Nobody's Children

During Ceausescu's rule of Romania, attempts to boost the country's population included a ban on abortion and contraception.  This led to thousands of unwanted children being abandoned by their parents.  With their already pitiful resources orphanages were unable to cope and the result was an unimaginable toll on the physical and mental health of a huge number of Romanian children.

At the end of 1989 Ceausescu and his wife were executed after the government was overthrown. The wider world became aware of the terrible conditions in these hundreds of orphanages and the suffering that was taking place.

Many charities were spurred into action and many new charities formed.


George Harrison's wife Olivia founded the Romanian Angel Appeal (RAA) along with the other Beatle wives Linda McCartney, Barbara Bach and Yoko Ono.  Together with a raft of friends and contacts they organised a fundraising album called Nobody's Child in 1990, a copy of which I found at one of yesterday's car boot sales for £1:

Nobody's Child - Romanian Angel Appeal (1990)

It consists of fourteen songs "donated" by an array of musicians including Elton John, the Traveling Wilburys, Eric Clapton, Stevie Wonder and the Bee Gees, but the crowning glory of the album must surely be the epic "Civil War" by Guns 'n' Roses.  I was in high school at this time and thoroughly obsessed with G'n'R.  I remember that this song was also used as the b-side to the single "You Could Be Mine", which I still have somewhere on cassingle!

The RAA Foundation was registered in Romania in 1991 and continues it's work with vulnerable children to this day.  Since a secondhand purchase of the LP wasn't really in keeping with the original spirit of the album I donated £10 to UNICEF, one of the RAA Foundation's partners/sponsors.  You can too here.  Here's "Civil War".

Reckless Life

I love looking for old records for many reasons.  Primarily it's a cheap and interesting way of discovering new (old) music.  It's not free like streaming or torrents, but I find when faced with the vastness of Spotify I often don't know what to listen to, or where to start when I'm in the mood for something new.  The randomness of car boot sales and the like gives me a place to start; many a voyage of discovery has begun with a dusty old LP that seems vaguely interesting and with an outlay of usually 50p or £1 it's a virtually risk-free exercise.  If it turns out to be not my cup of tea it can be taken to the local charity shop - sometimes the very one it came from!

Another benefit of crate-digging is that you never know what you are going to find.  Much Mantovani, Englebert and Jim Reeves has to be sifted through of course, but there's always the promise of something worth hearing, indeed on the rarest of occasions something worth a bit more.

A couple of weeks ago I was at a car boot sale, flipping through a box of 80's hair metal when I spied a copy of Guns 'n' Roses' Live like A Suicide EP labelled £3.

Guns 'n' Roses - Live Like A Suicide (1986)

Between the ages of about 15 and 17 I was absolutely obsessed with G'n'R and played pretty much no-one else.  The four tracks on this EP later appeared on the Lies album.  They were recorded in a studio but effects were added to make them sound as if they were recorded at a massive gig.  Of the original EP only 25,000 are said to have been pressed and only 10,000 sold, so are quite collectible and oft-copied.

Back cover

As a G'n'R fan I was thrilled to have found a copy but as a very skint woman, after a little research to verify it wasn't a fake, I came to the decision that I should try to sell it on.  It wasn't in mint condition but certainly came under the "excellent" category which is rare for   

a car boot sale.

Anyway, I'm pleased to say that it sold on an online auction this week for £69.  Not a bad margin on an initial outlay of £3!  I was sad to see it go but very pleased to make some cash for a change.  I've only ever sold two other records from my secondhand finds - both were for less than a tenner and I had zero emotional attachment to either.

The likelihood of ever finding anything of much worth again is tiny, but I certainly enjoyed the buzz of discovering and selling this one.

Guns N' Roses – Reckless Life - Live Version (Explicit)    

Guns N' Roses – Move To The City - Live Version (Explicit)

Guns N' Roses – Nice Boys - Live Version (Explicit)

Guns N' Roses – Mama Kin - Live Version (Explicit)