I’d be lying if I said I’m not a little surprised to find myself here.

1986.

At 16 and 3/4 years old I walked into a small shed at Nant Ucha farm, Abergele, North Wales and my life changed forever.

“So I suppose you’re one of those homosexuals are you”… said the smirking voice behind the bench without once looking up from his work.

This half spiked up, half shaven headed, pre dreadlock punk kid would have that voice ringing in his ears for most of the next decade..

Rewind.

My father got me the job, …sort off.

I was out of school, zero qualifications, I mean none, not one, I’m not proud of this, I failed school or it failed me ? anyway too late now... I was floundering, I had no clue, but I knew one thing. I had to be involved in the antique business somehow, but I didn’t know how ???. My father knew a guy who did restoration work for all of the local antique dealers… ….BOOM..… ..I’m interested no matter what it is.

Enter Gordon Stewart, world class architect, engineer, skier, hippy, music aficionado and responsibility drop out and owner of “Stewart & Hutchinson”.

My father occasionally did design work and glass painting for his stained glass studio. We met, he said “lift this Lead box into the van”, I did, he said “Start on Monday” so I did, this led me to walk into that room, and receive that instant verbal shot across my bows and meet Joe Sturgess.

Joe was about 50, grey hair slicked back, pretty cool looking tbh, tidy cropped beard and about my height, he wore a three quarter length leather apron and was stood in front of the most complex piece of work I’d ever seen. He wiped his face with a dirty rag and glanced up at me and laughed, I didn’t know it then but I was fortunate enough to be stood in front of one of the greatest craftsmen I was ever likely to meet… What a lucky son of a gun I was.

Over the preceding years I’ve met a handful of people that come close to Joe, Neville Morris the blacksmith being on an equal footing as a master of his chosen trade, Ruth Tappin, the Gilder, Steve Norman the furniture restorer, My own furniture restorer has all the best qualities in abundance. These are rare souls, blessed with a certain mindset, a fuck you attitude and something special.. that bit I can’t quite put into words, but I know it the instant I see it.

A lightness of touch, instant focus, a seemingly “at one” sense they bestow on each item put in front of them, these are just a few of the qualities they emit, but they each and every one of them have a little sense of magic about their work, that “How did you do that“ quality.

I love being around these people, no your not listening, I really love being around them, without a shadow of doubt they are the most interesting, single minded, occasionally difficult, brilliant, intriguing, maddening and loveable people you’ll ever meet. If you get the opportunity to spend some time with one of these artists please do, they will enjoy it for a short while then they will want to get on and you to f off.

Back to 1986, Nant Ucha Farm.

The rest of the week was a baptism of fire. I was given the Grand tour of the workshops. “The cutting room”, tall timber glass racks and an angled carpet covered cutting table where you’d cut the ranges, “Ranges” long strips of width correct glass that are then placed over the “Cartoon” or line drawing and cut to shape. The “drawing room”, a tiny filthy room above Joes workshop that Gordon the ex architect drew the precise pencil line drawings we used to cut over (also home to Gordons astonishingly good record collection), next the main workshop and the “leading” benches, two per room, long basic 8 x 4, flat with a right angle border in mahogany to one corner, these are very precise and extremely important.

This room also housed the phone, a landline as you call it now and a new fangled fax machine, I was told under no circumstances to ever, ever touch either. The wall mounted phone was like a dirty protest, you never let it actually touch your ear, the rotary dial was filthy as was everything in the entire place tbh, every surface was covered in this hardened black cement paste ??.

Eventually I and only I answered the phone. Gordon hated talking to anyone on the phone, most did want paying or appeasing to be fair, so I didn’t blame him. I became a Jedi level expert at fending them of while Gordon read the paper on a nearby stool, shaking his head and mouthing “I’m not in” as I trotted out a string of well rehearsed lies, and I did all the fancy techno fax stuff too, sending reems of sizes, orders and quotes down the magic phone line. Initially Gordon not unreasonably thought I wasn’t bright enough to use such hi-tech equipment, “My parents were self employed and the sign writing office was the family kitchen, I knew exactly how to do both, well, at 13”..so I got the gig.

Next “The cementing room” a tiny squalid single doored box with no heating or ventilation, a basic glass rack against one wall and piles of this grey dust over every surface, a blue steel pot was sat on the bench with black goo oozing from it, this putrid hole was to become my home for the next two years ..

The “goo” is “lead light cement”, the consistency of honey when hot and fox shit when cold.. the dust was whiting powder (calcium carbonate), its used to dry out the L L cement, remove the grease and impregnate every orifice of your body within thirty seconds of using it.

This is how it works, the newly finished leaded lights arrive against the rack, the glass is loose inside the lead and rattles, my job was to force the lead light cement (black goo) with an old fashioned wooden handled scrubbing brush into the gap between the lead and the glass, (thus rendering it waterproof once dry) then brush the still malleable excess of the surface of the lead. Next cover the leaded light with the whiting powder (calcium carbonate) and rub it into the surface of the cement with your hands or with another brush. It then sets in situ.

There is no element of this job that isn’t designed to cover you in both materials.

I was expected to do this up to thirty times a day, the second a new or restored window is finished and brought in by one of the team I started work. Once dry, either by the end of that working day or the next morning depending on the temperature in the shed, or the time of year. Once set, I got to use a uncomfortable three inch length of sharp hardwood with a ground down nail stuck in the end to remove this now 80% dry cocktail from the surface of the glass without cracking the glass or misshaping the lead. I had to do it at speed, plus I had to flip (bench) these increasingly heavy things (combined weight of lead, glass and cement becoming one = heavy) alone and do both sides.. fast…without breaking a single pane of glass. Very difficult and a major fuck up if I did crack a pane.

