Everyone's always smiling at SE20 Craft Fair. Everyone's chatting and meeting new people and the sense of community is really strong. The same is true of any good school fair, village fete or street party. So imagine all these things combined, and then spread out all over town. The tremendous sense of community spirit and the sort of party atmosphere that would produce. Now throw in some sunshine, and a hundred yard sales, with bunting and balloons fluttering in the breeze. Welcome to the Jumble Trail, which visited Penge for one magical day in June.
The Jumble Trail concept:-
The Jumble Trail is described as 'like a car boot sale but on your street'. Any neighbourhood can throw one, and anyone can sign up for a stall for just £2. You can add your stall by pinning the online map provided. Yasmin Keefe co-ordinated the Penge Jumble Train on 21st June and by the time the big day rolled around, nearly 150 people in the greater Penge area had signed up for a stall, to sell vintage clothes, toys, games, old furniture, bric-a-brac, crafts, food and drink.
I love seeing community come together and I love it when everyone can be included as opposed to just one sub-section of the local population. Penge Jumble Trail seemed like a really good way to connect everyone, and it proved to be a huge success. My friend Becky alerted me to it a few weeks ago, and we decided to grab a treasure map and head out to meet the locals and find some bargains. Because it fell on Father's Day, and because my Dad really likes jumble sales and the prospect of grabbing a bargain, I invited him along. My brother (acclaimed local author David Owen - yup, I'm name dropping) completed our group. We set off from our base in Chesham Road, cheerful as the sun shone down on us, and already I could see a lot of families out and about - more than I would usually see walking around on a Sunday morning. I wondered if they were following the trail too. We rounded the corner into Avenue Road and were faced with our first set of stalls - and crowds of people all rummaging for a bargain. We joined them and were soon to be laden with bargains of our own.
I wasn't expecting to have to make a trip back home to drop off a box full of glassware quite so soon after beginning our voyage (or at all) but this is exactly what happened. We met a lovely family on Avenue Road who were selling treasures too good to pass up. Before I knew where I was, I'd been talked into buying a set of 11 punch glasses (for just £4!) as well as several other trinkets including framed nautical knotted rope and a tiny brooch shaped like a dining fork - the woman who sold it to me was French. She told me a story about how she would always wear it while teaching French at a nearby and very well known private school. The pupils would think it hilarious that she would wear such a thing. I thought it was beautiful and asked her to teach me how to say 'fork' in French. Alas, I can't remember now, several hours later, what the word is.
On Chesham Crescent we found cupcakes, vegetable samosas, stacks of books and DVDs and some amazing home furnishings no longer wanted. I bought the world's most gigantic lamp, with a marble base. Then fretted about how to get it home. It was decided I would collect it later on, and the seller and I swapped numbers. All around us, people were meeting their neighbours, shaking hands, chatting away. In a society where very often we all ignore each other and go about our business without exchanging so much as a 'hello', it made a fabulous change.
In the front garden of a friend I hadn't known was having a stall until I came across it, I ran into Katie and Tim, two more friends who live in Penge. Like me, they love a bargain, and a weird second hand find (I would later find out that Tim had bought a 1960's hairdressing chair from someone on the trail). Hello's were exchanged and we swapped stories about what we'd bought and it was so nice to be surrounded by people I knew, all brought out of their houses and into the sunshine to buy and sell, meet and greet, share stories and contribute something to their hometown at the same time.
Becky had a friend who was selling her hand made cards over on Allen Road, an outlying area of the trail and therefore not as a susceptible to passing trade. We made tracks over there, stopping at stalls along the way to sift through books, DVDs, clothes, toys, ornaments, crockery and crafts. We passed couples, groups and families along the way, and a couple of people came out of their houses to ask us what was happening because they wanted to join in. We pointed them in the direction of the nearest stall. On Mackenzie Road we came across a woman selling toys and games from the 1980's in her front garden. There were Teenage Mutant Hero Turtle figures and Playmobile sets, and a Giraffe Onesie that I really wish would have fitted me (but didn't). Pressing on, we ran into a man on Blandford Road who had managed to visit every single stall and was on his second round, still hunting for musical finds in the form of vinyl or CD.
When we found Becky's friend on Allen Road, it turned out to be Jo of Yo!Jojo Handmade, who will be having a stall at the October edition of SE20 Craft Fair, which is still so far off in the future. One look at her beautiful cards and gift tags and I knew I'll be bringing all my pennies with me in October to shop at her stall. I bought a set of 6 hand made robot greetings cards and there was a dish of sweets on the stall too, so I indulged my sweet tooth and took a few with me for the road. It was great to meet a future stallholder - there were quite a lot of people out on the trail who had heard of SE20 Craft Fair and expressed an interest in getting involved, which made me happy.
Feeling a bit peckish by this point, we headed down to Penge High Street, via Ravenscroft Road, where we found some bargains at various tables along the way. Everyone was so friendly - welcoming us into their driveways like we were old friends. On the high Street, we stopped briefly at The Goldsmiths and were then on our way to the Late Knights Brewery in Southey Street, where we had heard there was food. We weren't disappointed. I had my first taste of Late Knights cider (Thistle cider? It was delicious) and from there we headed into Raleigh Road, where a lady sold me a painting of a ship in a heavy duty wooden frame for £1. Feeling totally worn out by this point, we decided it was time to head back, although we hadn't found any cake yet.
Arriving back on Chesham Road, we went to visit my across-the-road neighbours, who I had never met before, and from them we bought a big coffee table book and the first season of Breaking Bad on DVD. It was great to get chatting to someone who's house I pass every day, and I suspect there were lots of people out on the trail doing likewise - meeting neighbours for the first time and getting to know them.
My favourite thing about Penge Jumble Trail, aside from the fact that I managed to practically furnish the entirety of my new flat for under £40 in the space of one afternoon, was that the whole of Penge was one giant street party for one day only - and I wish it could happen every day. The atmosphere was amazing, and reminded me of the atmosphere at SE20 Craft Fair, where everyone gets along and is excited to meet new people and discover new things. There was a lot of bunting, which always makes me happy, and our treasure map kept taking us to new and exciting places, including several smaller roads in the area that we never knew existed. It was a great way to find out more about Penge, the town we live in and love.
We kept an eye out for stalls selling cakes all day, but never found one. We later found out there was an amazing cake stall on Parish Lane, although we never made it that far. The treasure trail was just too big for us to get round in the space of a few hours. Definitely more food stalls needed, although I did grab some strawberries in a stripy punnet from the It's a Wonderful Penge stall on Avenue Road, which made me happy.
I'm excited for the next Jumble Trail in Penge, and I hope it's soon. I'm already planning my stall...and I heard a lot of other people saying the same thing. It was a beautiful day and a roaring success. In terms of community spirit, as one stall holder said to me while I was clearing her table of virtually everything she owned, for the princely sum of £15...'everybody wins'.