insulated copper cable was painstakingly stripped at home with a Stanley knife as bright copper wire always got the best price. Most important tool was a metal handled axe to chop away iron fittings that contaminated the scrap and lowered its value .

A couple of screw drivers and the Stanley knife I've already mentioned completed the tool kit and would enable you to remove every sellable part of a washing machine, fridge, or hi-fi. Nasty surprises were common as we unearthed dead dogs and the smelliest of all things vile but this was never

determined boys bent on mischief. The rats were everywhere and I remember the look of horror on my friends face (Lee Brilleaux) who inadvertently stood in a main rat run as they swarmed to escape. They looked like a living river as they swarmed around his feet and numbered in their hundreds. I never knew of Weil's disease then and might have had a different, more cautious viewpoint if I had known of its existence. My mum would have given me a clump if she'd known where

sufficient deterrent to keep us away and even the fastest council worker was nowhere near fast enough to catch

we were but the lure of extra money was far too powerful to resist. Once our finds were cleaned and sorted into different sacks a trip to the local scrap yard would give us the cash to buy and fix up our beloved old motor bikes. I would still find it almost impossible to ignore the existence of a decent piece of non-ferrous metal.

I am always conscious of its presence in skips even though I'm much more able to resist stopping to pick it up. Guess I'm not hungry enough any more but it is still hard to walk away from. At 15 I became a Saturday assistant in a greengrocers. Nothing special at the local but it gave me sufficient cash to indulge myself at the local

Flea market. There were always choice things to be found here. African spears, fossils, Bo Diddley albums all were sold to an excited boy with a bedroom that looked more like a museum with every passing day. I rapidly learnt that broken objects were always extremely cheap and often extremely easy to repair. I collected just about anything from books to cigarette cards ,Victorian, bottles, rocks, even razor blade packets. Reserved as a special treat were Sunday outings to Brick Lane that were all too infrequent . This was ,for me, the ultimate flea market. I never tired of exploring every hidden corner of this never ending market tucked away in endless side streets and old railway arches. This was the stamping ground of Jack the Ripper. This was the stamping ground of Jack the Ripper. My own family had lived in these same

streets at that time and I loved to retrace what I imagined were their footsteps . The place still had a real Victorian feel marred only by the gaps created by those bloody Luftwaffe bombs that seemed to have precisely targeted every house my family had ever lived in. Brick Lane stallholders were surely modelled on the characters of Dickens and the lessons of the trader were there to be learnt if you kept your eyes and ears open. Final part in February.....

If you have just moved into a new home or need to furnish your present home on a tight budget, then we want to hear from you! It’s not about building, it’s not about buying new.

BE ON “OLD LOOK” W Rico will spend 12 hours at your home with his

team to give you a new It could be a new look for look from old stuff. In your living room or dining “OLD STUFF, NEW LOOK” room, or just that you don’t Rico and his team show have a seat to sit on, what’s the catch, there isn’t you how to give your old and salvaged items a one, apart from you only have Rico for 12 hours and rebirth by doing it for real a £25 budget.

STUFF, NEW ITH RICO with real people in real life. This is about Rico showing how we can all make comfortable home environments on a budget with your existing belongings and salvaged items, using inspiration and the

wealth of knowledge that Rico has and wants to share with you. It could be you have just moved in to your new home, or you would like a change and monies tight! Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just about your living environment, no major building work will be undertaken If you think you deserve a Rico Referb send us a e-mail with the reasons why you should be the precipitant of a Rico referb.

2012 SALVAGER CALENDER NEWS YOU CAN DOWNLOAD THE FREE “SALVAGER” CALENDERS NOW OVER THE PAGE, JUST PICK AND CLICK GET RICO ON YOUR WALL FOR 2012

RICOâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;S TEE SHIRT PAGE Just in time for Christmas my tee shirts are ready. They look like this Come in colours Just Click on the address To send a mail Or use my face book

And you can order them direct from here;

We have decided to make the calendars a free download this year which you can print from your computer. Just click on the links and you will be sent the calendar of your choice.

SOME CHRISTMAS GAME I have added some Christmas cards that you can print off direct with different messages, the idea being that you print or email these to your mates Maybe some of the money you save you could give to a worthy course , I won’t start on one but for me its “Help the Hero’s” I know James being a old sea dog does a bit for RNLI another just and worthy one, and I’m sure you have yours lets not forget them at this Plus there are some time of cheer and good will games to print off for over to all men and women. Christmas once you have Print of or email the cards watched the Queen. and if you want spread the Now here is the technical savings a bit if you can. bit over the page on the Neil has given the Cartoons double spread there is the for the cards bless him so I card you print the left hand hope you like them. page first, then take the printed paper or card and

ES AND CARDS FOR FREE There are three cards to choice from and a number of games to have fun with and I hope you all do have a Merry Christmas.

Rico

Rico and all at “Salvager” wish you a very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year turn It over from the right side like you would if you were turning a page in a book you are reading, then put it back in the printer and print the second page. It should then be a simple fold and you are done.