“I hated having to go and tell one of the boys that I’d broke a pane” you would be chastised for the rest of the day as an “arsehole”, “dumb shit”, “stupid mother fucker” or a worthless sack of “pond life” that was the bosses favourite quip. Once cracked the leaded light had to go back down the line and be deconstructed to fix it correctly, remember these things can’t leak as a bare minimum.. a tricky task and you instantly became very unpopular with the maker and Gordon the boss. I had to get good at this …and quick.

Awful right ??… Hell no… I loved it, the speed the urgency, the fact I was part of a team, it mattered, and all of a sudden I did.

The upsides to working for Gordon were few but I found joy in every day, I wasn’t in school, I could listen to music all day as loud as I wanted, I could smoke.

Gordon has spectacularly good taste in music (still does) he introduced me to early Dylan, Hendrix, Talking Heads, Jimmy Buffet and the coral reefers, Los Lobos, and dozens more,, he’d seen most of these bands live when he lived in Canada while designing and engineering the main trunk roads running through Canada.

Downside, big downside, working outside on site in January half way up a church in the howling wind.

I really hate the cold, I mean I really hate it with every fibre of my shivering being. As a child I would likely be found sat in front of any fire or sat on or next to any radiator within 50ft of me that was on (nothings changed).

In the 70s everywhere was cold. We didn’t get central heating at home till 1981. School was cold, the knackered bus that took us to school was baltic, the classrooms were like freezers, We got thrown out at every break time, hail or snow… out…hellish, I really, really hate being cold.

I also dislike intensely, The Sea, organised fun, clubs, boats, parties, football, people who say “I’m a DJ” and snobbery… it’s a much longer list but we must move things along.

I spent the next seven years working for Gordon, happy days to be honest and during that time I got to know Old Joe.

Precise, old school, and frankly a massive pain in the arse, but I grew to respect this difficult man.

Joe started work when he wanted and finished the same way, some days he just didn’t come in at all.

He had an MZ motorbike, which was kept in pristine condition and used year round but his great love was his 68 MG BGT.

An unusual shade of purple, chrome bumpers, webasto roof and steel wheels, this thing was really quite beautiful, and he spent an inordinate amount of pride maintaining it. This mentality was what made him clean and wrap his hand tools in an oily rag every day and lock them in his equally pristine tool box every night. This mentality shone through in the precision with which each glass cut or soldered joint was carried out, hundreds of cuts an hour, the equal amount of soldered joints, every one perfect, every one mattered.

Joe didn’t teach me anything for three years.

Then one day he called me into his workshop.

“I’d progressed by now to having my own workshop with a woodburner and some other poor bastard was in the cementing room”.

He said “I’ve noticed that when you solder across 1/2 inch cames (The six ft long lengths of H section lead that hold the glass together) your not getting full coverage, do it like this” ……. He showed me a better method, ONCE, then said nothing.

That was it.

I said thank you and walked out a little shocked.

This went on sporadically for the next few years, He’d show me a trick or technique, how to do something a better-faster-more efficient way and that was it. Not twice, just once, no questions, you got it or you didn’t, “Very Clever”, he had trained me to listen straight away, instant focused attention, ……brilliant.

I said thank you every time and went back to my workshop, I realised very early on I was learning from a master, if you ever find yourself near one of these guys, shut the fuck up and listen.

I now knew something… not a lot.. but something..

Joe had no children, I think he found it hard to get used to having me around, (I was a teenager, thus an incomprehensible tit), we eventually became friends, I got to know Mrs Joe as she was affectionately known on the farm or “Gwyneth” in real life on the phone when she occasionally rang for him, a lovely lady.

Joe was multi talented, a woodworker, painter, engineer and leather worker, photographer, horse trainer, “He and Gwyneth spent years living in New Zealand and he would tell me daily that he wished he’d never left, while there he broke horses and drove his soft top landy alone for miles on empty coastline beaches”. Everything he touched had the inescapable mark of his precision touch to it, everything was “his” way. He had a lot of faults, don’t we all, but in this world he had no competitors…One day he presented me with my own leather apron that he had made, for me, ME, I treasure it to this day.

He was also very anti establishment, this really struck a chord with me.

This “don’t tell me what to do” “why should I listen to them” attitude killed him just a few years later, he had developed high blood pressure and was told to take tablets for it… he refused.

I helped Mrs Joe after he had passed with selling off his spare glass bits and pieces, he was the first guy to invest his time in me, I mean really take the time because he thought I was worth it.

I’ll always love the old bugger for that.

I feel so incredibly fortunate to have had the opportunity to meet, spend time and become friends with men and women like this throughout my working life. Passionate, Brilliant, individual, artists, craftsmen, the best of the the best. We as a nation are blessed to have them, I’d rather have one of these guys by my side than a hundred of these day glo orange influencers.

There no real point to this story, I just wanted to get it down, tell the world about old Joe, I won’t let him be forgotten, I owe him.

I won’t allow any of these people to ever be forgotten, Nev, Steve, Ruth, Eleri, Nick , Jez, Aidan, Martin, Craig, Gordon, Barry, Bryony, Lyndsay, the restorers, upholsterers, electricians, polishers, carvers, painters, framers, and all the other folks involved in this most wonderful trade that graft it out every day in the pursuit of what they know is right. Do not forget about one of them, we owe them and every one of that came before.

