starting to collect

Although vintage, retro and "friends" walk hand-in-hand with GREEN these days, collecting
nostalgia started for me when I moved to Port Elizabeth from Cape Town nearly 42 years ago.
            I clearly remember the first item bought at a Vigne & Howard auction: a small oak bookcase.
It must have come out of a chicken coop, so dirty it was. After scraping the top layer of muck off,
it started to show its beauty. A meths and fine steelwool treatment followed.
           The transformation was completed with a bit of furniture oil. This item has followed me into a marriage and has for the past 30 years lived in the entrance hall of my Edwardian home.