On Sunday we went to the antiques fair at Ingliston, we hadn’t managed to go to the last one they had there as we were down south – in a place that others call ‘up north’ but it’s all relative. It was one of those dodging cameras days as they were filming an episode of Bargain Hunt that day.
Almost everything I bought was paper – books and postcards although I also bought yet another Mauchline box although I had decided ages ago that I would collect no more of them, but this one has a particularly pretty decoration on the lid and the image is of St Anne’s Well in Malvern. Next time we visit Malvern I’m going to seek it out as there’s a cafe there now.
Anyway – to the books. I bought four books from a travel series called About Britain, these date from 1951 and they have the Festival of Britain logo on the dust jackets. The actual book covers underneath are pristine versions of the dust jackets. I’ve discovered that there were 13 books in the series and I bought:
Lowlands of Scotland
North Wales
The Lakes to Tyneside
Lancashire and Yorkshire
I’ve checked up on the internet and most of these books are available at a very reasonable price so I intend to complete the collection eventually.
I also bought the official sequel to J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan, I’m a bit of a Peter Pan fan. It’s called Peter Pan in Scarlet by Geraldine McCaughrean and is inscribed and signed by her. J.M. Barrie gave his Peter Pan royalties to Great Ormond Street Children’s Hospital and despite the fact that the copyright has run out they are still getting the money from it and presumably they gain from this one too.
The last book that I bought is a lovely wee copy of Oscar Wilde’s The Ballad of Reading Gaol and other poems. This book has been bound to look much older than it is. It was published by Heron Books in 1970 and again it’s dirt cheap. I had never read The Ballad of R G, it was deemed unsuitable for many poetry books I think, so I was keen to read it, it’s long and as you would expect, not exactly uplifting.
The postcards that I bought are old ones of Loch Lomond, years ago I started to collect old postcards from places that we had lived in (I grew up near Loch Lomond) but it’s a long time since I added to them.
Not a lot of money was spent and we had enjoyable chats with some of the stallholders, it was a good day out. Jack didn’t buy anything, but I think he enjoyed himself!
Oh, I would have loved to have been a tagalong for this book trip!
I’m fascinated by the Peter Pan book–the cover is sumptuous. I would not have been able to resist it either. I wish you lots of enjoyment with this haul.
Judith,
There weren’t all that many books for sale as it’s mainly an antiques/collectibles fair so I was really lucky to find these ones.
A wonderful hoard. I’ll look forward to hearing more of the books when you get to reading them.
Sandra,
I suspect I’ll read the Peter Pan sequel soonish.
The travel books are lovely. I’ve never seen them. It’s nice that you should be able to complete the set.
Joan,
It’s amazing that I had never seen any of those books before and of course Jack collects Festival of Britain stuff but he had never seen them before either.
How extraordinary! I had never heard of Mauchline ware until two weeks ago when we visited Erene who told us about the Mauchline collectors Society, and the conference she organised in Tenby. Also, I was brought up in Malvern, so know St.Anne’s Well well.
Janet,
Strange things like that always seem to happen. I have a lot of Mauchline ware but had decided not to buy any more as we don’t have so much room for things now that we have downsized, but I couldn’t resist that one. I hope to go back to Malvern sometime, either to the antiques fair or – I think there’s a gardening/flower show in the town too sometime.