On a very recent trip to London I visited Camden Market for the first time in my life. I wasn’t disappointed. A fabulous day out and the weather was exceptionally good too.

My 13-year-old daughter and I love rummaging in thrift shops and when we came across one in the market we were delighted with ourselves. The first thing I came across was a box of old postcards and used stamps. To say I got excited was an understatement. I pulled out the box, laid down my iced coffee, and got stuck in.

So it’s only a box of old stamps, I hear you say! More than that to me. I’m reigniting a passion for what was my childhood hobby and for the time I spent rooting around in that box, I was back there again!

A lot of the stamps in my fabulous stamp collection came from letters and postcards that I had received from pen pals and my cousin who spent a lot of her young life travelling with her family. She sent me a postcard from every place she’d visited. In the late 1980s, she went on to be an air hostess, which is what it was called back then, more commonly known these days as a flight attendant.

No matter where Louise went, she wrote to me. Many of her letters were written on hotel writing paper. Each and every stamp from those letters and cards went into my stamp album.

I also had many pen pals when I was young and I saved the stamps from their letters too.

My stamp collecting buddy at the time was called Tina Coleman. We took pride in our stamps, we swapped stamps, and often sat just flicking through our collection. When one of us would get a new stamp we’d rush to show the other.

I gave my album away when I was in my late twenties to someone I thought would carry on the collection and treasure it like I did. The album no longer exists!

I’ve thought about it often and the sentimental value of it. So a couple of months ago I decided to start a new collection!

When I was in Italy last month I came across a packet of new stamps in a souvenir shop and I couldn’t wait to get them home to stick them into my new album.

It’s nothing fancy but it’s all I need!

The stamps in Camden Market excited me more because they were old and used. Most of them were still stuck to pieces of envelopes. Some are quite old and interesting. I gathered the ones I liked best (64 to be exact) and paid the guy, while telling him all about my old collection and now my new collection and how excited I was. I’m sure he must have thought I wasn’t all there.

I could have bought them all but the fun part (for me) is the searching for them and collecting them bit by bit. I’m not a serious collector. I like stamps that have been used. I’m not looking for that one stamp that turns out to be worth a fortune. Of course, if I ever do find one that’s worth a lot I’ll not complain.

Used stamps are harder to come by these days, I think. Unfortunately no one writes letters anymore or sends postcards. Do pen pals even exist?

My Collection From Camden Market

I enjoyed answering the prompt today. It was my intention to write a post about my stamps anyway.

Thank you for reading but before you leave…

Do you read fiction? Recent historical 50s/60s?

Take a peek through the first few pages of my novel Secrets in the Babby House. It might just be your cup of tea.

Flossie Lynch is heartbroken when her only love, Frank Connolly, marries another. So when John O’Malley—the well-off catch of the parish—proposes to her, she resigns herself to a marriage of convenience, hoping to learn to love him.
For John, Flossie is mostly a respectable wife and caring mother to their son—and the perfect façade for his dark secret. But bloody Frank Connolly and his blackmailing wife are making things difficult for him.
Another victim of his jealous wife’s abusive behaviour, Frank stays in his loveless marriage for the sake of his two wee girls. He turns his childhood fort into a babby house to give them a refuge from their cruel mother. But for Frank, there is no refuge.
When Flossie rekindles her friendship with Frank, she tries desperately to save him from a life of misery and promises to always look out for his daughters. As the two star-crossed lovers near a second chance, tragedy strikes, forcing Flossie to make good on her promise—while attempting to protect her husband and son.
But as long as there’s a Connolly with a score to settle, there is no escape from the past and no promises for the future.

Set in a gossipy small town in Ireland at a time when marriage is for keeps and sexuality is repressed, Secrets in the Babby House is a family saga over three decades that starts in 1956. It is a story of love, deception, and stolen diaries filled with sins and secrets.

Also available on Rakuten Kobo books.

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