Friday 24 September 2010

"Dead man through the looking Glass" a Norfolk pipe-dream

Some of you may have guessed that the plus four teaser could be no-one else but Bunny Hooper “The 1940’s Accountant”. On a weekend when the Deadman was abandoned on the stall by the rest of the clan (something about parties and lashings of ice-cream and jelly or so Deadman Junior assured me) the only backup was my Dad, Deadman senior or as he’s affectionately known “Deadman Walking”. Bunny was a welcome pair of extra hands.

Being our local event, Holt and Sheringham 1940’s Weekend is always a busy two days for us, marked as much by visits from old friends as the good business.

Bunny was in an unusually rumbustious mood probably brought on by his insistence on being called Lord Hooper Marquis of Repps and muttering on about losing the rest of the shooting party and the bloody beaters!

The only way to calm him was to entice him into the stall with a copy of Glimpse and the assurance that he could smoke a pipe full of Virginia shag (picture the caterpillar in Alice through the Looking Glass!). The legitimacy of this action in what should be classed as the work place was debatable but I think the conclusion ran something along the lines of “bugger the EU!!”

www.deadmensspex.com temporary dwelling

The cue for spam sandwiches and black market petrol

With autumn knocking at the door Deadman’s thoughts turn to indoor shows where the elements no longer dictate. We are at Hemsby 45 on the 8-10th October, again another local show for us, just a short dash at the North Sea from base camp. There’s nothing quite like the British seaside out of season. All the holiday makers, day trippers, chalet owners and “kiss me quickers” will have departed leaving the bleak desolation of the Norfolk coastline (and about 1000 drunken rockers). Bliss!!

TTFN

Deadman

Tuesday 21 September 2010

Power dressing yuppies

News flash!!!

A large stock of 1970/80's designer frames have now come into our possesion and are being gradually processed and uploaded onto the site. So if it's "Saturday Night Fever" or 80's giant retro that takes your fancy click here.


I hope to bring you tales of trains,planes and plus fours in my next blog later this week but here's a teaser

TTFN

Deadman

Saturday 4 September 2010

Twinwoods - the day that the rains came down

Twinwoods has come and gone in a flurry of activity. It turned out to be a busy show, but not without a little time to enjoy ourselves. Deadman junior was safely seconded with the outlaws leaving myself and Mrs Deadman free to spread the gospel of vintage eyewear, dodge the rain and point at the natives.

It’s our third year trading at this show and we just love the atmosphere and the music. Highlights of this year's show were Kai’s Cats and Peter Donegan son of the late Lonnie Donegan and a star in his own right.It’s the first time he’s performed on the main stage at Twinwoods and in the Deadman’s opinion was the outstanding performance of the show. He also gave me the best overheard quote of the weekend:
One aging audience member to another " that Peter Donegan, he’s not his father!! "
I'm also reliably lead to believe his wife's not his mother and any kids he may have will not be his great aunt Hilda!

As for the great British obsession ….. the weather was mixed to say the least. Saturday and Sunday saw torrential showers that allowed us to trap people on the stall and threaten to throw them out into the deluge with unprotected “victory curls” unless they bought something!
Pre rain "victory curls"



The "threat" of rain

The rising waters also brought with them a visit from sheltering musician and Dead Men’s Spex wearer Pete Cook of the Sentinels of Rhythm, check out his blog for a candid and wry look at the life of a jobbing musician.
Pete Cook "sax god"

So the weekend was good and all was right with the universe. We’d had good music, trapped customers, visits from would be music gods, copious amounts of cheap Hotel Chocolat sold to raise money for the MacMillan trust . Then the weekend went from good to great with the arrival of “The 1940’s Accountant” bringer of coffee and general all round sartorial elegance!!

Bunny Hooper "The 1940's Accountant"


Our next show is in three weeks time at Holt in North Norfolk on the Poppy line, we’d love to trap you in our stall and force feed you chocolate so please come along and visit us. If you're lucky you might also just catch a glimpse of Bunny Hooper in his plus fours!

