London through its charity shops #8: ‘round Clapham Junction
Tucked away round the back of Clapham Junction train station, past the bridge on Falcon Road is a British Red Cross shop, on 11-12 Bramlands Close, seemingly part of the housing estate there. It’s pretty good, reasonably priced. Up Lavender Hill is a Trinity Hospice, small but decent, though I’ve rarely found anything interesting there.
Along St. Johns Road is a British Heart Foundation cramped as usual a but always a fine selection of clothes, CDs, records and books. I’ve often got decent art books there. Opposite is a posh, expensive, ‘vintage’ clothes shop called Ace! The Ace of Clubs Helping the Homeless, which also has some bric-a-brac. It’s possibly the first charity shop I’ve been in where I didn’t feel welcome in and was immediately asked if I wanted any help. TRAID I didn’t go in. Cancer Research, okay. Sirca 6, no idea what charity it represents; always shut anyway.
Onto Northcote Road amongst the posh eateries and yummy mummies is another Trinity Hospice where just about everything is expensive except the CDs, which are £1. Further along, towards the end of Northcote Road are two FARA (one Kids). As usual with FARA, it’s on two floors and pretty funky; men’s clothes, books, records, CDs and DVDs on the bottom; women's and bric-a-brac on the top.
Barngains of the Day: Jonathan Ross, The Incredibly Strange Film Book, £1.50. Based on the show Ross used to present in the 1980s, the book takes an amusing look at porn, exploitation and horror films; WG Sebald, The Rings of Saturn (Harvill Press edition), £2. I don’t know why but I’ve always wanted to read this. Both from FARA.
2019 update
I loved The Rings of Saturn. Funnily enough, I know a writer who started studying literature at the University of East Anglia around the time Sebald died in a car accident near there (in 2001); he had been the lecturer at the university on the same course my friend was on.
Ace! and Sirca 6 have shut down. Another Trinity Hospice has opened on St John’s Road (so two minutes from the one on Northcote Road). I’ve only been in once; there’s no books or music and it’s too posh for the likes of me. My favourite new charity shop is quite a way along Northcote Road: Shooting Star Children’s Hospices Charity Shop is large, tasteful and funky; reasonably priced, nicely laid out and with a fine selection of bric-a-brac, clothes, books and records.