We as a nation have over the centuries produced some of the finest, most extraordinary items ever imagined by man, they (the restorers) have chosen to fix what has become broken, polish what had become dull, to reignite the beauty in the forgotten, and to reaffirm my faith in my own reason to be, for that this army will always have my utmost respect.

Thank you Joe.

“One man’s junk is now another man’s junk”

I pull up to a sweltering and dusty farm yard, a big one with that oversized gravel that shreds tyres, huge no nonsense single storey stone barns with slate roofs to three sides, two cars are in the yard, an old primer covered landcruiser and a v cool series II landy, both clearly daily work horses. I shut the engine off, turn down the very loud music, “Willie Nelson” btw, ears ringing. It dawns on me, I’ve been doing this for the majority of my adult life, over thirty years, a van, a day of dust and hard work ahead, a lot of potential down sides, but .. and it’s a big but….I’m not bored yet, not one IOTA.

Why not ……you get bored don’t you ? people get bored don’t they.. the same food, music, tv shows… obviously not mine…. you know what I mean, If you have your favourite ice cream every day for a year you’d be fed up of it, right ??…not me.

Architectural salvage, reclamation, architectural antiques, it’s a world I’ve been … well engrossed in for as long as I can remember, but why?. I honestly don't know, I can’t quite put my finger on precisely moment when I became obsessed with the stuff, but read on, it’s the closest I can get to why (for now)… actually it isn’t the complete answer but it’s helping me remember too.

As a child my parents along with the rest of the UK all owned at least one copy of “The Lyle Official Antiques Review” this lump of a book came out annually . My parents religiously bought it and they were lined up on the oak sideboard in the hall.

These thick tomes were full of hand drawn images of the antiques, no photos here, printed roughly a dozen to a page, and it was only in black and white with a brief explanation underneath and a price guide. Now this is the bit I can’t explain, I was drawn like a magnet to these books and would lose hrs of my time digesting them. Here’s the weird bit…I was only interested, no obsessed with the architectural antique section, I lay on the carpet rereading the same pages over and over, a cast iron hob grate or a reeded wrought iron bench, a pitch pine church pew to a stained glass lantern,, I knew the number of every page in every book (still do) and the prices and description off by heart, I particularly loved the cast iron and garden statuary pages, I wasn’t drawn to the sanitary ware (baths and sinks) but I decided I needed to learn all about that too.

Thinking I was limiting myself I did try to spend time absorbing the other categories of my favourite book, ceramics, taxidermy, brassware, toys, carpets, furniture… nothing really interested me, the obsession with architectural antiques grew exponentially.

I began to frequent the outside of a local junk shop, “Terrys bargain store” in Llandudno Junction, a tiny glass fronted two up two down place next to the petrol station, it was a treasure trove, well it wasn’t, but to me this was it. I’d cycle over there, about two miles from home, and just stare through the window…. I never went in, I was too scared. Every few days the window would change, a huge old tv would be replaced by a moth eaten fur coat or an ancient rowing machine, outside leaning under the window would be all manner of flotsum and jetsum, sinks, ironing boards, fireplaces, wheelbarrows, I was utterly enthralled…. I wish I’d gone in, just once.

Once the excitement was over at Terrys I’d wait for “The Old Brickworks”, the local car scrap yard to close, just 100 yds behind “Terrys” as the crow flies. I’d cycle down the rough road and over the railway bridge, if the coast was clear I’d scale the fence, there was an elderly alsatian guard dog in there but I’d worked out that it was too old and tired to jump up and get me if it stayed standing on the cars bonnets, it eventually got bored and went back to its filthy half a car kennel.

These were the days of scrap cars just teetering on top of each other, three maybe four high in places. Below a churned up, oil soaked cocktail of litter batteries, tyres and broken glass, in a mud jui…. Heaven.

My car obsession is still 100 percent active and I know that was something that helped with me “getting my eye in”. Anyway I’d prowl the brick works stock, jumping from one stack to the next, they would rock backwards and forward, I ignored it, this forest of landcrabs and Cortinas, Minis and Volkswagens stacked high like rusty totem poles was my play ground… there was even a pile of XK Jags, unceremoniously dumped on top of each other. This was normal just prior to the classic car boom of the 80s, which I think ruined the hobby..“don’t get me started”, but I digress. I never took anything, nothing, not a thing. Car badges were always the first to go though, these beautiful chromed monkey metal scripts told you exactly what you were getting for your money and they meant what they said, “Zephyr” “Twin cam” “V8”, but I wasn’t there for them, far from it.

I just liked being around all this dereliction, beautiful dereliction…wandering, looking, imagining and just sitting in these old damp wrecks, I was in love with that moment, I still am.

Question,,, When did the normal family mans car become an appliance, these rust buckets used to be rolling art forms, they taught you as they passed, genius designers were behind them, even the most basic models told you everything you needed to know. As a child in the 1970s and early 80s you could still spot E types, Aston Martins and the occasional exotic being used daily, Lagondas etc..morso when on the continent, now that was a real treat.

I know a huge part of my visual education came from staring out of the window at cars. France was the best country for this, the auto routes were full of people travelling here and there on holiday it was a golden era, these old bangers were just cars people used…….to witness a filthy down at heal Citroen DS roll past you in a equally grubby french town was about as exciting as it got for me back then. I knew every model of every car maker and every detail in between, me being me I still remember all these details and will happily bore you to tears if you let me.. A close friend called me the rain man of junk.

