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

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

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

Devil May Care in Whitby (or how one Bunny learned to wish upon a star)

Hi, we’ve just arrived back from our Summer Holiday and as is befitting of the Deadman clan we have been weathering (sunning being an inappropriate word for what you do on a British holiday) in the home of Dracula himself; Whitby.

Never have I been to such a place for indulging a passion for fish and chips at every meal (including breakfast) as the North Yorkshire coast. Unbelievably we passed a shop starting its first fry of the day at 9.00am!

Highlight of the week was a ride on the North Yorkshire Railway to Pickering home of the “The Pickering 1940s Wartime Weekend” for all you 1940’s enthusiasts http://www.pickering1940s.co.uk/ . This is a great place along with the upcoming “Sherringham/Holt 1940’s weekend” (September 19th/20th) www.nnrailway.co.uk/page.php?pid=7 to air your tortoiseshell spectacles.

Mike Denmark – Timescape
At Holt 1940’s show 2009

Before we went away I’d been speaking to Bunny Hooper “The 1940’s Accountant” and he had been bemoaning the demise of the comics’ Summertime Specials. Along with a new pair of NHS “524” glasses this used to be the highlight of the summer holidays when we were kids. Usually sold with a useless plastic toy or a packet of Spangles attached to the front cover it was guaranteed to while away a long holiday car journey. So this got me thinking; and as a special present for Bunny, Dead Men’s Spex has gone to no expenses at all and produced The Dead Men’s Spex Summer Special 2010 (well the cover)..........enjoy!

This week sees me back in the workshop finishing off the preparation of the final frame stock for the bank holiday Glenn Miller Festival that we are attending at Twinwoods http://www.twinwoodevents.com/ . As usual we will have an arena stall selling lots of our lovely period frames. There will be a vast selection of gold filled round eyes to go with your de-mob suits and for the ladies a cornucopia of 1940/50s frames to complete that special outfit.

Glenn Miller

www.deadmensspex.com/default/1900-s-gold-filled-panto-eye-h19.html

Finally don’t tell Mrs Dead Man that I’ve got a Gal in Kalamazoo , so I’m going to jump on the Chattanooga Choo Choo all Devil may care and work that old black magic. If she does find out I’m going to hit the little brown jug and I guess I’ll have to dream the rest as I’m stepping out with a memory tonight.

I hope to see some of you at Twinwoods and remember if it’s foggy please don’t fly.

TTFN
D.Man

Interview for Extinct Design

I have done a short interview for Heather of Exctinct Design www.extinctdesign.co.uk/which has just gone on line at www.extinctdesign.co.uk/blog/2010/07/21/cats-eye-glasses-geek-chic/

You'll love the "and finally if you can’t decide on what glasses might suit you best take a look Flair Magazines 1963 version of what type to fit which kind of personality!" piece at the end. It had me in tucks !!

Please take time to take a look around her site at some of the best vintage and new design available.

I hope to have Heather as a guest blogger in the not to distant future.

D.Man

High days, birthdays and other spectacles

Hi, I wanted to address two things in this blog entry, these being the joy of birthdays and vintage sunglass lenses.

Firstly the joy of birthdays, or, when the year turned once more on Mr Deadman and how he re-discovered the delights of the regional museum.

My birthday trip this year was to view the Seahenge exhibition at Kings Lynn Museum. Having read about the initial discovery of Seahenge at Holme-next-the-sea in the spring of 1998 I had followed the controversy of its removal for conservation and its final return to Norfolk with great interest. Now was my chance to see the new exhibition at the very modest Kings Lynn Museum set attractively (not!) next to the town bus station. Can I say at this point what a wonderful addition the Seahenge gallery is, showing the remains and the story of this enigmatic monument off to great and sympathetic effect?

Seahenge in situ on Holme-next-the-sea beach

Seahenge at home in its new gallery

What has this all to do with glasses you might fairly ask? Well the delight of a small museum is that you’re never really sure what you might find lurking amongst the stuffed sturgeon, eel traps and enema kits. Yes all of these were on display in the converted church that makes up the rest of the museum and in their own rights would have made the journey worthwhile, but, imagine my delight to find a fine collection of vintage spectacles on display.

