CSC 2013: St Jude, a Lurker and I raid a convent via Bungay and Fritton

[Ian Townsend]

Saturday 14th September 2013
St Jude turns up on my doorstep at 8.15 with a long-time, zero-post, VG+ lurker in tow ! Cheeky b’stard just stands there and bare-facedly says it!
My thoughts in quick succession are :

• Hate him with a passion.
• Eye him suspiciously throughout the day but play it all friendly-like.
• Rave and coo over records I know are crap and insist he buys them.
• Play down any good / rare / Popsikeable records he gets to first then sneak back and buy them under cover of 'I’m just heading back to take a photograph.'

Content with this game plan we discuss the day. St Jude has decided we’ll dig in East Anglia because it has the best chance of producing Quartz, a not very sought-after local school record that he wants really, really badly. Off we go then.

Our Suffolk spiritual guide Welc Fool informed us of an Emmaus centre at Ditchingham near Bungay and as we pull in we spot the Emmaus logo.


A helpful man there informs us there is a room full of records in the Convent nearby but they’re short-staffed and we must return on Tuesday. Begging fails. Offers of cash are politely rebuffed but there’s a chink of light…..there might be enough staff to let us visit this afternoon! Mobile numbers are exchanged.

Bungay
Bungay is a lovely little village 2 minutes from Ditchingham. Lots of antique shops, a church, a broken castle, a tiny market bandstand thing, restaurants and charity shops. Here's a flavour.






And here's a thing. Charity Shops with records! All of them. Some with lots. And cheap!


All charities have CDs too. I’m making a real effort in this area this year; Private Burns, 90s / 00s Pop CDs... blah blah blah... (stop yawning y'all). Lurker begins digging for records but surfaces minus pearls. Good.


St Jude also passes on everything.


I pick up a lot of CDs here. (Finds round up at the end) We find a stunning assistant in the next shop. No photos unfortunately. Once our eyeballs returned to their sockets we looked again but no luck. The charity shop next door also yielded no records worth buying and I got some more CDs.


St Jude pondered a new pullover. Lurker just lurked around outside like they all do. The bastards.


Another shop…still no records purchased. St Jude mysteriously lost his arms but found a book with his name in and I got some more CDs.


Next we headed for the bank that had converted to being a fancy cake shop and selling antiques .


Spiritual guide Welc Fool told us there was an antique shop in Bungay that sold records. This wasn’t it..but the old safe downstairs was still in situ and provided 5 sconds of fun as I tried to lose Lurker by getting St Jude to shut him in it.


A safe within the safe. Safe!


A further stroll past more converted banks...


…garishly painted restaurants …


....more antique shops...


...and helpful signs...


…leads us to the ominous-sounding Black Dog Antiques where St Jude's already record-less day is about to take a turn for the worse...


...back with the next instalment in half an hour...

[Ian Townsend]

Lots of records to rifle through here but things get ugly fast.


First up, Lurker has bought a goddamned Fisher Price portable with him! (So the plan to wrong foot the b’stard is out the window). And then....
unbelievably... St. Jude finds Quartz! I swing my camera to capture the joyous moment...


And this is St Jude after he discovered the WRONG RECORD INSIDE !!!


We're genuinely gobsmacked at the turn of events. Lurker and I roll our sleeves to help checking every 45, including those in picture sleeves, to see if we can find the record. St Jude gets stuuck in too.


Suddenly there's another heart-wrenching whimper from the ashen-faced St Jude. Another Quartz sleeve, but this one doesn't even pretend to have anything in it.


More misery follows and this picture tells the whole, sorry story.


It's beyond belief …four of the buggers. All empty sleeves! What are the chances of that? Weeping openly, St Jude tries to cheer himslf up by needle-dropping a few potentially interesting looking LPs.




None of them pressed any buttons for any of us but things are looking up for Mr Zero-Post Lurker at least.
First he finds some UK Hip Hop...


...and he had spent yesterday in London looking for a chapati board and roller to no avail. Here in the hell-hole of Black Dog Antiques he found not just one but a cupboard full of them wrappped in Indian newspapers, purchased by the owner when he was in Mumbai.




I pottered about enjoying the local Roller Skating posters from 1953 on the wall and contemplated the entertainment they offered. In pleasant synchronicity there’s a thread on Waxidermy at the moment in praise of Roller Skating 'Rinx' 45s (and truly dreadful they sound too).


....final part heading in after a cup of tea...

[Ian Townsend]

We leave Black Dog dejected, or St. Jude does anyway. He forces a smile on the way to lunch blissfully unaware of exactly where he is and what people will call him from now on.


We head to lunch lunch at Jesters cafe in the shadow of some castle ruins or other to plan our next steps carefully.


For lunch, I celebrated the VG+ Ham and Eggs thread, fully using up the Weight Watchers Activity points that I had earned throughout the week. The Broken Man has Tuna Panini and Lurker had Scampi and we all have chunky chips.


