Money in the Boot

Car boot sales: a land of cowboy-hat wearing, banter loving traders of junk right? Wrong. 

This summer, cleverly missing all the seasonal job vacancies after my internship, I returned home, opened my wardrobe and decided I would make my millions like Del Boy; selling my childhood miscellany. I decided, sentimentally, that I couldn’t quite bring myself to part with my box of Barbie’s just yet, so I packed up the rest of my unwanted belongings and packed them snugly into Ralph, my little red Ka.

Yes I had to rise at an abominably early hour on the day, driving bleary eyed to the market. 

Okay I also had to sit in a queue for over an hour because, even at 6AM, it seems to be a universally known fact that no matter how early you arrive at a boot sale, there will always be a queue of cars waiting before you.

Nonetheless, I managed to grab a pretty decent spot next to a man who seemed to trade in hardware tools attending an impressive 3-4 markets a week! I’d like to think we became friends after he offered me some of the raspberries he’d just bought… Later a lady from the stall opposite rushed over, buying a pair of sunglasses from my display. She was so immensely grateful that I had these –on a hot day she’d tragically left hers at home. As I explained to my pitch neighbours that this was my money making scheme for the summer, they quipped that they expected to see me the following week. It seems my dear readers, that I have been welcomed into this dusty community… Trotter’s Independent Traders watch out!

Asides from breaking into this exclusive circle, I spied some other interesting characters. An elderly man wandered past my pitch with multi-coloured hair – I’m not even joking. If anyone does a remake of that McFly song about the girl with 5 colours in her hair, they should look to this guy for inspiration. Old and rocking it…

Or there was the little old lady who stopped by my table to rummage through her handbag looking for a small packet of Extra mints…once she finally found them, she kindly offered me one. Okay so she didn’t buy anything from me, but that’s rather sweet right? Or there was the kid, early teens, who flicked through every game I had repeating “got it…got it…got it”. Needless to say he didn’t find any he didn’t already own.

But some odd personalities did actually buy something. There was the father who bought his little girl a soft toy; a cuddly dog. This was her second choice though. She had originally reached for the fluffy purple unicorn provoking her Dad to say, “That’s a Unicorn – they’re not real.” Her face crumpled; I’m pretty sure her childhood dreams were crushed that day. She settled for the dog.

So asides from the people-watching that would make the likes of J.K.Rowling proud, did I actually make a cash profit, making the early morning worth it? Did I heck. £60 later and I found myself gleefully jingling my money bag home thinking to myself…I wonder how much I could get for those Barbies…