Mixed Joys of Selling Jumble - The victors and their spoils

“If you are free tomorrow", ran the message from my friend, the Cubmistress, “come and sell jumble.” 

I had often been asked to contribute to jjumble sales, and had, in fact, come to regard them as a useful check on hoarding, but this was the first time I had been asked to officiate. My curiosity aroused, I obeyed the request.

Avoiding the dense crowd gathered outside the Scout Hall, I slipped round to the back. The passage was crowded with the larger jumble, and with some difficulty I navigated among decrepit chairs, prams and framed engravings. The main hall seemed startlingly strange with its rows of stalls all neatly ticketed  “Every article 3d", Nothing more than 6d." 

"This way Woolworth's", piped up a cub, Tending me to the 6d stall, I looked with some interest at the amazing collection of men and boys’ clothing spread out before me and puzzled as to their use. Boys’ shorts, shabby but whole, might be welcome but what could be made of white flannels, well scorched across the rear? or of a macintosh slit down the back?” 

"There are some expensive coats hanging up behind,” said my friend, arriving breathlessly, “take charge of those, while we watch the front." I stepped back: and stood guard over a motley array ranging from sealskin to mackintosh, and priced as high as three shillings. 

Suddenly the stentorian voice of the Scoutmaster rang out: 

“To your posts. Ready for the charge."

The large policeman who had been guarding the deor stepped aside, and moved in leisurely fashion down the hall. Behind him erupted a crowd of women, teeth set, faces grim. They threw themselves in a body on the first stall, handling every article with expert skill and tucking those of value under their arms, Money ready, they wasted no time, but raced each other to the next stall and on thothe next.  Our turn came, and we went down under the deluge. 

“Sixpence? 'T don't worth it,” they said, but our piles diminished all the same. 

A buxom woman cast her eye along my row of coats.

“What's that? A fur coat? Let's see it.”.

 I handed it down. It had been sealskin once, but its bare patches were many and its splits more. My customer curled her lip and I withered beneath her scorn.

 “Arf a crown for that: Fall to pieces if you so much as look at it,” she remarked casually.

“Old fashioned,” she snorted" she leant over and dropped her voice, “take a tenner for it.”

I shook my head and she laughed and passed on.

‘Another was handling a boy's overcoat. - “Give you tuppence for it,” she remarked casually. 

"It's a good coat," I protested, “it's marked 1/-." 

“Old-fashioned,” she snorted, " come out of the Ark, that did, Only fit to cut up far a rugs".

I nudged the Cubmistress. he nodded and I accepted the two pennies, but something in my customer's smile as she turned away from me made ue wonder if that rug would ever be made. 

Gradually the rush subsided and as I arranged my remaining coats I was conscious of a familiar face watching me ‘the fat woman was back again, draped with purchases and flushed with victory. 

"Hi she called,"let's see that fur coat again” and once more I spread it before her. In vivid language she expressed contempt of it as she fingered its good silk lining appraisingly, then grinned up at me confidingly: 

“Come on now. I'll give you a tanner." I gave in and she flung it triumphantly over her shoulder. Having won her battle she conceded: "Bet I can cut it up and make ‘summat of it." and passed to engage in battle with the holder of the next stall. Unblushingly she insisted that she was down to her last tanner, holding out an outstretched palm, and I kept silent as to the handful of silver I had seen her take from her pocket.

In half an hour the hall was empty and so were our stalls, In a corner the Scoutmaster began to make up the accounts, and the Scouts, throwing off their unnatural restraint, draped themselves in the rejected frocks and crowned with curious hats danced an impromptu Lancers. 

Slipping away, I made for home end tea, having learnt a new respect for the shop assistant who can cope with a saletime rush.