Please Enjoy Responsibly
This week I posted the Please Enjoy Responsibly! picture to the HP Sauce gallery. This particular idea came to me late last summer as we were enjoying one of our many barbeques out on the patio with HP Sauce (of course) always at the ready. One can’t promote such a wonderful sauce without being somewhat socially responsible right? I decided then that I’d save every bottle until I thought I had enough bottles for the picture. Now that its seven months and eleven bottles later, I figured the time had come.
It wasn’t an easy seven months for those bottles. At first I thought I’d put them next to the recycling bin and simply keep from throwing them in with all the other paper & glass that makes their way to the curb every week. That didn’t last. About 3 - 4 bottles in and the next thing I knew I was going through the recycling at the curb trying frantically to find all the bottles before the truck came. What to do then with some empty HP Sauce bottles that I didn’t want throwing out just as I was on my way to work? I put them into the trunk (boot) of the car, that’s where! And that’s where they gathered. Over the course of the winter I would sift through the recycling and throw them into the trunk one by one before going off to work. That was until this past Sunday when I opened up the trunk to collect them at the puzzlement of my son. I know I’ll have some explaining to do when he’s older I’m sure! lol Either way, I hope someone out there enjoys the photo half as much as I did taking it.
I’m still working on collecting any print related HP Sauce advertising. I’m finding this kind of activity can be a very slow and solitary process, but one that can be rewarding when finding the right item. More on that in a bit…
This week during my lunch hour I browsed through a nearby antique shop. It’s one I’ve gone by many times but always overlooked. It’s one of those places that doesn’t really grab you until you have a purpose for being there. I entered the shop and an older man with a long white beard greeted me. “Hello, what can I do for you?” he asked. “I’m wondering if you have any sort of HP Sauce materials whether it be advertising, bottles etc..” I said while pondering how much better I’d got at asking that question since I first sought out on this ‘journey’. The first time I had got up the nerve to ask an antique dealer this question, he answered sharply and negatively before storming off in the opposite direction! “HP Sauce eh?” the man pondered. “I’ve been in the business a long time but that’s a new one for me!” I stifled a chuckle. “Sorry no..” he added. “I don’t have any HP Sauce items in here at all, and I would know too…I love HP Sauce!”. I laugh “It was worth a shot though wasn’t it?”. “Yup, you never know.” he said as he turned away.
I browsed around the shop for a while looking through some old magazines and books when I overheard him on the phone talking to another dealer - asking him if he had any HP Sauce items! Perhaps this question had piqued his interest. Unfortunately his phone contact hadn’t any HP items either but still, I had put a thought into someone’s mind which without my asking would surely never otherwise crossed his mind. I left the shop empty handed but content none the less.
While I continue to scour local antique dealers & flea markets, I’ll continue to display on the site what items I’ve found thus far. Today I’m uncovering the new HP Sauce Advertising Gallery where I’ll post print advertising etc. This gallery contains some HP Sauce adverts from the 1920s & 1930s including the Chatelaine advert from my previous post. Enjoy!
Back to rewarding activities…
What keeps me going with this site isn’t so much the items themselves, although they are sometimes quite unique; it’s knowing that perhaps someone else might also enjoy sharing this very niche bit of history with me and with that I’d like to thank Mandy for her kind words in the Nursery Rhymes - with a dash of sauce page. 
