The annual St Bride Foundation Wayzgoose

On Sunday I had a table at the St Bride Foundation WAYZGOOSE. This is a term (unfamiliar to most people) that used to refer to an annual holiday in a printworks and was often an awayday to the coast or some other sort of day out, more often than not, paid for by the firm. In this instance the St Bride's Wayzgoose was a kind of letterpress 'bring a buy' sale.

There were over twenty different tables displaying and selling everything from lead type to tabletop presses, books and printed examples of work.

Here is the table that I was allocated, where, as last year, I adopted a "throw it all on the table" approach! I took lots of offcuts and discontinued paper and board items. All paper, cards sold by weight - 20 pence per 100 grams.

I served at my 'paper stall' from 11am to 4pm  ...and by the end of the day I had raised £140, all donated to the St Bride Foundation

My neighbours on the table opposite was Caslon. Many readers will be familiar with the typeface, Caslon, first cast by William Caslon in the 16th century. The firm is still run by the Caslon family and there were three generations represented at St Brides on Sunday, pictured below. Today, they supply machinery, inks, powders and the ever popular Adana printing press.

One of the amazing presses on their display is this 'business card' size printing press which is absolutely delightful

My thanks to Mick Clayton for inviting me and to all the staff and friends of St Brides.

http://www.sbf.org.uk/

http://www.caslon.co.uk/html/_adana_letterpress___.html

Posted by Justin Hobson 17.05.2016