The past is a different country

So in a previous life I was quite the collector...or as some people (Enid!!) said quite the hoarder!  Anyway I think you may know that I downsized my life and in the process I sold or gave away a lot of my collectible items.  Who can forget my collection of 50 never unboxed pristine 1994-1997 Barbie Dolls! Which by the way really held their value and in fact some of them increased a lot!  But selling them was tiresome and I won't lie I was delighted when I saw the last of them gone to their new owners.

One item I kept - it's small afterall - is my minicall.  I enjoy it for the whimsy of it, such a funny item and very much "of a time", Plus all the memories it brings back of the time I got it (the stories from back then are always funny to reminisce about with Alice and Enid!)

Get a life! Get a minicall!  This was the advertising catchphrase for the pagers.  Said by the heavily  French accented Antoine de Caunes of Eurotrash fame.

This is a photo from the internet of the Benetton branded minicall. Enid owned this!

How we came to own them was that for our 19th birthday Alice gave them to us gifts. 

Very clever of her she bought the Benetton one (which was very very expensive!!) and with it came the black one (mine) for free!

And here is mine now!

Basically how it worked was that I had a pager number.  You'd ring that number and then I'd get a little message on the screen - if I remember correctly it either showed the number of the person who rang me, or alternatively it gave a 1550 number which I rang and I picked up a voicemail from the person via that.

I say "if I remember correctly" because actually I didn't use it that much! Back then you made arrangements and just stuck to them, unlike our pratices today with our mobiles!

I put a battery in it tonight and sadly it is totally dead.

I love the back of it with all the helpline phone numbers etc to ring.

Apparently "Made in Ireland" too!! Surely it's collectible for that reason alone.

There is a funny story about Enid's (designer!) minicall and how it met its demise.  To save her blushes I won't tell it here...it will remain a story for us to have a giggle about over a drink or two on a night out.  It involves CopperfaceJacks...that says it all I am sure ;-)

 

You can read Enid's account of her minicall here

***********************

Next up something else from my past!  These I had not hung on to though.  Instead I came across them recently in Muscat!  Lydia had them for the last few years and God only knows why she took them with her to Oman! But I am glad she did because if they had stayed at home in my parents I am sure Mam would have thrown them out by now.

These are a pair of clogs that I bought when I about 15!  Yes clogs!!!!! CLOGS! :-)

We were on holidays in the Isle of Man and Enid and Aoife bought a pair of plain ones each - Enid's were navy leather, and Aoife's were green suede.  Whereas I went for this really unique white leather with handpainted flowers on them!!  I remember being quite taken with them at the time - ok totally obsessed - I was not going home without them.

So we wore our clogs all of that summer and I remember that then Alice got a pair, plus some girls from our swimming club.  And then when we went back to school in September some more girls got some as well.  We really started a trend!!  But no one had ones like these babies! :-)

They are still in relatively good condition considering they are just 25 years old.  The leather in particular is still quite soft and supple which is good.

I'm tempted to wear them a second time round!!!  Lol.  Maybe with a skirt or dress they'd be nice! What do you think! Maybe they've had their day already?!