Badges were hugely fascinating to me when I was a kid, and so they remain to this day. When I was still in short-trousers (probably because I’d put holes in my long-trousers doing ‘skidders’ on my knees in the school playground) the local agricultural show (The Suffolk Show) was my primary source of badges. In among the tractor-reversing and fluffiest livestock contests local car dealerships and household brands would give away badges like they smelled of poo and they wanted them off their stand as soon as there was a mug kid passing who would take them off their hands (which was possibly very much the case with the fertiliser companies).
There’s only so much much tee shirt space a pre-teen has available for badges – and there were some really big ‘pancake’ badges about in the 70s and 80s – so I kept my treasured metal badges on a sheet of curtain backing fabric that my mother stole from a local National Trust property. That’s a lie; it was English Heritage. Actually that’s another lie; my mum handmade curtains and I loved to help her but I wasn’t going to admit to that in public, but then I figured ‘why not”; we live in an era where Etsy sellers are considered godlike and folk can get away with flogging a zine made of two bits of spit-recycled bog roll and the hem of a rotting teddy bear for a tenner. I’m out and proud; I enjoyed helping my mum make curtains. Now where were we?
Oh yeah. Badges. Victor Kiam had a shave one day and liked it so much he bought the company who made the shaver. I liked badges so much I started a company that makes badges, and they’re still making them, although now they have fancy machines and people with actual motor-skills rather than me sitting watching Simpsons at 2am making ten badges an hour.
If you need badges go see my old friends at Best Badges Ltd. They’ll do you proud.
Last Updated on February 18, 2023
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