I surreptitiously took some photographs without a flash and the results are reproduced below.

The horse-shoe pair of sunglasses on the right has lenses that fold to the side and are in the design of the optician Richardson and date from the early 19th century. I have a pair in my own collection (see below)

Horse-shoe sunglasses from my collection

Lorgnettes and chatelaine cases

Having talked about the wonder of Seahenge, the surprise of a vintage spectacle display and the delights of small museums, I must say that my day was made by a box of “Red Draught cleansing and general cow drench” which just happened to have what looked like the “Arm and Hammer” toothpaste logo on it!!!!

It makes you think!

The second thing I’d like to address is lenses in vintage sunglasses. It seems important with the extended hot spell we are having and the onset of the summer show season to warn against taking for granted that the lenses in your favourite vintage sunglasses or your recent acquisition come up to the stringent requirements for UV protection that modern lenses offer. I would always suggest that you change the lenses in a vintage sunglass frame if you wish to wear it and replace them with modern lenses that have a full UV400 filter in them. If in doubt ask your optician or myself and wear your vintage sunglasses safely with pride.

TTFN

Deadman

Hemsby Weekender or "A day in the life of The 1940's Accountant"

Yes I know! I promised more, but seem to be stuck on a monthly cycle with the blog updates.

The past few weeks have been busy as we move into spring proper. I have just been to the Hemsby Rock ’n’ Roll weekender, which turned out to be very busy indeed. As it is a Norfolk show I spent much time travelling backwards and forwards to the workshop fitting sunglasses to vintage frames so that my band of merry customers could wear them on the first really sunny weekend of the year.

It wasn’t all work though, there was plenty of time to catch up with old friends such as Shona at http://www.heydayonline.co.uk/ and get an update on the progress of her new blog http://intheheyday.blogspot.com ( I must take credit, as where we pioneers lead others will follow :oD I’m whispering this as Shona has a wicked right hook! )

Shona auditioning for the role of Doc in Hemsby’s next Christmas panto!

I also met up with Chris, a fellow dispensing optician and got to hear about his latest venture into the world of rocking wedding cars. Take a look at his beautiful 1961 Ford Galaxie 352 cu V8 at http://www.v8events.co.uk/ and if the urge to wed comes upon you give him a call he can even get the reception swinging as DJ Galaxie.

Another highlight of the show was seeing the work of the very talented Su Owen with her wonderful 50’s inspired paper-cuts. Check out her work at www.sugar1970originals.com

I’m happy to report that Dead Men’s Spex have a new tea boy (at least at shows). It’s our very own Bunny Hooper The 1940’s Accountant. We broke him in gently at Hemsby as he is a weekender virgin and being an accountant unused to standing on his feet for long periods of time. His highlight of the weekend was being mistaken not once but twice as the bass playing member of one of the bands, that and a surreptitious bout of double entry book-keeping in the bar!

In a future blog I may call on Bunny to explain the finer details of the accountant’s art and how the 1940’s tax regime can save us all pounds, shillings, and pence in these troubled times

Please note that I’ve even been able to kit him out with a pair of genuine period tortoiseshell spectacles, despite his inordinately large brain filled head.

Also this past month has seen http://www.deadmensspex/ supply spectacles for the stage premier of Jonathon Harvey’s new play Canary at the Liverpool Playhouse. Liverpool born multiple award-winning writer Jonathan Harvey established his reputation with Beautiful Thing, his play-turned film for which he received an Olivier Award nomination and the John Whiting Award. As a screenwriter his credits include Gimme Gimme Gimme, Coronation Street and his recent cult series Beautiful People. With Canary Jonathan returns to the theatre where he wrote his first play.
Photos from the play can be seen at http://www.everymanplayhouse.com/Show/Canary/19/Media.aspx, look out for Mary Whitehouse wearing Dead Men’s Spex!

The next Hemsby weekend is October 7th-10th so if you are into the 1950s scene or just wish to see Bunny wielding his abacus come along and we’ll see you there!

TTFN

Deadman