I've only today learned that Andy Stevens passed away on 11 June 2025. Andy was the owner of a shop called Pastimes on Lower Park Row, Bristol, England.
I decided to mark his passing with a blog post as a form of tribute.
In over 40 years of visiting Pastimes, it remained unchanged, which was a very good thing. This small, unasuming shop was filled to the brim with a vast varity of collectables. Whilst mostly militaria, Andy always kept a small selection of Police badges and memorabilia. I've learnt that he opened the shop in 1972 so it had already been running almost a decade before I discovered it.
This was one of the few remaining militaria shops unchanged since the 1980's. This was a shop where you could browse through boxes of random items. If you found something you liked you would simply ask Andy how much he wanted - from inexpensive to expensive. There was something to suite all pockets. It was somewhat of a timecapsule and even the exterior remained the same.
In recent years when downsizing my collection which included militaria, I sold some to Andy, at a very reasonable price knowing he had to earn a living and I wanted to support the shop rather than sell everything on eBay. There were even a few small items which I had bought from his shop some 40 years earlier and re-sold them.
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| Photo from Google street view taken 2023 |
I took this photograph in 2022, which may have been my last visit.
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| Pastimes in 2022 |
I can remember visiting his shop in the 1980's when British WW2 helmets were sold for around £6. This had risen to about £60 in 2022.
I managed to find a short video I took in 2011. At that time he still had a huge pile of books and magazines stacked on the floor at one end of the shop. All these had been removed when I visited in 2022 and that was the biggest change I'd seen in 40 years. It's a very short video which I've uploaded to Youtube. You can see Andy briefly at the back of the shop.
Andy clearly shared a lifetime passion for collecting and he was one of the very few who retained a shop rather than migrate to an online store. In fact I don't think he ever had an online internet page to promote his shop. He sometimes advertised in the local press, but 'word-of-mouth' was probably most beneficial.
Update: I found a webpage which Andy had set up with some basic information on three pages:
Military Memorabilia in Bristol with Pastimes (A.H.Stevens)
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| New Observer 29 June 1984 |
Here's an online article from 2018 published by bristol247.com
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| RIP Andy |
