Self-educate from middle class scraps in Pinner

Pinner, an affluent section of the Harrow borough, is encapsulated by many Harrovians as “One of the nice parts”. One attraction to this clean and friendly subsection of the borough is charity shops.

Several charity shops in this two hundred-meter Pinner high street, including St Luke’s, Barnardo’s, RSPCA, and Oxfam. In St Luke’s, the biggest of all of the charity shops in Pinner, they were selling the entire works of Shakespeare for one pound.

I do not know if Mr Shakespeare would be best pleased that his contribution to the English language is being auctioned for the same price as a crunchy chocolate bar. But yet, Mr Shakespeare did not know the thrill of honeycomb coated in milk chocolate; it may be a fair trade.

Out of all the charity shops on Pinner high street, Oxfam is the most expensive shop but has the most impressive literacy section. Oxfam has an entire room dedicated to literacy separated through a beaded curtain (nothing seedy). The only filth you will see in this room is decaying paper. Like all charity shops, their stock is in flux. Still on several occasions, one has seen books written by Mark Twain, George Orwell, Saul Bellow, George Elliot, and Vladimir Nabokov. RSPCA is the most limited out of the Pinner charity shops.

Their range is mainly pop culture and autobiographies of celebrities. S.T Lukes and Barnardos offer the most comprehensive range at the lowest prices. All charity shops offer something different.

With a spare twenty pounds and a favourable day, one can educate oneself with some of the greatest literacy for a fraction of the original price. The charity shops in pinner sell books on foreign languages, English grammar and punctuation and travel. University education is in the grasp of the common person.

All that is required is a spectacle eye, time to read and twenty of The Queen’s pound notes.