SUSIE MALLETT

My visitors today

Thursday 22 October 2009

What to do with an unexpected afternoon off

A Brit in Deutschland

"The Pram Parade", 1959 - thats me, as always on the right!

The Best Of British

I travelled home by tram today, emptied the letterbox, opened the front door, took off my coat and boots and, even before making a cup of PG Tips, I sat down on the rug with the post. Since then I have been reading my favourite magazine The Best of British.

http://www.bestofbritishmag.co.uk/

To be specific, I have been reading the October issue of my favourite magazine, The Best of British. Fresh off the press!

It is a nostalgia magazine.

Readers of my blog will not be surprised to learn that I particularly enjoyed pages 30 and 31, which have an article called “Junk or Jewels?"

This article concerns all the items that one sees in antique or junk shops which evoke the comment "I had one like that, once upon a time". More often or not I say "I have one just like it, thanks to my hoarding Mum!",

On page 30 there is a photograph, top right, of annuals and jigsaws, all of which I still have (I hope!) at my family home in Norwich.

Top left is a picture of something very similar to my dolls pram, though this one is brown while mine is beige and had no basket on the front. Below this is a Lloyd Loom chair the likes of which sits in my bedroom at "home".

Then right at the bottom of the page are old Victorian postcards, of which I have many, and the tools that I still see in everyday use when staying with my Dad.

On the opposite page there is a photograph of the hairdryer that is still in use at home, a Morphy Richards model from the 1960s. Ours still lives in its original box.

Like most things mentioned in the article, and elsewhere in the magazine, it has the “Made in Britan” stamp on it, not “Made in China”!

I am beginning to realise that I am a little old-fashioned and not all together of today’s world. I have no objection to this and readers of my blog will also know that I have considerable respect for the fashions and music of yesteryear (see the column on the right).

If you are reading this in the UK, I can thoroughly recommend The Best of British if you would like to see the England that I live in inside my head, here in Germany.

PS

Of course, nostalgia for the old days or not, I couldn’t be without my blog!

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