Quest For a Glass Container

bric a brac bottles

‘Look for a nice bottle’, Anne said. ‘Not just any old bottle’.

‘It has to be just right for the purpose, not chunky, dear’ she said.

‘A nice shade of smoked glass might be nice. Mind you, I do need to be able to see the contents. Size is important. You will know it when you see it.’

She walked off in the direction of the kitchen. As I got my coat and grabbed the car keys, I heard the final instruction,

‘and I don’t want you paying more than five pounds for it.’

That’s how I found myself,

on a Saturday, during the football season,

heading for the antique and bric-a-brac fair. Glass containers on my mind.

Getting parked is a nightmare. Eventually I find a space a couple of streets away and approach the building, weaving in and out of old red estate cars and mud splattered Range Rover look-a-likes.

On approaching the entrance my curiosity is stirred by the sight of two ‘furtive looking men’, over by a side door. Neither is tall, one stocky and hairless, the other skinny. The stocky one clutches a well used, plastic shopping bag. It bulges.

What does it contain? I am not going to find out.

The skinny one, a man in his fifties I think, with long, unkempt gray hair, the potential buyer, takes the bag and expertly peers through the contents, being careful not to expose what he is looking at.

Words are exchanged. Both, in turn, shake their head. Have I stumbled upon a shady ritual? More words and head shakes.

The skinny one eventually produces a wad of paper money from inside his grubby jacket, detaches an amount that seems to please the leather jacketed, stocky seller, who proffers his hand which is fleetingly grasped, bulging shopping bag transferred, cash quickly stuffed into a deep pocket, obviously designed for the purpose.

Deal done and the free market system moves on.

Both turn on their respective heels and part company, without another word or a backward glance. The stocky seller, now innocent of bulging shopping bag, his deep pocket bulging, walks off in the direction of the town.

I cannot help think he is headed, in his short, bow legged, almost jerky gait, to an hostelry or maybe the Turf Accountant, or perhaps both. I wondered if in another life, a long time ago, he had been a football player.

The skinny purchaser has dissolved into thin air.

I go into the foyer. A lady sitting at a simple wooded table extends a glove covered hand, and asks for the one pound that will allow passage into the hallowed hall.

She is bent forward, huddled into a cosy looking tweed coat, her neck swaddled by a colourful scarf, probably hand knitted I muse? Under the table I note her feet are encased in fur lined boots. It must be cold sitting in a foyer all day. November days can be cold.

As she sorts out my change and I see why her gloves are innocent of fingers.

I enter the auditorium, the noise and movement strike me. Expectant buyers, interested novices, and others, cram the space between the five rows of stalls. Behind the stalls sit the dealers and chapmen, surviving by their wits, on their own personal treasure hunt, seeking that elusive pot of gold.

People bottlenecks are not a rarity here.

I listen and individual snippets of conversation emerge from the hubbub;

‘Is this your best price?’ ‘ It came from a house sale, I’m not sure how old it is?’ ‘ Oh, I remember mum had one of these, what ever happened to it? Look what they want for it now.’

I am subsumed into a moving, murmuring organism. Time stands still, or to be accurate, it rewinds and I find myself engrossed in old tea pots, children’s games, football programmes, cigarette cards, concertina cameras, old postcards, jewellery and then the books, ‘The New Road,’ ‘The Book of Beasties, a treasury of Scottish myths and legend,’ ’The land o’ cakes and brother Scots’. Mesmerising

Eventually I emerge from the throng and step into a still, damp, cold evening, awash with the orange glow of low pressure sodium light. I never did set eyes on the purchaser with his recently acquired, ‘well used,’ bulging, shopping bag. The gloved lady at the desk has gone.

Did I get a suitable bottle? We had been talking about it for weeks.

No, but I got a really good book, ‘first edition’ the man said.

the ‘first edition’

Anyway, what’s wrong with an old jam jar. It’s not as if we need an ornament to store chillies.