We decide to skip Diss and Gorleston and head straight for Great Yarmouth.

Fritton

En route we saw an Indoor Market advertised at Fritton, an odd place off the main road with cloth-head puppet guardians sat in a wagon at the entrance.


Lurker and St Jude can just be seen in the distance already asking about records whilst I'm nerved out by the puppet head grin.


Lurker beckons excitedly.


A garden shed full of records. Hurrah ! Another Quartz quest is on!


Fritton Indoor Market turns out to be half a Garden Centre with several sheds selling records and books and one walk-in greenhouse allocated to market stall holders selling live birds, tat and old clothes. It’s bizarre.






We have fun and some record luck here though.








St Jude turns up couple of Chaquito Spy Thrillers. Lurker finds a 1990 Bhangra bootleg and gives it to me. He also plays a bizarre 45 that I like which he also gives to me. We are now officially Best Friends Forever and inseparable and if anyone even thinks of saying a bad word about him they'll have to get past me first.


It’s 2.30. We’ve waded through a lot of records and feel that satisfying we’ve just waded through a lot of records and bought some feeling. A quick phone call to our man in Emmaus and we are hot car-ing it back to Ditchingham, mindful we’ll only have three quarters of an hour left to check out what’s there.

The race is on.

[Ian Townsend]

Emmaus at Ditchingham

Knowing I can go here any time I like (it’s 5 minutes from my house) I attempt to slow things down by feigning sickness. St Jude is having none of it. With the dead-eyed stare of a man who has recently suffered the devastating loss of four copies of a Want he hits the gas. We arrive at Emmaus HQ.


We’re escorted down a private road to a beautiful red brick building with an abundance of well-trimmed bushes. It can only be a convent.


The building we’re in used to be part of the convent but now belongs to Emmaus. There’s evidence of God over every high doorway.




We reach a room full of records and boxes of records. Many of the donations appear to be unopened. It’s serious heads-down time so I don’t dither about taking too many pictures.


We’re asked to leave exactly at the point when we’ve speed-rifled everything. St Jude finally gets lucky. It’s not a Quartz but a 12-inch Promo that’s been on his mental wants list for 8 long years. Lurker and I (who have now swapped clothes and done each others make-up) are absolutely delighted for him.


Finds

St Jude Finds






Lurker Finds




My CD finds


My LPs

[moecurlythanu]

Wow Ian, what a country! Your dig would make an awesome vacation for me.

I've got that Moldgreen LP but haven't spun it yet. Doesn't look terribly promising.

[AlanP]

did St Jude at least keep one Quartz sleeve as a trophy? and what was the bleeding promo 12''? you can't be leaving it like that.

ripper yarn but. you even scored a bestie.

[Sie Vulture]

Jeezus H... 4 empty sleeves... that's proper rotten luck... you must have been due some BAD vinyl karma (i doubt it tho'). I'd have sloped off to the nearest pub after that and forget the rest of the day...

(great 45...!)

[eclectiktronik]

Great tale!
commiserations to St. J, FOUR empty sleeves has to be some kind of record (pardon the pun!!!) These things are sent to try us. Reminds me of the time I was on holiday in the Norwich area about a year ago and found these four Quartz 45s, sadly had no sleeves on but in perfect nick. What are the chances of that, eh?!

[babycart]

[B][SIZE=4]the ominous-sounding Black Dog Antiques where St Jude's already record-less day is about to take a turn for the worse...

The ghost of that black cat you both killed last year has a wicked sense of humour.

[mr sayers]

Great write up there Ian mate, a joy to read.

I think I recognise the lurker from Utrecht!

Hayden mate I feel your pain, talk about salt in the wound!

[babycart]

Jeezus H... 4 empty sleeves... that's proper rotten luck... you must have been due some BAD vinyl karma (i doubt it tho').
[/SIZE]

Bad karma is correct, because the basic rules of record digging zen were flouted from the outset...

St Jude has decided we’ll dig in East Anglia because it has the best chance of producing Quartz, a not very sought-after local school record that he wants really, really badly.

If you go out in search of a particular record, it will elude you. St Jude should have cleared his mind of Quartz desire to ensure the sleeves were filled with mint vynils.

[Y1000]

Great read Ian I love seeing interesting places even stuffed with records.

Really bad luck on the Quartz record but with record Karma it looks like St Jude is in for the mother of all finds.

[SirSlim]

Great write up there Ian mate, a joy to read.

What he said.

Though how all 3 of them could leave "her" behind - is beyond me...

[medlar]

Excellent write up, very enjoyable.
As for the missing Quartz, it could be time for Philip Pullman to write another Sally Lockhart yarn:

"The Quartz In The East"

[eclipsechaser]

Excellent write up, very enjoyable.
As for the missing Quartz, it could be time for Philip Pullman to write another Sally Lockhart yarn:

"The Quartz In The East"

and where can one listen to this said quartz track?

great write up by the way Ian.