One day while it was tipping down at home and I couldn't venture out, I was in my usual spot on the carpet in the living room reading a “LYLE” and was suddenly engulfed by panic, how was I going to learn all this, I can’t ever know all of these dates, styles, periods, the kings and Queens, mahogany or tulipwood, notable births and deaths, what is medieval ?, what was the “Aesthetic Movement” …. aaaaggghhhhh .. I burst into tears, my mum came in to find me wailing on her carpet, “what’s wrong love” … “MUM” I’ll never make it as an antique dealer there’s too much to learn..what am I going to do……………. I was eleven.

Forty five years later I’m sat in my van outside a stone barn on the Scottish Borders.

A couple of weeks prior I had received an intriguing email from an estate owner who in the 1960s had bought the partial contents of a late 18th century mansion built on the banks of the Tweed, “Ladykirk House” as it was being demolished.

“Ladykirk House, Berwickshire, Scotland, built in 1797, designed by Architect William Elliot for the Robertson Family”.

The seller and owner of the estate that these barns are part of had used what he wanted on his project and put the rest away prior to 1966. And there it all had stayed, tidy, uniformly stacked, perfect storage conditions, and untouched by human hand since, this is why I’ve driven for 6 hrs in 33c heat in my frankly disgraceful transit van, that I decided didn’t need air con when I specced it in the Ford showroom which I’ve just remembered stands on the site of the petrol station next to Terry’s…...how odd.. anyway,, cheapskate.

Demolished sometime between 1950 and 1966 this once opulent pile “Ladykirk House” fell victim to demolition as did hundreds of these grand country house after the advent of the two world wars.

The reasons for this once nation wide collection of expansive and opulent “pile of bricks” being demolished on masse were numerous, (higher taxes and death duties, an agricultural depression, the requisitioning of estates during the wars and subsequent damage, the loss of heirs in said conflicts, all this and more had their part to play) the final nail in the Neo-classical coffin happened with the departure of the majority of the domestic staff, “some of these estates had over 100 full time” as they went to serve king and country in WW1 & WW11. Millions didn’t return, the ones that did were not of a mind to serve anymore, ally this to the houses becoming ruinously expensive to maintain (no one clearing the gutters out every day now) and you have the perfect storm.

We lost over 1500 houses, some of real note in the interwar period, hundreds more afterwards, many intentionally burnt down, blown up or even the humiliation of having huge chains placed all the way round the base and then simply pulled down by a multiple of steam and caterpillar driven vehicles, oh the ignominy.

Ladykirk House was one of these losses, set on the north bank of the Tweed near Norham this grand three storied classical mansion was dismantled between 1950 and 1966, these dates do vary depending who you ask.

Bits or as we refer to them in the trade “Architectural elements” of this once grand three storied pile where now on the floor in front of me, like lost shoes.

This is not my first rodeo.

I have been in this situation hundreds of times, it always unleashes the same emotions, excitement for what is left and horror of what has been lost.

The first time this really struck home happened in the same week I set up my business. A local estate agent I’d bought bits through before called me to a very large house in Rhos-on-Sea on the N Wales coast.

This opulent and frankly enormous Edwardian house had latterly become an old folks home, for decades and the new owners wanted to develop it, but called me in prior to see if there was any bounty to be had. There wasn’t, barr the floor boards and a single brass 19th century door pull.

I still have that handle, it was the first piece of architectural salvage I’d bought as a self employed dealer and I had the good sense to keep it as a momento. I put it on the front door of my first house two years later, I now have it downstairs in a box.

Anyway this once grand house I was in, unsurprisingly to anyone local, burnt to the ground a week later, floor boards and all, the developers suddenly had an enormous building plot which they were able to build a few dozen new homes on…. what a stroke of luck… cough…..my eyes were opened to the business I was in.

So I’m faced with an assortment of items, this is normal, some good, some bad, useless and useful in equal measure.

I’m here for a few gems, I visited earlier in the month and put a bid in for the contents, my bid was successful, I paid too much to be honest but I really wanted a couple of things.

There’s an awful lot more in this place than I will be taking away. The price was dependant on me clearing the contents of the barn, good and bad. I’ve called in Rob, long time salvage dealer and local to the barns. He’s a salvage dealer who understands the importance of what we do and he taking everything else away. Robs been doing this and dealing with me since the 90s and knows the job inside out, what’s not to be reused in his current restoration will be sold off to other salvage comrades.

So what am I here for….

1, And the most obvious are eight mostly gilt and some painted gesso over-doors, Neoclassical in style with a few matching pairs interspersed with one real belter, a bucolic country scene in its original gilt decoration.

2, A very large chimneypiece or door casing, I say both because I wasn’t allowed to move anything prior to purchase.

I wanted it to be a chimneypiece, I knew it was a door casing but wouldn’t know for certain till I pulled it all out.

Ok the difference between the two things is obvious but the reason I want it to be a chimneypiece are two fold…

A,

An 18th century chimneypiece is way more desirable and potentially valuable, plus I have numerous clients who would buy it immediately, its also way more exciting in the salvage community to bring one that's been lost from a known house of quality to the market.

B,

A door casing although interesting, and actually rarer to find complete in such incredible condition than a chim is a difficult sell, You either have a doorway or space that will take it or you don’t. Its rarely financially viable to build something that would be big enough to take one this size… but heres the thing, if you do the doorway will add more value to the property than it costs to buy it.. to have it made today would cost you over 20k… thus making it a chancey but potentially brilliant financial decision… “Am I up selling it too much”… anyway its a cool thing and I’m happy to own something so original either way.

3, An 18th century mahogany interior door.

Again I couldn’t move it prior to purchase, I want it to be a thick heavy door of substance, which the side I can see appears to be, once moved its not, it’s a thinner interior door for a large internal room niche or cupboard… bugger, worth a massive amount less than an interior door but on the upside its in mint condition an 18th century.

