THE MAGPIE IN US ALL

There was always someone in my family collecting something when I was a kid. 

My brother collected beer bottle tops. Mackeson, Guinness, Pale Ale, Watneys, Newcastle Brown, I can still see them all now in his box of tops. they were great to put your hands in and swish about. I wonder if anyone still collects bottle tops?

My other brother collected beer mats [there's a theme developing here!] but I remember less well as I do the tops. I do recall beer mat games though when I was old enough to visit pubs as a teenager!

Probably the collection I recall the most fondly of my two brothers were matchboxes. There were so many classics like Vesta and Bryant May but also loads of others too. I used to adore looking at those little boxes and books of matches as the designs were so appealing.

My late Mother in Law collected sugar cubes from cafes. She had hundreds from allover Europe. They were usually two cubes wrapped in a small paper packet. Very quaint and evocative of the times. She kept them in a big glass jar.

My own collection as a kid were key rings. These were everywhere in the Sixties and early Seventies and I can still see some of them quite vividly on my mind: the articulated metal fish, the tyre with a compass inside, the small toilet, the skull, the skeleton, the globe, the Esso Blue man, the clasped metal book and the small roulette bowl. I always look out for old key rings in Charity shops to see if they jog my memory.

I also had a go at stamp collecting but wasn't very good at it. I loved the stamps if the late Sixties and early Seventies though and had a couple of albums on the go. I can see many of them still in my mind and they always give me a buzz when I think of names like Magyar Polska [is that right?], Helvetica and CCCP that were written on foreign stamps. I remember getting the Stanley Gibbons guide to stamp collecting one Christmas and probably remember every page, especially the dinosaurs.

I'd love to see that book again!

Were you a collector as a kid readers or someone in your family?