Page 40 - VE Magazine - Issue 42

What were you like as a kid?
I had absolutely no interest in school, that’s for sure! I didn’t want to go, and didn’t go whenever possible. I started in a tiny rural school, then a North Wales Valleys comprehensive during the 70s and early 80s and came out of there at 15 with no qualifications at all, literally nothing, I just walked out. I found the whole thing
a waste of time! I knew what I wanted to do, so there was no point me being there!
Where did your early influences, or inspiration come from?
From a really young age I would comb the local tips and ex-Ministry of Defence storage sites that we had along the coast.
I used to break into the local scrap yard and wander around with all the ‘junk’. I just had an obsession with old things and I’d take little treasures I found home. I was around nine, 10 and 11 at this point. It was just something I did, and I had a natural affinity for it. My father was a sign writer, a proper traditional sign writer, and he had a good eye. He taught me how to look at things, recognising I had an eye and could be taught. At a very young age he’d plonk me in front of a building and say, “What’s wrong with that building? What’s right with that building?” or “What’s wrong with this painting? What’s right with this painting?”. It felt natural for me to do that, it just felt normal. Everything at school just made no sense, this did!
As a teenager, were you into girls and motorbikes rather than books!?
No! I was into books, that’s the strange thing! I would read voraciously as a child, even now. I’d read about antiques, interiors, art, history, architecture, medieval history, cars, motorbikes; all of these things. I’d educate myself in the things I was interested in and nothing else! I read like you wouldn’t believe, I’ve had to build a home library at my house, because I still have so many books and I subscribe to so many magazines. I am constantly driving around with books and magazines in the car to read. A friend of mine called me recently and said “You are self-over-educated!”
With such a busy schedule, when do you find the time to read?
Whenever I sit down really, I collect auction catalogues, and have done for a couple of decades. I’ve got thousands, and bought a few hundred more a couple of weeks ago. I find it really relaxing! A good auction catalogue and a glass of wine is a nice way of winding the day down.
Was finding the William Morris stained glass windows your big break?
It was my big financial break! I trained as a stained-glass conservator, restorer and designer from age 16 through to 23, and studied William Morris in particular, restoring a lot of Morris windows over the period of my training. Everyone knows Morris and Rossetti, and know it’s
all a bit cheesy; silly hippie girls with long hair and daft dresses. I however, was fascinated by William Morris himself, his circle, his madness and his life.
I remember my first week in the job and we went to a demolition site on Anglesey, and we took a lot of stained glass windows out of
a church, to teach me the correct way to take a window out and that sort of thing. I asked why we were taking them out, and they said that the demolition contractors were keeping them, I didn’t give it another thought. Then eight years later this van turns up at my father’s yard,
I opened up the back, and there they were, the windows I removed from the church, the William Morris ones... which were actually Morris & Co, so were made after his death, but designed during his life. I was just standing there looking at them all! We did a deal for around £3,000 for the lot; it was literally all the money I had! I didn’t really know just how much they were worth at the time, but I knew what I had and recognised they were good! I’d recently started selling to one of the first and one of the biggest stained glass window dealers in the world at the time, who was based in Birmingham. I took the windows out and photographed them correctly, went to Boots to get them processed, went back a few days later to pick them up, then I popped
them in an envelope and posted them to him; that’s how long it used to take to do this! The next day I got a phone call from him, and just had to gauge his opinion really, I knew there was one that was a very rare piece, designed by Edward Burne-Jones, called ‘Voyage to Vinland the Good’; it was an image of a Viking boat crashing into a wave with terrified Vikings on it, and that’s really where the value was. I sold those three pieces for in excess of £50,000, even I was surprised at how much they were worth, he offered me a figure that was already way over what I believed they were worth, but I knew I was only going to get that opportunity once, so I asked for a bit more, and he gave me a bit more! He doubled his money the next day, so he was okay. The rest were from different artists of the period, the greats from the Victorian and Edwardian era, all English and all original. I was able to restore the ones that needed it, and in the end, I sold the whole lot
for in excess of £100,000.
Did that kick start the business?
It was life changing! I don’t come from a moneyed family, my father was a sign writer, my mother worked at the local youth club, there was no money in the family to get me started; so that really did help. I was able to get a better van, buy premises, buy stock, have a website, get a mobile phone. I was working myself to death at the time, to maybe take away £400 a month, I was living in a one bedroom cottage in Conwy, the van I had at the time was worth £200, so you can imagine the difference something like that makes.
40 / October-November 2018 / ve www.vintagexplorer.co.uk