Let’s crowd-fund a book celebrating the “Great British Rubbish”

The story goes as such, a museum run by Stella Mitchell, an esteemed ephemera collector - she has been collecting British ephemera for over 40 years, and her archive of thousands of items, is a truly unique portrait of British society through the goods we throw away - and a Kickstarter campaign.

“Help us to capture this museum’s incredible collection of rubbish in a not-so-throw-away, beautiful book” says Patrick Fry of this campaign. The task is to publish a 272 page case-bound book celebrating the collection of the Land of Lost Content, a museum dedicated to British ephemera.

The book will contain 50 beautifully photographed items from the collection, each with a short story, as well as a visual tour of the museum and essays from Professor Teal Triggs and Dr Robert Banham. It will be a collection of tales from the past that is hidden and tucked away in rural Shropshire, in a town called Craven Arms.

The Land of Lost Content is a well kept secret. This independent museum containing Britain’s foremost collection of pop culture ephemera, obscure objects and ordinary things from the pre digital era, is the work of a lifetime eccentric artist and compulsive obsessive collector Stella Mitchell.

“This museum is the result of a lifetime’s work” says Mitchell. “I realised when a student, that other museums were ignoring the lives, experiences and possessions (and the hopes and dreams) of the ‘ordinary’ people of Britain. I was always fired with the desire to right this wrong; and fuelled with the artistic need to create something of merit that might just knock a few peoples’ socks off! My husband Dave and I opened our first museum to the public in 1991 – we have run it on a web of shoestrings ever since – no sign of funding (but we didn’t look for it too hard). 99% of the collection has been chosen by me over about 45 years and increases daily – and the displays are reconfigured and updated annually” she adds.

“We are splitting the funding up to help finish the book, print copies and pay the contributors a small fee. We don’t intend to make any profit on this project, it really is a labour of love and a chance to celebrate this amazing museum.”

Save the memories here.