Tip Top

I love old jokes. Once I hear a gag that cracks me up, I don't forget it (or stop repeating it). I still like the one I got from Bazooka Joe on a bubblegum wrapper:

"Every time I'm down in the dumps, I get a new outfit!"
"Oh, so THAT'S where you get them!"

I am here to tell you that going to the dump can yield some great finds! With that wonderful precision of language, the British call what we call "the county dump" a "rubbish tip."  And a man named David Rose has found a top hat and cigar once owned by Sir Winston Churchill in one of those tips. The stogie and the topper were found with a cigar case and letters that gave up a lot of details of the former prime minister's daily life, have been valued at £10,000.  And that's 12,678.65 American semolians.

David Rose (not the bandleader who topped the Top 40 in 1962 with "The Stripper,") found this Churchilliana at work. He works in a dump and he was glad to show his loot off on the BBC show Antiques Roadshow.


The items were gifts from Sir Winston for the cook, and included a signed photo of the politician himself. The letters (200 of them!) were written by the cook to her son, and gave us a look inside Britain in Churchill's days. "She used to write to her son every day about the daily goings of Winston Churchill, what he was getting up to, how he was feeling and just interesting stuff about him," said Mr Rose.

The sad news is that Mr Rose is not giving up the location of this goldmine in a dump. He's worked there for 15 years and is squirreling away his cool haul for the future.

With any luck, he'll find a cache of Benny Hill's old getups.