ENDPAPERS

Postal Orders

By LESLIE ADRIAN

LAST year a pregnant friend of Mine who ex- pected to take delivery of her baby before the last posting date for Christ- mas slid cunningly out of the annual marathon in pursuit of presents by sit- ting back comfortably with a pile of catalogues and ordering the whole lot by mail.

Country women, like pioneers of the Wild West, have, of course, been doing this for years, but hitherto it has not been one of the habits of the central urban animal. However,. with traffic threatening to petrify every city in Britain (and shoPs persisting in closing their doors when the working population would most like them to be open), there is no reason why this com- fortable alternative to the annual slog around the shops should be reserved for the pregnant, the country-bound—or the indolent. Especially now that many of the happiest hunting-grounds for Christmas presents, the specialised and idio- syncratic little shops, have joined the Sears- Roebuck club.

'There are so many shops and services all round the country that cater specifically for this kind of trade that it would be impossible to list them all. The mail order firms, of course, do nothing else. Great Universal Stares (Devonshire Street, Manchester 12) will send you a catalogue running to nearly 1,000 pages and covering a range of goods from anoraks to sunlamps.

At the other end of the mail order scale is Peter Saunders (Easton Grey, Malmesbury, Wilts), who specialises in individual service for made-to-measure, colour-matched dresses, tweed suits and coats, shirts, skirts, cardigans, sweaters and slacks. A nice touch about this firm is that they not only give you instructions on how to provide them with the right, accurate measure- ments, but also send you a tape-measure with the catalogue.

Habitat (77/79 Fulham Road, SW3) have started a mail order service this year for the first time and this gives people outside London a chance to buy some, if not all, of the house- hold equipment to be found at that fascinating shop. Read their mail order instructions par- ticularly carefully, however, because they can't send everything that is in the shop.

Abacus (at Dunmow, Essex, and at 57a Priory Street, Colchester, Essex) will send their beauti- fully designed household equipment, their decorative trivia and their appealing toys by mail, though, as with Habitat, there are more goods in their shops than in their catalogue.

It is comforting to know that there are a growing number of reliable toyshops ready to send out helpful catalogues. In addition to the dependable sales literature dispatched by Gaits (Great Marlborough Street, WI), both John Dobbie (19 Church Street, Wimbledon) and The Owl and the Pussy Cat (11 Flask Walk, NW3) will happily send their catalogues to housebound parents and others.

The serious kitchen shops also make it easy for one cook to choose kitchen gear for another by remote control. Both the classic Jaeggi catalogue (write to 232 Tottenham Court Road) and the fine new one just produced by Staines (122 Victoria Street, SW1) are almost encyclo- paedic in scope and copiously illustrated.

I notice a growing trend away from con- ventional book-type catalogues in favour of those broadsheets-cunt-posters which make an engaging decoration on kitchen, office or lava- tory walls. These are worth the effort of writing and the, postage even' if you never order so much as' a sixpenny art nouveau pencil—though they are so cunningly devised that if you sit and stare at them long enough, sooner or later

you will fall for something and have it sent to someone. Predictably enough Trend of Richmond Hill (No. 8) promote their pretty wares this way. So do Goods and Chattels (26 Neal Street, WC2). The difference between them is that Goods and Chattels are a wholesale firm with a difference. They do not sell to the public; on the other hand the public can write for their catalogue (which includes retail prices and stock- ists) but not for the goods and chattels themselves.

Many of the catalogues you get from indi- vidual stores tell you what it will cost you to have each item packed and posted and, in some cases, insured. Heal's (196 Tottenham Court Road, W1), the General Trading Company (144 Sloane Street, SW1), Fortnum and Mason (Piccadilly, WI) and Jenners (Princes Street, Edinburgh) are in this category, but Fortnum's hampers (£6 10s. to 100 guineas) and gift boxes (£2 7s. 6d. to £4 17s. 6d.) are sent carriage paid within the UK, excepting the Channel Islands, and Jenners will deliver free in the UK any order of over £10.

Wine is the perfect mail order article, pro- vided that the catalogue descriptions are accur- ate. A wine list from a small City firm, G. F. Grant and Co. (6 Idol Lane, EC3), says: `The goods contained in this list are guaranteed to be, when delivered, of nature, substance and quality as described. . .

The most extensive lists in my collection are Dominic's Wine Mine (Is. from Aux Caves de France, Horsham, Sussex), which is devoted to wine and music this issue and contains no order form, and Harveys of Bristol, who publish a most elegant list, full of wine lore, but again no order form. Contrast this uncommercial approach with Hedges and Butler (153 Regent Street, WI), who supply an order form and reply- paid envelope. They and J. Lyons (Hop Exchange Cellars, Southwark Street, SE1) are the only two wine merchants I hear from who do this.

Two cheers for Findlater Mackie Todd (92 Wigmore Street, WI) and the Army and Navy Stores, Westminster, who both supply order forms. Other good lists that deserve a mention and an order form are Saccone and Speed, Christopher's, Avery's of Bristol and Edwin Giddings of Devizes.

John Dron (6 Highgate. High Street, N6) put their catalogues out in September, but on wine alone (121-15 per cent below retail) they deserve inclusion. Other items at random are 100 stainless razor blades for £2 and three dozen soap tablets for about 64d. each. Minimum orders for wine are a dozen full or two dozen half-bottles.