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Last weekend I wandered into an old fashioned stamp and coin shop whilst visiting a beautiful city Wiltshire. It's the first time I had been in one for over 30 years.
Now as a kid I collected stamps as if they were going out of fashion. Every second kid I knew collected them. We had a school stamp club(fun), a town philatelic society(boring) and several places we could buy stamps in the town where I lived which also formed unofficial meeting places for us to hang out. Even the charity shops sold stamps for pennies. Blue Peter had it's stamp appeals and the program even regularly added to the Blue Peter stamp album. Even the post office had it's Stamp bug club in the early 80's.It really was a big hobby back then and not just a fad as so many things seem today. It really was cool to be a stamp collector.
During my visit to this stamp shop I quickly noticed I was probably the youngest person there, and I'm no spring chicken. It came as a bit of a shock. I am assuming if there are new people entering into the hobby then they must be secretly collecting using the internet. Then again is it one of those once great hobbies that's gradually disappearing with the ageing population of collectors?
One memory I have is certainly something you won't come across today. Many of us back in the mid-late 70's used to work our way into town to buy stamps from a charity shop. This particular shop (TOC-H),was unlike anything else around. It was down a back alley just off town centre that lead across the bottom of peoples gardens to a small old Victorian brick coalman's shed. It was a dark and dingy place with plaster and paper peeling from the walls and water staining on the ceiling. The old carpet if you did not keep moving you stuck to quite firmly. No doubt the building was close to being condemned. Inside it had bad light and smelt really musty. There was two rooms. The first you entered into from a dark green door with an old heavy latch. This was a room stacked to the ceiling with old books. turning around you were confronted with an ominous black wooden door that lead into the back room. Around the walls of this room were stacked more books. In the centre was a small table and some rather old moth eaten arm chairs. You would always be greeted by the strong smell of pipe tobacco and the barking of what sounded like a large dog and the crackling of an open fire in winter. It was in reality no dog but an old podgy old man who sat there hunched over in his green tweed jacket and tie. He knew what we had come for, a twinkle showing in his eye as he took his pipe from his mouth and tapping it into a half full ashtray to empty it. What can I do for you lads today he used to remark as he inspected his pipe and refilled it. Then he proceeded to place old tobacco tins on the table. Each tin contained postage stamps and the smell of the old tobacco left in the tin with the stamps entered our nostrils. Knowing we were happy going though these tins he relit his pipe and occasionally let out a cluster of load cough's like the barking of a large dog again. Funny thing was buying from this shop was rather like illegal dealings with something else. Today looking back it was another world, and certainly even in the 70's felt as if I had wandered back into another long past era.
Today the ally that lead to the coalman's shed is there but the shed itself was eventually demolished in the 1980's to make way for a new shopping centre.
I would love to hear of anyone else's tales of stamps collecting.
Now as a kid I collected stamps as if they were going out of fashion. Every second kid I knew collected them. We had a school stamp club(fun), a town philatelic society(boring) and several places we could buy stamps in the town where I lived which also formed unofficial meeting places for us to hang out. Even the charity shops sold stamps for pennies. Blue Peter had it's stamp appeals and the program even regularly added to the Blue Peter stamp album. Even the post office had it's Stamp bug club in the early 80's.It really was a big hobby back then and not just a fad as so many things seem today. It really was cool to be a stamp collector.
During my visit to this stamp shop I quickly noticed I was probably the youngest person there, and I'm no spring chicken. It came as a bit of a shock. I am assuming if there are new people entering into the hobby then they must be secretly collecting using the internet. Then again is it one of those once great hobbies that's gradually disappearing with the ageing population of collectors?
One memory I have is certainly something you won't come across today. Many of us back in the mid-late 70's used to work our way into town to buy stamps from a charity shop. This particular shop (TOC-H),was unlike anything else around. It was down a back alley just off town centre that lead across the bottom of peoples gardens to a small old Victorian brick coalman's shed. It was a dark and dingy place with plaster and paper peeling from the walls and water staining on the ceiling. The old carpet if you did not keep moving you stuck to quite firmly. No doubt the building was close to being condemned. Inside it had bad light and smelt really musty. There was two rooms. The first you entered into from a dark green door with an old heavy latch. This was a room stacked to the ceiling with old books. turning around you were confronted with an ominous black wooden door that lead into the back room. Around the walls of this room were stacked more books. In the centre was a small table and some rather old moth eaten arm chairs. You would always be greeted by the strong smell of pipe tobacco and the barking of what sounded like a large dog and the crackling of an open fire in winter. It was in reality no dog but an old podgy old man who sat there hunched over in his green tweed jacket and tie. He knew what we had come for, a twinkle showing in his eye as he took his pipe from his mouth and tapping it into a half full ashtray to empty it. What can I do for you lads today he used to remark as he inspected his pipe and refilled it. Then he proceeded to place old tobacco tins on the table. Each tin contained postage stamps and the smell of the old tobacco left in the tin with the stamps entered our nostrils. Knowing we were happy going though these tins he relit his pipe and occasionally let out a cluster of load cough's like the barking of a large dog again. Funny thing was buying from this shop was rather like illegal dealings with something else. Today looking back it was another world, and certainly even in the 70's felt as if I had wandered back into another long past era.
Today the ally that lead to the coalman's shed is there but the shed itself was eventually demolished in the 1980's to make way for a new shopping centre.
I would love to hear of anyone else's tales of stamps collecting.
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