When I say strange places I mean car boot sales and I realise that not everyone will have experienced this phenomenon. Putting it as simply as possible it is a place buyers and sellers drive to, sellers to get rid of unwanted items and buyers to pick up bargains. A car boot sale is also the place where family photographs, letters, etc from those who have died often end up for sale.
If any of you have children or grandchildren interested in history or you would like to teach them something about the past, a car boot sale is a good place to go. For very little money you may pick up coins, badges, photographs, letters and a lot of rubbish as well!
Yesterday I went off to the local boot sale and had almost despaired of finding anything when I spotted some postcards on a table. Unless postcards are written they are of very little interest to me and these were all blank. In amongst them were one or two photographs, a soldier (Mr and Mrs Clayton and family), a sailor (Seaman, Great Yarmouth), a woman with her dog and a group of schoolchildren. And the price of these treasures- £1.50.
I will upload these with the hope of doing what? With the hope of putting these people back in the communities they belonged to, perhaps even with the families they belong to and finding out something of their lives. So I will tag them mystery people, mystery place or mystery event as appropriate and see if anyone has the answers.
I looked at a couple of letters which were pretty dull and had been put in an envelope of even more dull material, presumably to push up the price. You just never know quite what you are going to find, that is part of the fun. One day I bought a postcard from the early twentieth century(shame on me but it hasn't yet been uploaded).The card was written to the housekeeper of a local house from a London visitor and it made me laugh. The visitor wrote,
“Sorry to have been so long in writing to you, I bet you thought I had forgotten you which I had...”
There wasn't anything else to it really and I thought perhaps the visitor shouldn't have bothered!Whether the housekeeper ever replied I don't know. I don't think I would have been in too much of a hurry to do so!
But there is other history at this Boot Sale and I could kick myself than I have neither my phone nor camera with me because there is the history of the moment which we can all capture and share . As I am going home there is more history that I should be recording. There is a group of gipsy caravans parked at the side of the road. No, not motorised caravans, these are the real thing, horse-drawn caravans, and a joy to see. Gipsies like this used to come round the parish some years ago and do casual work. They came back year after year until mechanisation took over their jobs.
But thankfully this isn't a solo effort. We are all able to do the same and we have family, friends and colleagues who would also like to know of the site and share their history. As the database grows so its value to all of us increases. Spread the word and let's aim for 10,000 uploads by Christmas! Any ideas, feedback, suggestions etc on how we might do this would be gratefully received!