In the beginning

I've been wanting to do this for ages, a weekly look into my life as an Antique dealer at large.

“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 day in the life of a full time dealer, dirty volvo estate mandatory, Folk art fox kept.

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.

A winters day in my house during the restoration with a rather fabulous pair of chairs, now sold.

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.

In the pink,,,

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