If you like your old gold, then chances are you’re familiar with at least one version of the track The Peanut Vendor. I remember Stan Kenton’s version appeared on a Blue Note compilation I bought about 14 years ago - and my mate Dave has a Robert Delgado album (with a hilarious sleeve which looks as if Robert Delgado is actually Eric Morcambe wearing a sombrero ) entitled The Peanut Vendor – and Get Involved hero, Gilbey, included Alvin “Red” Tyler’s version of the track in his excellent Right Place, Wrong Time playlist which you can grab from the Beats’n'Treats section of this site. Actually - you can hear that version by clicking the song title below. A Get Involved percussive classic with an awesome break!
Alvin “Red” Tyler – The Peanut Vendor
Well, look, I’m rambling a bit, because this post isn’t about the track, it’s about a spanky new secondhand shop opened up in my neighbourhood which happens to be called The Peanut Vendor - yes, these are all images of said shop. Photography: Leo Cackett
There’s been a couple of second hand furniture spots in Islington and Stoke Newington for a while although, over the last year or two, it seems they’ve become ridiculously overpriced. Will someone really pay over £400 for a G-plan sideboard? The answer, in Stokey at least, will soon be “hell, no!” - thanks to the arrival of this flippin’ lovely shop, which overlooks Newington Green. In here, £400 will go much further than just one piece of furniture…
The reason your money will go further here is pretty simple: proprietors Barny and Becky get in their van and trawl this fine nation of ours on a weekly basis, seeking out beautiful mid-century classic furniture in places no one else would bother looking – junk shops, house clearance places, auctions and anywhere else they can think of, finding stuff at rock bottom prices that they can lovingly restore. And, as the stock in their spanky new shop attests, they’ve got that most important of assets in the second hand game: a really good eye. Yes, the place is full of the kind of stuff that would make our mum’s and grannies proud (if not slightly bemused) to see ensconced in our homes. We’re talking teak furniture, formica kitchen tables, 70s lightshades, 60s tea sets, collectible valve radios, vintage cameras, bakelite phones, mono record players, modular Danish furniture and, at the time of writing, an awesome yellow Le Creuset fondue set that has to be seen to be believed.
While companies like IKEA are cutting down trees, seemingly on a mission to homogenise domestic interiors – it’s great to see a new shop recycling old, beautifully made furniture and giving us an affordable chance to enrich our home environments with objects that offer genuine charm and a whole lot of style and quality to boot. Bravo!
The Peanut Vendor
133 Newington Green Road
Islington
London N1 4RA
Tel: 020 7266 5727
http://thepeanutvendor.co.uk
