Around the turn of the millennium, Oxfam opened a charity shop like no other. Like regular Oxfam shops, Oxfam Originals, on Oldham Street, Manchester, sold second-hand clothes, except the stock was aimed at fashion-conscious customers. It was – and still is – more Carhartt than C&A and more Diesel than Debenhams.
HX7 ( Hebden Bridge ) is probably the coolest postcode in Yorkshire although you could reasonably argue for LS6 (North Leeds) or S3 (Kelham Island, Sheffield ). With that in mind we sent Dave – a man whose ‘coolness’ exists only in his head – to the RSPCA charity shop in Hebden Bridge town centre. Charity shops are still supposed to be thrifty even if their customer base stands nonchalantly at the hipper end of the scale.
We told Dave to see what he could buy for a tenner. Except he got carried away and spent £17.50.
Here’s what he bought. READ MORE: The mysterious magical stones taller than Stonehenge hidden next to the A1 First let’s clear one thing up. Some charities circulate their stock between their shops.
RSPCA Halifax, Huddersfield, Bradford and District Branch transfers its stock from shop to shop within its patch area every 10 days. That’s what a member of staff at the Hebden Bridge shop tells me. Therefore the stuff for sale on Bridge Gate, Hebden Bridge, isn’t necessarily cooler than what’s for sale on Queen’s Road, Halifax.
The main difference is the shop in Hebden Bridge doesn’t sell furniture because it’s on a flood-prone s.