The White Elephant

Talking of village fêtes, I remember that in the wealthy area of Surrey where I was brought up, every Summer there was one held in the grounds of a large house in aid of the Conservative party which my parents would help out with.

This was great, because they ran the stall called the 'White Elephant'. Apparently this name came from the days of the Raj in India, when white elephants were considered unwanted gifts which the recipient had to get rid of. The class of junk on these stalls was amazing and I always had the first pick before the fête opened.

I remember African spears, huge brass gongs, hunting trophies, fishing rods, and all sorts of things which had been collected in the days of Empire by wealthy travellers and then stored in attics for a generation or two before ending up on my parents' stall.

I once acquired a Victorian electric hairbrush which came in a very well-made, velvet-lined mahogany box with brass fittings. The brush itself looked fairly ordinary, except that it had steel bristles and a wire coming from the handle which lead to some very steam-punk apparatus in the box that generated a high voltage current. If you turned it on and touched the bristles you got a not unpleasant shock. The idea was that electricity generated the growth of hair and conditioned the hair you already had. Who knows.

Every year I was allowed one item from the stall, and choosing it was always difficult. One year it was an African cowhide drum, the next was assagais from a different part of the same continent, another year the hairbrush, but in general most of the stall was made up of relics from old colonial days.

I loved junk and still do, but junk shops are a thing of the past. During our annual two weeks spent in Brighton, I would make my way to The Lanes and spend hours wandering around the cluttered little shops trying to find treasures which I could afford. I came home with an ox bone once which I had bought on the understanding that it was from a dinosaur, but my aunt and uncle told me I could have saved my half crown by visiting the local abattoir.  

To this day, I am intrigued by the thought that - somewhere near me - there is a cellar or attic which has not been visited for years which is full of this stuff.