TTFN
Deadman


Friday 3 September 2010

Bunny digs out his old olivetti (or the day I thought a guest blog would be a good idea - what do you mean its not about olives!)


This week can I ask you to welcome our guest blogger Bunny Hooper "The 1940's Accountant" .

Where’s Deadman?

The morning down pour had quickly led to the abandonment of the first day’s beach expedition. Things were bad. The picnic basket was not even opened before the rain started to fall. And with the man on the wireless promising strong north easterlies and a high chance of further heavy precipitation, I had a problem! It was the last week of the school holidays and I had promised the 1950’s accountants, my offspring, Debit and Credit, a good old fashioned English seaside holiday on the North Norfolk coast.

They had listened to my childhood reminiscences of endless sunny days spent at the beach; sunburn, sandwiches with real sand in them washed down by seawater from failed wave jumping and ever more complex sandcastles as the week progressed, until Friday yielded something that would have won Norman Foster awards. They had listened with wonder and they wanted some of those good times. But the weather was starting to ruin things and I needed a plan to keep them entertained.

To buy myself some thinking time I handed them each a copy of Deadman’s summer special from the last blog. Perhaps it was the lack of a wordsearch, the missing Spangles (note to Deadman – possible improvements for 2011?) or maybe the incredibly short attention span of today’s younger generation, but within ten minutes tempers were starting to fray.

And then, just as the wheels were starting to come off the holiday bus, a problem I don’t remember Cliff Richard facing and he was away for not just seven days but “a week or two”, Deadman’s own words came back to me – another highlight from summer holidays when we were kids was a new pair of NHS 524s – and the answer was obvious. We would contact Deadman and I would source them their very first pair of 524s. Pink for her and blue for him. If I couldn’t give them a beach holiday to remember I could at least provide them a seaside “spectacle”ular that they would not forget.

We were staying local but Deadman’s contact details were on my rolodex. And my rolodex was back in the office, hundreds of miles away. We were just going to have to do this the old fashioned way and seek him out.

But where to look? Easy, thought I, wherever vintage things could be found. To avoid too many questions that I knew I couldn’t answer, I dressed it up for the 1950s accountants as a Norfolk version of Where’s Wally – Where’s Deadman. And with that we had our rain coats, long trousers and sensible footwear on and we were out of the door on an adventure.

Where's Deadman?

Deadman was not at the Aylsham auction house. He was not at North Walsham’s motorcycle museum. Nor was he riding on the North Norfolk steam railway. We drew a blank in the antiques shops in Holt and the museums and old fashioned shops in Cromer and Sheringham.

With the week running out fast, no confirmed sighting and not even the faintest sniff of the Deadman being close (the give away odour being a mild whiff of pork scratchings, they tell me), we gave up the ghost, or the bespectacled skeleton I should say, and headed back to the seaside for one last try on the beach.

And on that final day, just before we packed up after another washout on the beach everything became clear, both literally and metaphorically. As the sun showed itself for the first time that week I remembered that the next day was the start of the August bank holiday weekend - the Twinwoods weekend. No wonder we couldn’t find Deadman out and about around Norfolk. He had no doubt been at HQ overseeing last minute preparations for the DMS stall at the Glenn Miller Festival.

Bunny Hooper "The 1940's Accountant" audits the Deadman's stall at Twinwoods


The children didn’t get their old fashioned week on the beach or their vintage 524s. However, they weren’t too disappointed. We saw some great places and met lots of interesting people. Rain or (unlikely) shine we will be back next summer and many times before then because we love the area.

And if you want to play Where’s Deadman you will have an easier job than I had last week if you head along to the North Norfolk Railway’s Famous Forties event during the weekend of 18 / 19 September. Deadman will be there offering to the public a fine selection of his vintage frames. If you do go I may see you there. You will recognise me from my children, wearing their newly refurbished 524s. Debit in the pink and Credit in the blue.

Bunny Hooper
The 1940’s Accountant