4, An intriguing box of door furniture, ok so we may have a winner here.

Initial inspection was good, A rare matched pair of brilliant cut and mirrored finger plates with matching handles and escutcheons, result… next numerous pairs of turned laburnum handles, some of these have cut glass handles to one side… why ? I hear you ask, well one side is for the grand interior of a salon, Master bedroom or library at ladykirk, the other side would forever be out of eyeshot of the owner. These plain, workaday handles are for servants eyes and hands only, why spend any money on them aye….

Then I notice something at the bottom of the box, I’ve only ever seen one of these before. A pair of solid turned ivory door handles, and another and another, eight pairs in all, all in perfect condition, complete, undamaged with locks and screws etc etc,,, also completely unsaleable for lots of reasons…

“Under the Ivory Act 2018, the UK enforces a near-total ban on buying, selling, or hiring out items made of or containing ivory, regardless of their age, with very few narrow exemptions requiring official registration or certification beforehand. The ban also covers other species like hippos, walruses, and killer whales, not just elephants”.

I will donating these to an architectural historian friend.

5,

The least exciting but to me the pick of the bunch is a gem of an 18th century pine door and frame.

Ostensibly this is just a door, a pine door, a slightly unusual configuration of lower panels yes, but you know what this thing has…. soul, its had a life, the person who made this understood there craft.

The pine is slow grown and pin straight, no splits, no burrs, the cuts to the timber are flawless, machine like and still tight, the proportion is perfect, mathematically and visually.

It has no airs nor graces, the frame is simple, vernacular, just a full chamfer to all sides, this stuff makes my heart sing.

The simple things in life are always the most beautiful I find, soulful, visually and mentally, the first cup of really good coffee you ever drank, the perfect hue to a late summer morning, “Golden Slumbers” by The Beatles, freshly cooked meatballs in a Sorrento back street, the down shift on a manual six cylinder BMW at full chat… moments of pure joy…you’ll have your own but these are a few of mine.

This door does that to me too, it isn’t shouting, it’s not showing off, it isn’t worth more than a few hundred pounds, it’s not crying for attention, it’s just something created to do a job, the culmination of decades of learning and refining a skill, a deep understanding of the material, and somewhere in there the maker added that magic, he knew if that went this way, and this went that way, it would look just a touch better, and last a bit longer, those subtle nuances, that take decades to learn and are worn in the soul of the maker are all inside a 6ft 8” x 2ft 8” door, I take my hat off to this long gone maestro.

Let me briefly rant…

Look.. if you have well made, correctly proportioned “things” “objects” “anything” around you it rubs off, “and no they really, really don’t need to be expensive”, your brain begins to recognise the symmetry, scale, balance, and thus the beauty in things, this is being eroded by poor design, which has now become acceptable…to some.. this is a huge subject which I’m bound to come back to, but basically, there was a moment when people thought,, “Yup thats, Ok I like that”……………….…lets call it the “Croc” moment.

The world decided at a singular moment that an ugly, unappealing, second rate, badly designed, repulsive piece of footwear that makes you look like a half wit in any situation was acceptable…. the rot had well and truly set it… you can’t learn a damn thing from a Croc, now or in the future. We are going backwards…. the flowing mathematical beauty the Greeks bestowed on us is under attack, a bin fire is raging…... I could weep.

This door and the items I deal in, collect, reuse and have saved every day of my working life, I hope in some small way, are kicking against the onslaught of vulgar ugly throw away rubbish that I watch people buy every day.

Every well meaning and sturdy chapel chair, every polite George III side table or hardy vitreous enamel light shade saved plugs the dam a little more….

So remember this, every time you buy a Tesla, absolutely anything from that big blue and yellow building, a single plastic shoe or decide you want to paint yourself orange, a bit of taste and style and a tiny bit of this antique dealer dies… be warned.

To be continued…

In this business you’ll learn something new every day and die a fool.....

You know I’ll have to open the boxes to check all the parts are there…

Six large brass bound Holophane pendant lights, rare ones, older restorations which are mellowing well, are sat partially wrapped in boxes at my feet, sat on the floor of a tiny shop somewhere in the low countries, very early on a Thursday morning.

My love for these “Industrial” lights and their patented prismatic glass shades goes back to the very beginning of my, well pre dealing career. I bought my first one some time in the late 1980s, I had no idea what I was buying I just liked this cool old lamp, it went with my Hot Rod sensibilities. I was always and remain obsessed by this culture. I dreamed of a late 30s Willys coupe “A Gasser” in “Two lane black top” grey primer with a hood scoop……a very cheap late 60s two door morris minor with the bumpers removed and the biggest wheels I could find shoved under the rear wings was as close as I could get…. I loved it.. my first car. I collected old .. real old blues records as a very young child, again, I don’t know why…, I still have them, Americana, hot rods, The Delta Blues, Early Elvis and Rock-a-billy ruled my world.

At a local classic car swap meet looking for a spotlight for the back of the Morris minor pickup truck I was building, I found this old lamp, it can’t have been more than £5 or so, I had no money, I was on the YTS at the time….a brilliant youth training scheme from the 1980s that saved me…it paid nothing, roughly 17.50 a week for the first year and £27.50 for your second, to supplement this I bought and sold cars and parts (something I’d done since I was 13) to pay for my hot rod addiction.. come to think of it, I still do… anyway,, this lamp in the bottom of a cardboard box in a wet field in Wales just had something, I can’t explain it, and in some ways I don’t want to know why I like the things I like, you should never examine this too much, it will ruin your aesthetic.., so I had this lamp and I spent an extraordinary amount of time cleaning it up and making a mounting bracket for it to sit on my little truck, it looked great, I gave it no more thought but something had struck a chord…

The Dutch holophane seller, a regular source in Europe for lighting has very kindly boxed them up for me, I look at him grinning, he slaps his forehead and smiles..of course, he starts unboxing them with me, this is something I will always do, check and double check that all the bits are there before buying, it’s important, one incorrect or missing part is a month of searching, a pain in the rear and if not solved .. well read on..

