Back in the summer of 2022 (#106) we shared the paintings of artist Hermoine Burton. A keen amateur artist, her life’s works ended up discarded in a Bedford charity shop where they were spotted by artist Andy Holden, who made them into a short film and exhibition. A few issues later, in autumn 2023 (#112), we shared the home of June Brown, filled with Chinese and Japanese figurines, all lovingly customised, where she wondered what would happen to it all when she died.
This issue we’re sharing with you the happy story of sisters Jackie and Laurian, lifelong collectors who have decided it is time to part with some of their collection, entrusting its sale to Robert at Hayrack Gallery in Upper Stowe.
Kara spoke with Jackie and Robert.
All of the jewellery shown on these pages (not to scale) are or were available at Hayrack Gallery.
When did you begin collecting?
We began when we were very tiny when our grandparents, Anna and Louis, came over from South Africa. My mother had lived in South Africa and my father was stationed in Cape Town during the war, that’s how they met. They both came to England, settling here, and she really missed her parents, but they didn’t come to England for a long time, until after my elder sister, my younger brother and I were born. They came over to England on the boat, the Windsor Castle, and arrived here in January 1961.
It was just for a short visit, but I think, because we were the only grandchildren and they loved us all so much when they met us, that they ended up staying. Two years after that, my little sister, Laurian, was born and grandpa just loved her. She looked just like our mother. So, when we got a bit older, we’d all go adventuring together. He always loved collecting and jewellery was his thing, and old records, so he would start to take us out and about, to bric a brac shops in Northampton, then Portobello, Petticoat Lane and all the little old markets in London.
Grandpa would teach us about things and buy us little bits and to be honest, that’s how our love of jewellery and collectables and lovely things was born. He would tell us all these stories as we bought bits and so right from an early age we were learning. I’m nine years older than Laurian, but it didn’t really make any difference, I think we were just so close that it didn’t matter. She always says, we’re twins, but she was born nine years after me!
After our grandparents passed away, we carried on. Everywhere we went there’d always be a little place, oh let’s go in there, and you’d find treasure and the most beautiful things. Like Czech glass, it’s all handmade. Where would you find something like that now? Because all the jewellery now, to me, it’s all this cheap metal from China. Everything speaks to you when you’ve got old things and they’ve got a tale to tell, and we’ve loved every single era, right from Victorian. It’s just the joy of it all and the driving force behind it all were our grandparents. Grandpa was really nutty and lovely, you know, and a bit mad. He had all this amazing joy and enthusiasm for it all. We’d just have our pocket money, and we’d find something – “Grandpa, do you think this is worth buying?”
Was your grandpa your main source of knowledge? You were buying at a time when things weren’t labelled as they generally are now.
Grandpa had such an amazing knowledge, he knew how things were made, what eras they were, I don’t know where he picked all the info up from, he must have been like that when he was young. Then we, if we were interested, we’d go and find out. I mean, there was no Internet then, so you’d just go and grab a few books. I was always in the library looking, if I saw something particular, and I wondered, where is that from? And it’s like anything, if you love something the info just stays in your head, doesn’t it?
Is there a particular style or era you’re drawn to?
I think our favourite era is probably the 30s because we just love all the Bakelite, we’re into our plastics, old plastics, big time, and that’s what started us off with the plastics. You get to the 40s where you get all the plastic brooches which were sold for the war effort. They were offcuts from Spitfire planes – plexiglass, what they call Lucite – they they would be painted, sometimes airmen would paint them, and then they’d get sold, no two are the same, and people just collect those sometimes. They would be sold for next to nothing but they’ve become so collectable now, and they’re so beautiful, and again, the history, it’s just amazing.
We love our Lucite brooches – the detail of the reverse carving and the delicate painting that has gone into creating these beautiful pieces, each one was handmade in the 1940’s and they all look as good today as they did when they were made.
Is it right to say you’re driven by what you like, not by what something is?
Yes. We have never been driven by fashion or something that has become expensive and sought after. We’ve always gone with what we love and what speaks to us. We had an amber phase, a Butler and Wilson phase…
Always, right from that time and then later, when I was at art school, I was always wearing all my mad stuff and everybody would say, “oh my god, where did you get that?” Because I was in London at Central St Martins, and I could just go off to Portobello and Camden Market and all these places. So it was an absolute joy to be able to carry on, to be in the thick of it.
You mention going through phases. Have you ever gone off something and wondered, why did I buy all this amber?
No, never. We’ve never gone off anything. You don’t consciously do it, you just suddenly think, ooh, have you seen this, that’s nice. Like Léa Stein, we decided we like Léa Stein and so that was it, we were both looking at Léa Stein and loving her work. She’s a Parisian designer and she had two phases of work. One, in the 70s, which was all very intricate and handmade, so it wasn’t really cost effective. She did it with her husband, he designed all the ways of using the plastic, of sandwiching it with all sorts of different things, like fabrics, and each component would be cut and matched. I mean, the work in something like that. The long foxes with the curling tails is her iconic piece, but there are just so many pieces. I think I’ve got about three or four thousand pieces and Laurian is probably the same.
