By Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 35px; color: #8cc7d0;”] A [/dropcap]sk Bill Abrahams how his obsession with op-shops, thrift shops and secondhand stuff began and he pulls out a memory from deep in his early childhood.

“It began with these little teapots. I was about three or four – very young – and my mother (Warrnambool artist Marie Cook) would buy them for me in the op shop. The op shop ladies started to keep them aside for me, actually, because they weren’t very exotic teapots, just those little metal ones,” Bill recalls with a laugh.

“They became my friends, these teapots. I would hang out with them, talk to them, and my grandfather built me a little red wagon so I could take them for walks.”

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The slightly eccentric little boy grew into a slightly eccentric young man who, during his senior high school years in Warrnambool, distinguished himself by wearing elegant costume jewellery – marquisette brooches, diamante-studded pins, that sort of thing – on his school jumper.

“I don’t think the teachers knew what to do with me, to be honest,” he laughs.

“It was clearly not part of the school uniform, but I think it was easier just to ignore it, or maybe they thought it was cool, I don’t know.”

Bill’s avant-garde dress sense as a schoolboy in the 90s was more than just a push-back against authority, however, it was also a statement about his sexuality.

“I came out in high school and I was getting picked on anyway, so I thought, oh well, I might as well just wear what I like,” he says.

It was the beginning of a melding between Bill’s emerging identity as a gay man and his love of beautiful, secondhand objects, be it clothing, linen, jewellery, ceramics, furniture, glassware or kitsch memorabilia.

“After I moved to Melbourne (to study art history) I worked in a gay-owned op-shop in Fitzroy that was simply amazing. On a Monday, all of the drag queens would bring in these amazing outfits that they had last worn at the weekend, looking for something new,” he says, smiling.

“But it was also an education for me. I would listen to the older guys – and they were all guys that worked there for some reason – talk about what it was like for them as young gay men, when AIDS was first around and about the whole gay scene around the commission flats.

“It was incredible to listen to those stories.”

Unfortunately the op-shop went broke after, as Bill tells it, spending “too much on polished concrete floors and chandeliers”.

Bill is now 33, back in Warrnambool and studying for a teaching degree, but he remains one of the best known faces around the top four op-shops: the Salvos thrift shop, St Vinnies, Lifeline and the RSPCA shop where he also volunteers.

“It is an obsession, no doubt about it. I get really upset if for some reason I can’t go, because you never know what might be coming out that day,” he says.

Bill is compelled to visit at least one op shop every day, even when on teaching rounds, during which he manages a brisk walk (he doesn’t drive) after school to the CBD, where he can often squeeze in an hour of browsing before they close for the day.

The workers all greet him by name and he, in turn, knows the routines of the op shops right down to when they put their fresh supplies of linen out on sale (sorry, I have to keep that a secret…).

Bill credits his great aunt, Betty Beavis, and his grandmother for giving him a collector’s heart and a stylist’s eye: he knows the good stuff, like the cedar wood, Georgian-period chest of drawers that popped up at the Salvos for $100. It is still his greatest find, in terms of value.

Some treasures he collects to sell for fun through his etsy store , providing funds to spend back in the op-shops, while other collectables, clothing and jewellery are just too good not to keep.

“I can’t show you my bedroom, really I can’t. It is embarrassing,” Bill explains, before relenting and allowing me a quick peek.

Yep, it is “busy”, but not overwhelming, and there are objects of great beauty and whimsy: a wedding cup from the 1800s, a stunning glass jug, designer dresses from the 1940s…

“I see it as recycling,” Bill says.

“And anything we can do that helps reuse and recycle, well, that has to be a good thing.”

[box]Bill recently sold a large range of his costume jewellery to Channel 7 for use in its period drama series, A Place to Call Home, starring Noni Hazelhurst. His op shop finds are now finding buyers from around the world. You can visit his etsy store, The AsFoundEmporium, here. [/box]

By Carol Altmann

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] F[/dropcap]or a dedicated op-shopper and sucker for the secondhand like me, walking into the Fletcher Jones Markets is overwhelming to the senses.

And I am not the only one.

Since Bluestone Magazine moved into a small office above the markets, I have been privy to the comings and goings of the dozens of people who venture in for a look around. And they all do what I did on my first visit: stop, stare and sort of slowly exhale when they realise this is second-hand heaven, market Mecca, op-shop overload.

“When I first saw the place, I fell in love with the place,” says stallholder Eric van der Wal, a retired federal public servant who has collected antiques all of his life and is now selling off a few pieces as a hobby.

Eric is one of 26 different stall holders who, between them, have filled two levels of what was once the Fletcher Jones factory floors with an eclectic and colourful variety of collectables, antiques, clothing, vintage, vinyl records, ephemera, furniture, dining wear, trinkets, soaps, wind chimes, musical instruments, artworks and a mind-boggling array of bits and bobs.

“People can wander through here and find something whether they are a serious collector, or whether they are just looking for some nice little piece to take home that is cheap,” Eric says.

But it wasn’t always as alluring.

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] M[/dropcap]any of the stallholders remember the “difficult days” when the markets were part of the Mill Markets group, run by the then-owner of the Fletcher Jones complex, Ian Ballis, whose company went into administration in mid-2012.

While the future of the Fletcher Jones site hung in the balance, the markets stalled and then barely clung on as the derelict factory began to continue to fall apart around them.

But then businessman Dean Montgomery, who hails from Geelong but now lives in China, bought the 2.3ha site in early 2014 and began an entirely new chapter for the factory.

Fears the markets would be “moved on” were not only put to one side, but the entire space has seen significant amounts of money spent on repairs and making the markets look clean, water-tight and professional.

As one stallholder says, snapping her fingers, “we were so used to being told things would get done and they would never happen, to now being told something will get done and it happens like that!”

[dropcap style=”font-size: 60px; color: #A02F2F;”] O[/dropcap]n-site manager Troy Kelly, who began 12 months ago, said the markets were part of the long-term vision for the complex, which will centre on the Warrnambool Motor Museum that is now under construction at the far eastern end.

“We would hope to continue to make the markets bigger and better as part of a mix that will bring a whole variety of different people here, and who can make a day of it,” Troy explained.

That mix will include the car museum, scheduled to open in 2016, the markets, the art studios at Factory Arts, and the new Outlaw Gallery, all overlooking the refurbished Pleasant Hill gardens that now have the help of paid gardeners provided through Western District Employment Agency (WDEA).

“In just the time I have been here we are starting to see a real increase in foot traffic and that is only going to get better,” Troy said.

Eric has noticed the same shift.

“Everything is looking and feeling a lot better,” he says.

“There is so much enthusiasm around what can be done and it is great to be a part of that.”

[box]The FJ Markets are at the western end of the Fletcher Jones factory, Flaxman St, Warrnambool. Open seven days from 10am -5pm. You can also find them on Facebook here.[/box]

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Discovering another gem of an op-shop – Cobden

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