If only I had known at the time - hindsight is a wonderful thing...

[malumbu]

AS a kid I lived near Tolkein before he left this mortal coil. One of his near neighbours would get the geeky kids signed copies of his books. Watching Antiques Roadshow rather surprised as how valuable these can be.

Other anecdotes? Please no no no no no ones about if only I had bought this property at that time.

[rendelharris]

Picked up a signed first edition of Siegfried Sassoon's Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man in a secondhand bookshop in Cambridge for 50p in about 1988. Loaned it to a girlfriend, we broke up, never got it back. Could have been my pension, that...

[Lynne]

Met someone who went to hear J K Rowling when she visited Dulwich Books before anyone had heard of her. Got a signed 1st ed. from her, children read it, gave it away.

[flocker spotter]

malumbu Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> AS a kid I lived near Tolkein before he left this

> mortal coil. One of his near neighbours would get

> the geeky kids signed copies of his books.

> Watching Antiques Roadshow rather surprised as how

> valuable these can be.

>

> Other anecdotes? Please no no no no no ones about

> if only I had bought this property at that time.

I will not mention I considered the Georgian house on the rye/colyton road end at 250K then

[Jules-and-Boo]

what a self pitying post

[flocker spotter]

Don't you have some curtain twitching to be getting on with ?

[JohnL]

Traffic Offence when I was 18 and the lawyer tells me it'll cost a few hundred pounds to defend me but he'll win.

"I'll be conducting my own defence"

[malumbu]

I went to see the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre (for some reason generally banned in the UK at the time, ie given no certificate), rather than see the Pretenders Supported by UB40, both at their peak. Ignore the score in IMDB, it was sheet.

[Jules-and-Boo]

... the wrong guy....

[FriendsOfTheTerrapin]

Back in the early 1970's my Mum and Dad bought a house in Wandsworth off a band mate of Roy Wood (The Move, Wizzard etc.). They were shown round the house and commented on one of bedrooms that had been painted entirely purple - walls, ceilings, door, window frame, everything - and were told that Jimi Hendrix was a good friend and often stayed over. This was his room apparently.

Upon moving into the house M+D proceeded to renovate everything, including the loo which was across the landing from the Purple room. They removed an overhead cistern, loo, and the unfashionable wooden loo seat, installing one of those fetching, and much more fashionable, avocado bogs.

Dad safely stashed the wooden loo seat away in the loft, and in the many subsequent house moves that they undertook always kept Jimi Hendrix' bog seat close. Imagine his dismay when during another move and renovation, he was out of the country, and the builders skipped Jimi's bog seat!

Not quite hindsight, but would have possibly cheered up an episode of Antiques Roadshow...

[Sue]

:(

[FriendsOfTheTerrapin]

In 1981 I nearly ran over Andy Summers from The Police on the A205 in Putney...

With hindsight, had I not swerved and missed him, maybe Andy would not have written the iconic guitar riff to Every Breath You Take, and Gordon Sumner would have returned to Teaching...

:)

[Alan Medic]

I don't want to be a spoilsport, but if you knew something at the time which might have helped you, when would you ever learn anything from the experience?