Since moving to a town that has no less than six charity shops and several markets I’ve developed a bit of a habit. I always knew somewhere inside of me a thrifter was waiting to get out. Until now I’ve not had the space to indulge my love of all things old and beautiful. Now that I have traded London for a house… with stairs, separate rooms, a corridor and a loft, I am unstoppable. Especially when it comes to vintage children’s things.
Last week I found this children’s book and could not get my pennies out fast enough. It doesn’t have the year of publication anywhere but it does have inscribed inside the cover a message from Christmas 1951 so that gives me a clue as to its age. I absolutely love the illustrations with their soft, muted colour palette and water colour effect.
It reminds me of the books my granny had at her house that belonged to my mum and her brothers and sisters when they were children.
Some of the edges are a little frayed and worn but doesn’t that make it all the more valuable? For over 60 years it’s been read by adults and children, and loved along the way. One of the things I love most about vintage treasures is imagining the history attached to them, the places they may have been and who their various owners over time might have been.
And now Farm Friends has a new owner and a new set of little fingers admiring it’s pages and stroking the birds while screeching excitedly, ‘birdy, birdy, birdy!’
That most lovely lady Mammasaurus has a beautiful new blog – Vintage Mummy – and with it a shiny new meme so if you love all things vintage you have to hop on over and check it out.
I love vintage books, have to restrain myself when I happen to be in the second-hand bookshops.
I love these so much – especially the children and the swallows! I love finding old books and reading the inscription or finding an old piece of paper inside them – it really feels like you are almost getting a snippet of peoples lives!
thank you for linking up x
Beautiful, and looks strangely familiar, like something from childhood that probably belonged to my mum as a child. I still live in London and really don’t have space to indulge unfortunately. Am currently drawing down on my stocks of old fabric and maps to tart up our flat though, which is fun.
I love old fabric too but don’t let myself buy any as I know that it would just sit going to waste when someone else could do something amazing with it. I’d love to learn to sew one day though…
This is a lovely book. I love the old pictures. I watched an episode of see hear last night which was about literacy in the Deaf community and the illustrator for ladybird books up til about 1987 was Deaf. This is very much the kind of thing he would have done back then. He is still alive and painting at 93!
Wow, I hope I’m still doing the things I love at 93! That’s amazing!
Hello, Bluebird (for me you will always be Caramel). Thanks for posting on jolly Hyperemesis thread. I’m the same about antiques, but I wasn’t as a kid. It was hilarious! My mother used to be stuck with my sister and I at auctions, where she bought what was then regarded as junk but is now prized as ‘Victorian antiques’… I love the lost innocence of those children’s books and annuals of yesteryear.
Stop by on the good old thread when you have time, you must be busy with two LO’s…
I thought anything old was deeply uncool too as a child 🙂 xxx
It was freezing in those icy, unheated houses back in those days, where those auctions were held. The auctioneer’s voice droned on and on interspersed with wails from sister and I::’Can we go home now, Mummy?’ Apparently my first outing at ten days old, was to an auction…
You must be very experienced in property with that start 🙂
Lol, also in Victorian novels long out of print, which were included in part of the job lots. ‘The Outcast of the Family’ ‘Comin’ Through the Rye’ , also bound editions of Castle’s Magazine and any number of others…