When I was starting out I lost track of the amount of times I’d buy something, an engine, a lamp, a fireplace and not checked for the single most important thing, “is it complete”. Complete is such a bonus, it’s not to be sniffed at, solves a lot of problems does “complete”…

This is the most common mistake I see with new dealers, they have a lot of nearly rans.. it’s good but “it just needs this”.

You want to be selling things that DON’T have that story, you should never have to say “it’s great…. but”…stop..breath,,, think....don’t buy it, it will not sell well, you will feel downtrodden, your buyer will instantly lose confidence in you, and you will probably lose money, you will not fix it, you won’t find that part, you’ll get fed up and it’ll get broken forgotten and then binned or given away.. don’t do it...wait for the right thing that ticks every box, it takes longer but that’s the job, find it, then you buy.

Late last year I was delivering something very smart to an equally smart house of a very smart couple in a super smart area of central London.

When in “Town” and if time allows I love to wander the top end of the antiques market, see what's going on and marvel at the sublime stock, I recommend this to anyone and everyone, for you reading who are in the trade it will continue to educate your eye, the rest of you who aren’t, just go for the sheer theatre of it. I often walk these streets with clients when furnishing a house for them, and it never disappoints.

This particular day I walked into the gallery of a dealer of great renown, one of immense knowledge, perfect taste and a rye wit…As I walk through the door there were two extraordinary chairs to my right, Geo II, dry, untouched, great scale, that presence the good stuff has, a full house, WOW, the sort of thing you expect, but man it is hard to find.... I couldn’t help but stare for a second too long, (first mistake) I just thought they were part of the world class stock that littered the floor of this exemperary establishment..I said nothing, why would I, coffee was made, we chatted for an hr, deep nerdy antique stuff, the dark arts, the who’s done what and who’s got this chats, who paid too much for that and what bit we had both missed..that stuff.

As I motioned to leave I stupidly put my hand on one of the chairs top rails..

“it’s a tell of mine I wish I didn’t have, it’s subconscious and very annoying”...

…Bang he had me …”I’ll trade those out you know”.. meaning.. “I’ll take a small profit on them but buyer-dealer beware, sold as seen”..

Trading something out, a trade sale, to trade, is a very common way of dealing, and in many ways the best. A trade sale is the best sale, you will more than likely take a smaller profit, but money is our tool, it’s our shovel, it’s our pen. You get paid quickly if not immediately, you can buy again and the item has gone quickly from your life, ideally before you’ve spent any money on it, goodbye..Vendu, Sold, Venduta .. you never see it again, and if asked you never owned it.

(this must happen more, if you sell to another dealer you must remove any images on your website or socials, take them down immediately, yes you want to show off the great thing you found, but it’s common decency and good dealing, you must give the new owner the best chance of selling them fresh., freshness to market creates excitement amongst buyers, so take it down, you’ve made your money, move on, help them sell it, if they do sell, I promise you, they will be straight back for more.. good business..do not ever deviate from this.. ok rant over.)

This is old school dealing, and what I was taught when I started, you weren’t actually taught really, you were just around it, you learnt by listening, one mouth two ears, be quiet and listen, there was a dealer code still in use back then, you didn’t get told much, it was implied, it was evident and it was everywhere and it meant a hell of a lot, it could be a difficult thing to navigate when first starting and it didn’t always come down in your favour, mostly as a young dealer it didn’t… but you “bit it“ all of it, you shut up and took it, mostly. The old ways have largely gone from the trade now, it had its own language, its own rhythm, you did it that way or you didn’t do it at all, everything changed with the advent of the internet, what was a closed shop, an almost mafia business mentality was opened up, the walls came down.. for good and for bad.. we all had to learn the new ways.

So a trade sale…you bought it, it’s your problem if you haven't seen anything wrong, that again is your problem ,, simple effective and done every minute of every day all over the world..

“Really” I said surprised, I’ve known this guy twenty years, he’s never ever offered to trade me something, I was always selling upward to him.. shocked ,, “Ok.. How much”.. price given, “It’s a lot”, ok..sounds good, we shake hands, and I’m particularly pleased to have these in my stock..payment made, they are placed in the dirty volvo and driven home.. next day I pull them out to photograph for the website.. you can see where this is going.. .. I had a “proper” look.. the rear castors on both DONT match the original front ones,,,not even close and they are poor quality to boot.

If it’s an expensive or more importantly manufactured or designed by a “name” matching castors are essential, it gets worse, the chairs were not next to each other when I bought them, they were either side of a console table,, looked spectacular, guess what,, they are not the same size…one is slightly taller and a little wider than the other, what we would call “associated”, but, not a true pair, close but no cigar..worse still, when I picked the other one up the front right leg falls off, a tragically bad and fairly recent repair was evident…bugger..fuck, bollocks… etc etc.. I’d screwed up, how could I have been so stupid, no website listing or instagram shoot for these, fuck…

I’d just had my pants pulled down.

