Page 36 - Alan Blakeman Collection catalogue
P. 36

 73. LEICESTER LABELLED HEADACHE DRINK BOTTLE. 10.9ins tall, mid blue glass, short neck, wide gloppy lip. Large front paper label features
 a full masted sailing ship promoting BUTLERS/ SEA BREEZE/ SALINE headache drink. Jack Feast told me the original tiled
 shop facade still stands in Leicester featuring the same image. Some label wear. 8/10. NR. £60-80+
  LABELLED FOR LIFE - ALMOST!
When BBR kicked off it was big local, even National, news - very quirky that a promising teaching career was to be ditched to follow a passion for collecting empty bottles!
AB was featured in the Times, the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Daily Mirror and even the Sun newspapers. Not many bottlers can lay claim to being on page three of the Sun?
Alongside the familiar image of a poor female, clearly unable to afford all her clothing, I was on the tall thin right hand column with the title TEACHERS GOTTA LOTTA BOTTLE. Worse, my little paragraph of fame was lodged between a mugger above, and a rapist below, lol. Didn’t keep the cutting, but can recall the lady to my left. One of the best photographs appeared in the Daily Mirror,
their photographer made me carry outside loads and loads of my collection to lay on top of doors and table tops (we were in the middle of building work) all raised about three feet off the ground so
I could crawl underneath and pop my head up. The photographer climbed up the large ladders by the side of the house and took an aerial shot to create a fantastic shot. Unfortunately can’t source it, drat! My youngest son Simon calls me Mr Chronicle as in early years I was very quick to get free publicity to promote the business with any story I could drum up for some coverage.
After reading a feature a local lady called to say she had some “bottles with labels on.” I duly arranged to pop in to Barnsley to see them on Thursday after work, it was the only free night I had from teaching
three night classes.
For some reason the Wednesday class was cancelled so I shot through, a night early, and found the terraced house near Barnsley town centre and knocked on the door. What to expect?
The elderly lady shouted “who is that?” I gave her my name. “You’re coming tomorrow” she said, without opening the door,so I explained why I was a day early.
She opened the back door and invited me in to the kitchen where she was in the process of cleaning the bottles before I arrived next day. My jaw dropped! Five of the half dozen tall blue bottles were standing upside down on the draining board, shiny clean, just ONE bottle left with the stunning pictorial label for
Butlers Sea Breeze Saline Headache Drink - she’d washed the others off!




















































































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