British Heart Foundation

This British Heart Foundation shop has quite a large floorspace, and quite a lot of stock. It’s a cheerful place, I heard hoots of laughter coming from the back room where the ladies who volunteer were trying on hats they had been donated and were finding it very funny. British Heart Foundation have reasonable prices too; unlike some charity shops which I think rather cheekily charge proper money for their stock, BHF keep their prices low. I got a cashmere jumper for £3.99 — bargain. I should imaging that the disposable fashion of Primark and the like has probably been a bit of a problem for charity shops; people no longer feel like they are getting a good deal if they buy a shirt for £3.50, because they know they could get a new one in Tesco or Primark for the same price. Likewise, when they are donated stock that originally came from those places, how can you charge even a small amount of money when they barely cost anything in the first place. I suppose it just means that charity shoppers have to keep a keener eye in order to make sure they are getting the quality stuff.

After having sauntered my way along Hove’s infamous George Street I have to say that a charity shop really has to pull something amazing out of the bag these days to impress me, eccentric and engaging staff or men’s clothes in a size other than large for example. This particular british heart foundation has a good music and book section. Yet again I found a selection of albums that I wanted so badly through my student years but had to make do with copies of, all priced at two pounds a pop.
It wasn’t impressive though (a counter argument would be that charity shops are not a competition but a series of reputable and good causes that should be supported on that basis alone rather than pitched against one another). The clothing seemed to be mainly ladies and yet again it was neigh on impossible to find a wearable gents shirt in any size other than huge.
These things change though so it may be worth another trip.

I was strolling around Lewes the other day, and as soon as I saw the British Heart Foundation, I had to enter. This was another opportunity to browse through their book selection in hopes of finding that one rarity that I’ve been looking for.
I didn’t find a rarity, but I did find «The Turn of the Screw and The Aspern Papers» by Henry James. It was so cheap that I had to pick it up. There was a good selection of classics, fantasy, science fiction and crime novels, and a few choices of mainstream fiction. All in all, I was pretty impressed with their book selection.
I also browsed through their clothes, and although I didn’t see anything that caught my attention, I found their clothing selection to be better than other charity shops.

I have become a bit of a charity shop connoisseur of late, and having this Unilocal job has meant that I have actually gone into each one, instead of walking past like I perhaps would have done before. Each time I enter I am a bit blown away by something in every one, sometimes I may be blown away by lots of things like I was in the St Vincents on Lewes Road, or just by a singly, hidden away little gem.
This time though, what I really loved about this one, was that they had alphabeticalised (my own word) the books, so it was really easy to search for what you wanted. There was a really good selection of Dicken’s classics; Bleak House, Pickwick Papers, as well as an eclectic mix of Dan Brown kinda stuff and Yoga books.
Also, there was strangely a notably good selection of women’s shoes and boots, so well worth a look, as I bet somewhere there is an absolute diamond.

This is a huge charity shop– not as big as the Lewes Martlets, review to come– but still large and full to the brim. It’s so exciting walking into a well-​stocked charity shop… the things you might find! This BHF has just about every category of item that charity shops ever sell: an area for men/women/children’s clothing, cds, dvds, several bookcases of books, a whole wall of shelves filled with homewares, even a shoe section. They have a particularly good bookcase with crime books.