So what do you do now.. I felt rather, no, very foolish. I could have called him up and “backed them”, a trade term used when a “private”.. “member of the non trade public” asks to return something after delivery.. I could have gone nuts down the phone demanding monies back etc (not my style). I could have done a lot of things.. but in reality I had to take it on the chin, (old school) nobody’s fault but mine in the words of Led Zeppelin… I chose to be quiet, beat myself with a stick and move on… arsehole.

So why am I admitting to this, well, to save your ass next time…

And dealers don’t tell me this hasn’t happened to you in some shape or form.. “Oh Marjorie I would never be so stupid, I always check everything.. I’m a paragon of virtue, flowing with knowledge and experience” …bullshit.. it has and it will again..

Ok so what are my choices……. fix the leg correctly, easy, done, my next call was to Bruce my friendly local restorer who does a neat line in antique castors, as well as being a top flight restorer he has a natty side line dealing in original and rare sets right through to singles.., My chairs had very expensive castors when new, the best maker, larger size than normal, over engineered and with a deep ornate cup, which equates too “very rare now”, he doesn’t have any, ?? Ok so to my box of tricks,, the large pile of spare parts every dealer builds up in a career,, utterly essential stuff, basically it’s that two foot length of timber your dad said was useful in 1989 and puts in the rafters of the garage,, but in antique form. I have an extensive back catalogue of handmade screws right through to buckets of 18th to 19th century keys and everything in between….occasionally these boxes of scrap metal bear fruit…but again…nothing,, “Ebay” ??, now don’t turn your nose up, this is an invaluable source of odds and sods, things lurking unwanted in peoples sheds turn up on there,, I’ve got lucky before…but no, nothing , nada..zilch….

So what do we do.. I am not going to back them, that’s just not happening, there’s no school like the old school and I’m not breaking that particular tradition, they are not worth what I have paid,,, say nothing and sell as is.. now that would be wrong and I promise you this,,..that sort of thing will come back and bite you on the arse.. don’t do it.

They sit languishing in the shop for months, I have not the heart to do much with them, if anyone asks I tell them whats wrong and they smile and turn on their heels,, remember these aren’t £10 chairs and there they sit, looking at me every time I walk in the room, like two unhappy guests at a wedding, I’m sick of the sight of them, .. then, one day a trader walks in, common occurrence and he wanders the showroom, “I like these Drew fancy a swap” …….I could have kissed him.. “The sun shines on a dogs arse some days” and today was that day, I’m honest and tell him the same list of faults I've told everyone else…He says, lets have a look what I have in the van. He has a Charles II gateleg table, a belting one, really bloody good tbh, great scale, the base is untouched, my great love, the top has been refinished in the 70s or 80s but it’s still a belter.. ok deal.. and yes I did have a very thorough look before you ask, we shake and swap, no money changes hands and I’m happy, he’s happy, the world is a better place, bird song, rainbows.. etc…

I now have something I’m proud to put my name too, the table top has a minor resto, we remove the varnish and that’s that, it goes up for sale, a few weeks later it finds a home, the perfect home, a family needing a table for their Cotswolds manor house, it had to be untouched and look like it had always been there. boom.. everyone’s a winner and we see a working profit.. just.. phew I got out of that and stayed fashionable… lesson learnt.. again.

A month or two goes by, I’m in the shop, feet up reading the trade gazette,, a runner “trade dealer who finds stock and runs it between dealers till it finds a home” Stops in for coffee and a cake, we shoot the breeze for an hr.. I love this bit of the job, chatting shit about the trade, I really like this guy we have known each other since my first Newark fair over 33 years ago and he’s one of the best.. A good egg .. we shake hands and as he leaves I say to the back of his head, “anything on the van that might be me “… he says,, “Well I do have a fantastic pair of chairs”….

More Soon

DX

“You’ll get buried with that'“… I know,…..but I just had to own it”..

Antiques are important, in this country you’re rarely 20ft away from an ancient monument or someones sainted grandmothers drinks trolley, it surrounds us, its shaped your life, shaped our country’s essence, it has, you probably don’t even realise it or know why, but antiques have…the mass appreciation of antiques in our cultural lives isn’t big enough.. we need to pay more attention.. you need to pay more attention..

I’m not completely sure how to begin, but here we are, I’ve read the tutorials, talked to a learned journalist friend, who was incredibly helpful (thank you Aeron) and as per usual I’ve chosen to ignore them and blindly walk into this as myself…..

I love the antiques business, every single dirty, dodgy, anarchic, floppy haired, sweary, expensive, red trousered, maddening, beautiful, corner of it… the people, the outcasts and other lotus eaters who blow into this business and find a home, you can be what you want here, there are no rules, no tests to pass, no forms to fill in, no pencil necked dullard to please, just be you, and the more you are YOU, the better at this game you will be, .. come on in, the water’s lovely… so what do you get for your money.... travel (lots of that), the constant impact of wondrous and not so wondrous items we’ve produced, (we as a species have turned out some dreadful shite), when I found something truly awful on my travels I’d buy it and gift it to my son, the winner so far (sorry son I’m still finding this amusing) is a 2ft plastic meerkat dressed as Michael Jackson in his thriller guise, outstandingly awful, badly made, sloppily finished and utterley devoid of any worth to man, now or in the future, monetised landfill..perfect for the collection…anyway I digress, it’s the knowledge gained and mistakes made (I think I’ve made all of them and invented a few more) …the stories told, dealers really do have the best stories, even the ones repeated a hundred times, and the whopping lies told too, I’ve heard some corkers and remained straight faced mostly, the sheer undiluted joy I find in it every day no matter what….so, I thought I’d share the weekly eb and flow of it with you all here.

