My mother, Patty, was an amateur antique dealer in the late 1940s, gave it up in the early 1950’s, and replaced most of her furniture with up-to-date modern pieces such as two ‘storage units’ by Charles Eames, a set of dining chairs by the same designer and other modern pieces designed by unknowns – this was because she had gone to university to study interior design, I imagine and was introduced to modern design trends. The following year she decided that she should, in fact, study architecture as she could then design the homes that would contain her interior design ideas – she was definitely a woman before her time!

Later, after we had moved to England, she went back to antiques and opened a shop in the downstairs part of our 14th century cottage home. In the evenings, the shop became our living room.

I was the appointed driver for her excursions into the countryside, looking for little antique shops that she could buy her stock from. This turned out to be a not-very-good idea as shops needed to make a profit and her buys were possibly already too expensive for her to add to ……she wasn’t a very good business person! She would buy something, bring it home, add a bit to the price she had paid, then take off that bit of profit for friends! I doubt that she made much money with her shop.

During that time, I was studying to become a teacher, then working as a teacher and had no interest in antiques at all. The one antique that I had bought was my upright piano. It sat in the shop because it would have been extremely difficult to get it upstairs. I had bought the piano because I was taking piano lessons at college.

One day a group of tourists from Mexico (I think) came into the shop and bought my piano. I assume the price was a little above the price I had paid for it! Luckily, my piano lessons had come to an end for various reasons and the money came in handy for buying food!

Patty went on buying and selling antiques but in an antique centre in London.

When I had been teaching for several years, had met and married Julian and had decided to quit teaching – a very stressful job even in those days, I took over my sister Jennie’s jewellery making. She had learned how to make rubber moulds and use resins to create lovely little items – rainbows, Christmas trees, sets of flying ducks – and she had recently married and, pregnant with her first child, she felt she should stop breathing in the fumes caused by mixing resin with catalyst.

Sadly, though I had learned well the making of the items, the decoration of each rainbow or duck or whatever, was right outside my ability. But, I had branched out into buttons using a product called Fimo and was far more successful with them. I made them to order for customers and did quite well – though hardly made enough to pay for much more than the Fimo I was using.

That endeavour lasted for a year or so while I was doing supply teaching.* Then, Julian decided to learn upholstery and I had discovered the delights of local auctions! Maidstone had two auctioneers who each had two auctions a month at the market, always on a Thursday. Julian and I would go along, he to look for restorable furniture and I to look for ‘smalls‘, the small items that I could buy – and eventually sell, hopefully.

I looked for things that I liked – small sewing implements, buttons, linens, boxes, toys, treen*, the occasional box of odd jewellery bits, etc. My first ‘shop’ was in Mill Yard Craft Centre.* It was a nice sized room which I furnished with odd bits of furniture we had at home. That little shop was useful as I learned the kinds of things people were looking for but the rent made it difficult to sustain for long.

Then, Julian had finished his course in upholstery and we decided to sell our house and buy a shop with living accommodation. After a long search we ended up buying the premises of what had been The Rose and Crown pub – directly across the High Street from the 14th century cottage where Patty had had her shop and where we had lived!

For the next seven years Julian bought and sold pieces of furniture as well as re-upholstering customers’ sofas, chairs and chaise longues, while I went to auctions, bought stuff I really liked, cleaned the bits up, did any repairs I was capable of doing and put them on sale. Along the way I met an older gentleman called Des who I think might have been a ‘runner’ – a person who buys items which he then sells for a small profit. Des’s main interest seemed to be pottery and porcelain – not something that I had much interest in but which was definitely sellable.

He would show up with a bag full of things. He would show me them, tell me a bit of the history of the makers, and tell me how much I could ask for each bit or each set. I loved learning about something new and different (to me).

Those seven years went quickly! Sadly, Ikea was the place to buy furniture, and no one wanted to restore their grandma’s old table or reupholster an old set of chairs! We were getting on a bit and decided to retire.

We sold off a lot of the things we had left – but I still have six crates of china! The demand for single decorative plates, dessert services and 18th century tea sets hasn’t yet come back but, when it does, I’ll be ready!

AFTER WORD

I loved the buying and selling – particularly the buying – and carried on, attending auctions online or sending commission bids. I started an online business (nostalgiagames.net) which lasted another seven or eight years, where I sold old games and old wooden jigsaw puzzles. I loved that bit of my business most of all, particularly the old jigsaws. If you can scroll back there are several posts about my old jigsaws with some great pictures of some of the puzzles.

• *Supply teachers in UK – substitute teachers in USA
• * Mill Yard Craft Centre – a group of old buildings behind shops in Swan Street and the High Street in West Malling. Julian’s dad, Ralph, had bought and restored this group of old buildings, then rented them out to interesting shop-keepers, mainly craft based. In the room that I had my little shop had originally been a man who made beautiful wooden toys. Other shops at the beginning were a jewellery dealer, a ceramicist, a woman selling fab jumpers she had knitted, and a little café with coffee, tea and cakes!
• *Treen – mainly small items made of wood as in the photo below