Rag and bone

My vintage cutter quilts at the Frome RAG market

The cry " rag and bone"  from a moving vehicle cruising down suburban streets was as familiar as the chimes of an ice-cream van as a feature of English life for decades, and even up to the 1990s in our part of West London.  

The Rag and Bone man was the original recycling system in the UK. As the very slow vehicle, in my childhood it was often horse drawn, wandered slowly down your street you came out with "any old iron" the variant on the cry. And as you disposed of old unwanted household articles, usually metal stuff like old metal bedsteads, prams, etc the driver would give you a goldfish in a bag in exchange - as it was often children who were sent to the front gate with the 'rubbish' - that didn't actually have to be metal. But 'rags' were just as acceptable because old fabrics, could be sold onward for reuse by factories. 


Actually although this is a true version, it's not totally my recall as I lived most of my childhood behind bars ( not in prison but in RAF married quarters which were usually protected from itinerant  sellers). However even when grown up and living in civvy street in the 1970s onwards the Rag and Bone man was a regular fixture. People would greatfully give him their old fridges, boilers, washing machines etc which the local council rubbish collection would not accept without cost. In fact when we were living in Ealing in the 1980s and were refurbishing a lovely Edwardian house, we temporarily removed a very pretty iron grate from the kitchen to enable some cleaning and came home from work one day to find that the children's nanny had given it to the Rag and Bone man - aaaaaaah!


So what has all this to do with the RAG market in Frome? 


Everything and nothing, except it is a form of recycling in the same way. But these days the buyers are lucky recipients of a wonderful array of scrap and sale fabrics from antique treasures to mid-century marvels of modern design. You could find 1950s curtains, patchwork bundles, 1930s silk parasols past their best but still retaining a soft beauty and many other treasures aching to be used, reused or just displayed in a decorator's dream. And of course old patchwork and 'cutter' quilts as in my photo above.


I was so delighted when one prospective buyer asked, " Do they have to be cut up?" 


Of course not!  It's just a silly phrase for describing quilts past their best and perhaps better cut up and used in other projects. But all of the quilts I had on sale could easily have been brought back to full use by some TLC.  I was so pleased by the positive reaction to all these quilts from my much loved collection. And so happy to pass them on to younger hand made and vintage enthusiasts.


PS All of my quilts in the photo sold on the day - hurray!