I have been passionate about this business, and remember it is a “business”, never forget that, for as long as I can remember, I got serious at 11, well as serious as you can be at 11, deciding then and there, “I would be an antique dealer”,…the other options I gave serious considerations too were “stunt man” and “rock star”…after weighing all three up I decided that I would definitely be an antique dealer, and I’m still trying my very best to be one.

The excitement is still there, it still holds the magic, and there is a magic in it, it still fires me out of bed in the morning, honestly it just gets better, thirty three years, and a few months in… I think I made the right decision.

A couple of years ago I gave up television, I never, not once had any dreams of being on the box, it just happened, why? well.. I was so annoyed by the pantomime dealer Fxxxwit that graced our screens so often back then spouting his nonsense about the business that I loved so much, that once I was given the opportunity to be on the TV I ran with it, I wanted to show you as closely as I possibly could the reality, not the drivel being peddled by this Lovejoy wannabe..…..that annoyance became ”Salvage Hunters” (Never liked the name, there’s a scoop for you).. leaving was a big decision for me, but one I’d been thinking about for a good while, “I just wanted to be a dealer, how on earth did I end up here I thought” “this wasn’t in the plan”… there’s never actually been a plan if I’m honest….??? I’d been involved with the programme since 2011, made it my own, but it was time, enough was enough.

I had some of the best days of my life while filming, the crew became family, hotels became home, and as it had always been prior, then and now I lived on the road, to some people saying that it sounds like I don’t like it, the truth couldn’t be further from that, I love it, always have always will…. god I love it so..please don’t let it end.

There a rhythm to it, a canter, I love driving, I mean I really love it, I love to travel, I love getting lost, (for someone who wanders about for a living I do get lost a hell of a lot), the sudden change of direction in the middle of the day, the new contact you meet out of nowhere, the surprise find that turns out to be that days or that weeks best one, for me this is the juice, this is the life I wanted, I got and I love, I eat sleep and breath it, I wallow in it, wear it like a favourite jacket, I immerse myself in it, I wanted it to impregnate my bones and it has.. man… please don't ever take this away from me.

So I’ve made some changes, a lot of changes actually, I’ve moved to Bath full time now, I love Bath, it’s like living in a period drama shoot, crossed with a retirement village, a soho house for the pashmina generation,… the restoration of the house is done, that’s it, finito, done, fini, the end… There's a lot more to tell about the house, but not right now, it’s taken up four years of my life and every penny I could find, it was a foolish thing to do, but occasionally you need to do a foolish thing.

The business has changed location, we have moved into Tetbury, I have a nice little showroom in the town, surrounded by some of the best dealers in this country. Tetbury is one of the largest antiques hubs in the UK, (over 100 dealers in a three mile radius) you’d be hard pushed to find anywhere else that has this amount of top flight dealers, centres and collectives in such a small area, (possibly around Newark), there are ten dealers in the town centre alone, moving there just made sense,

I looked at three locations before this move, Petworth, Tetbury and Pimlico, Petworth just didn’t fit me, I love the place but it didn’t feel right for me, I was there a week ago to buy and catch up with friends and it is a classy destination that’s for sure with top flight dealers everywhere, the Pimlico shop was beautiful and came with an apartment, but the showroom space wasn’t big enough and it was too expensive, uncomfortably expensive, it would have sucked any of the fun out of it, ….Tetbury fits, location wise, not too far from home, a nice commute so I can listen to the political podcasts I’ve become so addicted too, so that change works, come and see us.

One change that is obvious is my physical appearance, yes I’ve lost weight. I needed to, I was a mess, I drank way to much and ate the same way, I was very unhappy, I was trapped in a situation, booze numbed it….. I’ve lost over five stone and counting, (I was a remarkable 16.8st at one point, like a small prize bull) I hid the weight well but it was there and it was time…and no I’m not taking any pills to do it.. not my thing. I look after myself now, (yawn, I know what you’re thinking) yes I go to the gym four nights a week, (Resistance training, basically, picking heavy things up and putting them down again, I have found in that, a place and a continuity that makes sense to me, so I’ll keep doing that forever), yes I watch what I eat….I never, ever did any of these things, I loathed the gym with a passion, boring badly dressed people went there didn’t they? I went once with a member of the film crew, hated every tedious painful second, I did not go back, until a year ago, I preferred burgers to bay leaves and curry to carrots….I drank red wine and lager like it was about to run out, I drank mostly anything put in front of me tbh, I was just starting to experiment with Scotch prior to stopping drinking, thank heaven for small mercies… the hangovers avoided », My Scouse doctor said “you drink a lot of meals Drew” he was right.. ……I’ve not had a drink in four years and seven months, or 55 months and eight days, or 1,692 days, or whatever way you chose to put it, and everything, I mean absolutely every aspect of my life is better because of it, but I know if I put the effort in I can be addicted to anything in under three days…..

So what will I be talking about, well a lot, I want to tell you about that latest (the best thing in the whole world at that precise moment) thing that I’ve found, that shop I’ve just stumbled into, that auction buy I cannot wait to pick up, and the one I just missed, that freezing cold antique fair that starts to early (there is a reason why fairs traditionally started early, do you know why?), I will happily share with you all the “new dealers” I find that inspire, young and old, this is one area I’m particularly passionate about, not just the fact that the industry needs new faces but for that miraculous and oh so infrequent moment when you see someone with real promise coming through, now that is rare thing indeed…in thirty three years at the coal face of the business, I’ve only seen it twice….an original.

So I’ve been through a lot, more than you know, I’ve made a few (a lot of) changes, and luckily I’m still here to tell the tale and there’s alot to tell..

More soon

DX