Adventures in collecting

I remember a day back in 1994 it was a bright sunny Saturday morning.  Although not always the earliest of risers I was up, washed, dressed and had eaten my breakfast by 8 o’clock in the morning a rarity on a weekend.  Today I was going to the comic book shop in Barnet with my friend Graham.  It had one of the largest back issue collections out of all the shops we generally visited.  Our usual shops in Watford and St Albans were good but this had a much larger selection and I was looking forward to filling some gaps in my collection maybe even finding a rare 1st issue. As long as it wasn’t too expensive that is. I tried not to spend too much on a single comic, my most expansive one cost £40.50 for the 5th ever appearance of the Punisher. Although I actually got it for free with the loyalty scheme Chaos City Comics in St Albans ran. After filling up his drinks bottle and making some lunch I got my bike out of the shed and got ready to go.  Dad was at work still and wouldn’t be back until lunchtime from his milk round and Mum was having a lay in after a late shift at the hospital, so I left a note to say where I was going.

It was 15 miles to Grahams house and then a further 20 miles to the comic book shop.  So off I set down the country lane past the farm near the back of my house.  It was a narrow lane with overhanging trees with the occasional passing bay to allow space if two cars were driving down the road at the same time.  Luckily on my bike it was rare to need to stop and pull into one of these spaces.  There was one occasion when to avoid a speeding car I had to almost dive into the bushes to avoid it.  I got quite badly scratched that day.

At the bottom of the hill I took a left and headed past the duck pond in Letchmore Heath, then a long steady climb before turning past the Aerodrome and the reservoir.  After a timely pulling out onto the busy A41 I headed up the steep pair of hills to Grahams house.  Then off we went to Barnet.  Back down the steep hill the way I had just come and straight past the other side of the reservoir when I had caught crayfish with my Dad when we had gone fishing.  It wasn’t intentional as someone had dumped some crayfish in there and they had bred.  Couldn’t catch any fish that day just crayfish including the same single clawed one more than once.  Dad wasn’t happy about getting them off the hook.  As we headed up the hill which overlooked Borehamwood, we spotted something on the side of the road and decided to stop and take a look.  There was a little dead mouse on the grass.  Rather than leave it out to the elements or predators we decided to bury it.  I found a sturdy stick to dig a hole with and Graham managed to manoeuvre the mouse onto a large leaf with a couple of twigs he found.  Heading back on the road after the burial and stopping at the top of the hill for a drink we had to peddle furiously to cross the A1 then it was all back roads until we headed down to Barnet.  As we passed Barnet’s football ground we talked about seeing the Barnet v Arsenal pre- season friendly and planned to get tickets.

As we got to the shop, we left our bikes outside and went in.  Perusing the new titles that had come in and picking a few that we didn’t already have in our folders ready for collection at Chaos City Comics.  We then headed down the stairs and out the back to the back issues section. Heaven!  I loved looking through the back issues section and could spend hours here.  Over the years I had got a lot of back issues for series I hadn’t even started collecting until I got the earlier copies.  Some I still had hundreds to collect like Fantastic Four and Captain America. Some though I go the entire run of Quasar from a 2nd hand book shop in Notting Hill Gate which also did comics.  They were all 25p or 50p an issue as well so very cheap.  My favourites were Wolverine and the Punisher comics which I already had a lot of but finding the odd issue to fill a gap in my collection was always very exciting.  I got into collecting comics because of Graham.  That’s not quite true actually, I had always collected comics, but they were the traditional English comics the Beano, the Dandy, Buster and annuals like Whizzer and Chips. It was the American comics specifically Marvel that Graham had got me into collecting.  I never really got into DC comics except some Batman but really got into Marvel collecting quite a lot of different titles.  Usually picking up a new title if I could find a lot of back issues in a sequence, I would then start getting the new issues while working my way backwards.

The excitement of finding a hidden gem in the boxes of back issues is huge for a collector. I couldn’t believe it when I found The Punisher number 79 to complete my collection.  Having paid for the comics Graham and I leave the store to head home. As we exit the store we look at where ours bikes were and find one where there should have been two.  My bike has been thrown to the floor and Graham’s is missing.  Stolen.  As we are quite a long way from home and don’t really know the bus routes or even if the buses from Barnet go anywhere near to Graham’s house we decide to call home.  We find a phone box and call grahams Mum.  No Answer. So we call my Mum and ask her to come and pick us up.  I didn’t know whether to be happy my bike wasn’t stolen or upset that my n=bike wasn’t deemed worthy to be stolen in the first place.  When my Mum arrived we had to drop the back seats to fit my bike in and the only way we could all get in the car was for me to lay down in the boot with the bike while Graham satin the front. 

After a quick visit to the police station to report the stolen bike we headed home. With very conflicting feelings on the day.