Droylsden man builds £50k war memorabilia collection

ManchesterWorld

Ray Fricker, an amateur historian from Droylsden, has spent around £50k on war memorabilia over the years and his collection now takes up an entire room.   Credit: SWNS

Transcript

00:00Hiya, I'm Ray, come and see my war room, it's absolutely fantastic.

00:13So here we have some of the collection, British helmets, some mixed helmets from around the

00:18world.

00:19We've got the Anne Crank siren down at the bottom, we've got some ARP equipment and we've

00:25got the German helmet here which is from the First World War.

00:28We've got the 18-pounder which was found at the Somme, it's obviously deactivated.

00:38It all started in the 60s for me, we had a gang, five lads, great lads, we was walking

00:44down Ashland New Road one day, we noticed that the houses was all empty and it was actually

00:49up for being all flattened off so, like kids do, we went round the back and there was air

00:54aid shelters there, we went in the air aid shelters, rooting, I found a tin hat with

00:58the wardens hat, it was white with a black W on it, put that on my head, I said to the

01:02lads, yeah, get this on your head, went next door, found some more and we found some military

01:07jackets, so we had the military jackets on as well.

01:10So really, that was the start of it for me, I loved it and the smell of it, it was amazing

01:16and then this happened.

01:24This is actually from Stalag 20A concentration camp, it might look just like a piece of wood

01:30to anybody else but close looking at it, you can see it's got its little wheels, it's got

01:36the German markings, it's got the way in, the hatch, it's not got a cannon on it for

01:41a reason because it had been sharp, it could have been used as a weapon and it's really,

01:47really to me, priceless, there's not another one like it in the world, it's just a couple

01:51of blocks of wood, which is hard to find in any prison camp and he's managed to find

01:55this and make that and that probably kept his sanity all the way through the war.

02:01There's absolutely hundreds of items in here, what's it worth, well, if I told you that,

02:07I'd probably end up with a divorce.

02:10Very, very rare that people come in to see this collection because it's been kept secret,

02:16all this history in here, it's not about how much it's worth and I wouldn't sell it for

02:21it's time to share it and that's why I'm here, to share it with the people because I think

02:26it should be shared, not kept away in a closet like a car, it needs to be viewed and loved.

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