At about age 13, this was Fay’s first taste of organising a fundraising event… and it led to a lifetime of raising funds and working to help others.
Fay decided she needed a project during the summer holidays. Not only did she come up with the idea of organising a jumble sale to raise funds the Guide Dogs for the Blind Association, she also gathered up all her friends, and her sister and her friends, and convinced them that this was also how they wanted to spend their summer holidays! Hours were spent at the typewriter printing up leaflets to go through doors, posters and signs were made, dates were set, and the family garage at Robslee Road was gradually converted into the jumble sale HQ.
The gang split into teams and went round the neighbourhood on the pre-arranged date, ringing doorbells to collect any jumble that people wanted to get rid of. And boy did they want to get rid of stuff! The garage rapidly filled up with jumble and the massive task of sorting and pricing followed. There were some very strange donations of jumble – memories of a canoe being donated are still very vivid! (Unsurprisingly the canoe did not sell at the jumble sale, and it lay in the back garden at Robslee for weeks on end while Fay’s mum and dad tried to figure out what on earth to do with it.)
This jumble sale became the first of many – it was a summer tradition for a few years, and they got bigger and better each year, adding on other events like craft fairs and balloon releases.
What amazing, and long lasting, memories we all have from those days. Most of the kids who went to Robslee back in the early 80’s will remember the jumble sales and the fun we all had. Without realising it, we learned how to work as teams, we gained a bit of independence and got to know our neighbours by going round the doors, we had fun running the sales on the day, and at the end of it we got to go and present a big sum of money to a charity. All thanks to Fay and her ability to dream big and make things happen.
