How Betty Pamper's Love Affair With Vintage Began

I just can't pass a charity shop

I was eight when I brought a black medical bag from a jumble sale. Made of cracked black leather with a sweat worn handle it looked to have previously been owned by a district nurse.

The Medical bag

It contained a tiny notebook and pencil, a thermometer and most intriguingly of all a catholic relic.

The tiny white folded paper was about the size of a sachet of salt. Still visible were the words “this cloth was touched by the holy tongue of Saint Anthony of Padua”

Inside it was a tiny yellowing piece of linen about a centimetre wide.

I often looked at this tiny scrap, wondering if it really had been brushed against a dead saints spittle.

Should I lick the saintly lint?

I couldn’t help wondering if I licked the dried spit of a holy man would I become  saintly? Perhaps it would give me magic powers, at the very least I might exude a faintly charismatic air of religious piety.

Would Saint Anthony give me special powers?

On the other hand even at eight I was aware that it was quite a revolting idea.I could make myself ill, or worse awaken an old strain of TB. What had Saint Anthony died of? Was it contagious, dare I risk it?

Don't do it, don't lick the lint

Displaying a strain of curiosity and recklessness which would blight my adult life, I of course licked the dead mans lint.

I can now fly 
(that last part may be a lie-the rest is true)
What started your love of things with a history?