Searching for diamonds in the rough in Belgium’s second-hand shops
There’s a recycling and re-use shop behind the railway station in Tournai. It’s one of the few places in town these days where “everyone goes and has a natter, whoever they are”, says Christian, a regular. “Everyone apart from Elon Musk and the wretched of the earth”, he jokes. What brings them together? “The stuff we chuck out of our attics: crockery, books, old clothes, statuettes of dolphins…”
Obsessed with the Mess
The French title is ‘La passion des brols’. ´Brol’ is a word in Belgian French implying a messy collection of disparate objects, often in reference to flea markets (of which there are many in Belgium). In British English, the term ‘jumble´as in ´´jumble sale´ sale’ gets closest to it.
Recycling and re-use shop
The word in the original is “ressourcerie”. Thrift shop is another possible translation used here.
Natter / Caff
The register in French is demotic with a hint of Belgian slang. We've used colloquial British English to convey that. So, “natter” – which means to have a chat; and “caff”, which is a cheap, traditional restaurant and, in this context, a better analogue for “bistrot”.
“I was supposed to be going to the post office today. But—I can’t say why—my car just stopped here”. And so, this morning, Christian—a man of seventy-three—is “doing his rounds” amongst the vases, the tea sets and a little model cherub. “It’s an addiction, for sure. But look, I’m not going to start psychoanalysing myself, or I’ll end up spending twenty years on the couch”. Christian catches himself: “I’m less obsessed with this stuff than I used to be”. The former manager of a skills agency training centre used to spend his time foraging for bargains—which he’d then sell. “In my time, I’ve found vases I could sell for a hundred times what I paid for them. Early nineteenth century ceramics from Belgium or France”.