OK. So you’ve got a lot then. A lot.
Honestly, it’s scary. I have a garage full. When we decided to let go of some of it, we spent a few months together going through it. It horrified us to be honest, because it’s a bit like drug addicts, isn’t it? How on earth did we end up with all this stuff?
Presumably, because it’s small. You’d notice a furniture addiction. You get these old rock stars who say how many women they’ve had sex with, and you think, how? Logistically, how? How many is that per week? So how did you get so much stuff?
Everywhere we went there’d always be a little place, oh let’s go in there, and you’d find treasure and the most beautiful things. There’s always a little market and car boot sales used to spring up in the 80s. People those days – there was no Antiques Road Trip, only Roadshow, the high-end stuff – no one really understood the intrinsic value of different things. If they were emptying a family home it was, oh there’s granny’s old jewellery, that’s really old, let’s chuck that out. I think really, maybe we were a bit ahead of our times because we would be able to pick up little pieces for a quid.
Whenever I’ve come across a great collector, it will always arrive at the moment where they say, “I was ahead of my time” and I always feel envious about that, because there was a time when you could be that and I don’t think you can now.
There were jumble sales in villages where you lived and you’d find amazing things.
Do you have a favourite piece?
This brooch dates from the Victorian era and is called a Gold Rush Nugget brooch. It was made around the 1850s when the first gold deposits were found in South Africa. Gold in quartz nuggets were sometimes mounted as bar brooches and given by miners as love tokens. This one was given to our mother [pictured below] by our grandparents just before she left South Africa to come over to England. She was only 19 so it must have been a daunting prospect to make such a journey on her own during wartime. The brooch is a little piece of home.
I’m too scared to wear it, and every now and again I take it out and look at it. I feel honoured to be the custodian, it represents so much of our family history so it always feels far too precious to wear.
Fast forward to today, you’ve spent your lives building this collection and now you are selling it, bit by bit, with Robert here at Hayrack Gallery. How did that happen?
It was a couple of years ago, we were chatting and saying, we really should have a look at our stuff because there’s just so much. Laurian’s son, he’s 27 now, was saying to her, please, I don’t want to have to cope with this, not just yours but auntie’s as well! So, we thought, right, it’s time to let go of some of it.
It is unusual. Quite often you can go in a shop and see a large number of something and it is likely it found its way there after its owner has died. When not discarded, things are usually sold as a collection as a job lot. Did you consider doing that? Selling them by auction?
No, because everything we bought, we bought with happiness. We wanted other people to have something, we wanted it to find a new home and be used. This was the start and because I’ve known Bob a long time he said, “why don’t you come and put some in the gallery?” So we got a load together. Do you remember Bob, that first day when we came with our boxes?
[Robert] When you went through it all, you took some of it back home because you couldn’t part with it.
We did! It was awful. That’s what I did with the rings. I’d come in to help and go, hmm… that’s nice, I’ll just take that home. It would go in the pocket.
We were shocked when the jewellery started doing really well here, because we love it, but everyone who came in was, “oh my goodness, look at all these beautiful things.” It’s almost like being in a museum, but you can buy it.
All the eras of jewellery here are all mixed up together. You don’t need to know anything, just see it and like it. It’s accessible.
Absolutely. We always laugh and say we can quite happily wear diamonds and a bit of plastic. And it doesn’t really matter, it’s not the value, its what we fancy putting on that particular day. And I think it’s what we are drawn to, people have come and said they are drawn to something or, my mother had one of those, oh how lovely, I’m going to buy that.
When we started, all we had was a table display, that was it, the collection just sat on a table, it was nothing like what its grown into, and it was just interesting to see, from my point of view, how people reacted to it. Most people, until I said to them, this is 1930s, they didn’t realise it was 1930s, they just thought it was a piece they liked. Like you bought it because you liked it, they bought it because they liked it.
Because it’s timeless.
You would normally find vintage things in a vintage place. All in cabinets where you can’t see the tickets. I just took it as another product coming in here, how can I make it look the best that it can?
How is it priced? On a factual basis? Has sentiment been removed?
We always try and pitch it sensibly, because you go to these fairs sometimes and see the price of things and think, what?!
I collect dog brooches, little celluloid ones. I’ve got lots of them and I’d pick them up for two or three pounds. Well, they’re £30 now, and that’s when you see them, you very rarely see them. I don’t think I could possibly charge that to anyone because I’d rather they had it for less, popped it on their front and had a good time with it. They [dealers] say, “you can’t get the stock anymore”, but we don’t have that problem!
I think you’ve done the right thing selling it this way, controlling its departure. When I featured the home/collection of June, her concern was not knowing what would happen to it all after she was gone. She liked to think it would go somewhere where it would be appreciated.
One lady came in, she said, “I just wanted to say, the necklace I bought from you, I love it so much, every time I’ve worn it someone comes up and says, ‘how beautiful, where did you get it?’” And I thought, job done really.
It’s given us so much joy doing this, it really has, we’ve loved it. And there’s still more to come!