The Collectors

National World - Broadcast Video

We’ll meet people who collect everything from Mr Men to Mr Blobby, a South Tyneside lady who has a passion for pandas and a Sheffield super fan who needs a warehouse for all his memorabilia.

Transcript

00:00In a world filled with ordinary objects, there are those who see the extraordinary.

00:14They are the collectors, guardians of history, preservers of memories and curators of the

00:19rare and unusual.

00:21This is their journey, a celebration of the art of collecting and the people who turn

00:25everyday objects into treasures.

00:30Coming up, we'll meet people who collect everything from Mr Men to Mr Blobby, and a

00:35South Tyneside lady who has a passion for pandas.

00:40But first to Sheffield, where a football superfan has amassed so much memorabilia, he needs

00:45a warehouse.

00:49It started as a young child, to be fair, age four years old.

00:51My dad took me to my first game.

00:54I went along to that and he bought me a programme and from there I got a shirt, a football kit

00:59and it kind of took off from there.

01:01My friends were into Sheffield Wednesday and I started collecting little bits and bobs

01:05from there.

01:06At around about ten, eleven years old, I then became a season ticket holder and I went kind

01:10of home and away, all the way through the glory years, the big run years, and I collected

01:15from there shirts, shorts, tracksuits, everything really, it just kind of snowballed.

01:20Why Sheffield Wednesday?

01:23Football team, you know, it's followed through within the family, mum and dad are fans, it's

01:28followed all through the generations and obviously it's close by so it's just something that's

01:33passed through the family really.

01:35And it's such a big collection you had to move it because it took over your house.

01:39So as a child, yeah, it kind of took over my bedroom, then it took over my mum and dad's

01:43loft and then it kind of snowballed and got bigger and bigger and bigger.

01:46It eventually had to come out of there and come into some sort of storage unit, yeah,

01:50so this is where I am today.

01:52This is one of my favourite items in my collection, this is an original 1986 match-worn Sheffield

01:59Wednesday away shirt.

02:01As you can see, not many of these are around, it's got the original Finluck sponsor on there

02:05as well and this specific one was actually worn at the time by Sheffield Wednesday legend

02:12of ours, Gary Megson, whose dad was also quite big with the club through the years, so that's

02:17a specific wonderful piece that I like.

02:20Two Sheffield Wednesday shirts from the similar sort of era and season.

02:24These are around the late 90s, so you're looking at 97, 98, 99 era.

02:29You can see that one of them has the white Puma logo and one of them has the red Puma

02:33logo, this was due to different branding and different periods of time when they were released

02:39and these two are actually worn by the legends of the time, Benito Carbone and Paolo Di Canio.

02:44How do you go about finding items, you know, have you got a special research process?

02:48Yeah, it's been made a lot easier recently with the obviously internet and things like

02:52that and you can start looking through the programmes and things, but when you pick up

02:55an item like a shirt or something that you presume is potentially worn or issued by a

03:00player, it's all down to the detail and searching through the programmes, searching through

03:05the archives, looking at all the pictures, trying to marry up and match up what item

03:10is from which player sort of thing and which game and it's always in the detail and it

03:14takes a lot of time to get that actual information that you need and sometimes it's worth it,

03:20sometimes it's not, sometimes you get a good one, sometimes you don't.

03:22Are you going to keep collecting?

03:24I'm going to keep collecting, yeah, as long as I go, yeah, my children are into it now

03:27as well, so they're out picking things up and looking in charity shops and car book

03:31sales and things like that, yeah, but I'll continue.

03:44To Blackpool next, and if ever there was a TV character who was chaos personified, it's

03:56this one.

03:57The one on the left.

04:11I love nostalgia and pop culture and that is my main influences when I'm drawing.

04:16I just love the feeling you get when you find a childhood toy that you used to play with,

04:22that you used to cherish when you were a kid.

04:24Another five years on, ten years on, you just think, oh god, I remember that toy that I

04:29used to play with all the time.

04:32I am, yeah, believe it or not, I am young enough to remember Mr Bobby, so he was an

04:38icon of my childhood.

04:40So I grew up just watching TV.

04:42I was just absolutely, it was basically a third parent to me.

04:47So when Mr Bobby reached the screens, like, I think it was Friday nights or Saturday nights

04:52with Noel's house party, I was just obsessed with this like big pink yellow blob.

05:01In a way, like, he did things that I wanted to do and he pushed boundaries and, yeah,

05:08I just really wanted to aspire to be him but, you know, I couldn't because of social things,

05:15you know, you can't just push your way into someone's house and bounce around.

05:22I think in a way he was just misunderstood, like, I don't think he was naughty on purpose,

05:27I think he was just like naturally himself and because I grew up and I had undiagnosed

05:35ADHD and I feel like maybe that's part of why I love him so much because he was just

05:41like an unmasked monster with perhaps ADHD and I was masking a lot of the time.

05:52One of my favourite items is probably the knitted Mr Blobby that my grandma knitted

05:58me.

06:00So in lockdown I found like a knitting pattern, an official knitting pattern of Mr Blobby

06:05and my grandma, she only had one eye and I sent her this knitting pattern and I was like

06:11this is something to do during lockdown, you know, and she knitted it and it took her about

06:16a good, you know, two weeks and just looking at it, is this it?

06:21Is this what I'm supposed to do?

06:22And when it came out like that I just thought it was absolutely perfect.

06:25It looks so cursed but it's just beautiful, like the teeth and the eyes and everything,

06:31I just thought, you know what, the sausage fingers as well, I just thought it was beautiful

06:36and it's something that, because she sadly passed away two years ago, and it's something

06:40that just reminds me of her, like we just have it in the shop and every time I just

06:44look over there and it's like my grandma's in here.

06:50But to meet Mr Blobby himself would be like, I think I would die of happiness really,

06:59yeah, I would absolutely love to meet him one day.

07:03Hi I'm Michelle, this is my husband Stephen.

07:06Well the collection has continued to grow, much to Stephen's, he says disgust,

07:11but seeing as it's him that's been buying loads of it at Carboots for me,

07:16I don't hold any blame at all for this.

07:18No, it's all my fault, definitely all my fault.

07:21Charity stop, second hand stores, Carboots, anything like that,

07:25I'm there rubbing gin around looking for Mr Nen as well.

07:28Well my mum, when she was pregnant with me, bought a book

07:33and basically put it away and then she just continued to buy the books

07:38and once I started being aware, probably about preschool age,

07:42and I first chewed my first Mr Nen book that was given,

07:45there's a bite mark in one of the books somewhere,

07:49it just grew from there and it was obviously the early 70s, I was born in 72

07:54and through my childhood my parents didn't have a lot of money

07:58but I had Mr Nen stuff for birthdays and for Christmas

08:02but I continued to collect and my partners at the time,

08:07they also continued to collect and the stuff just kept going up in the loft,

08:12up in the loft and for my 40th birthday,

08:16I got the collection out of the loft because I thought we need to see what we've got

08:20and that was the first time that I'd realised I had a real problem.

08:25I needed to go to Mr Nen Anonymous

08:28and had the local news round, they took some crazy pictures of me

08:33and I was highly embarrassed.

08:34As the children grew up, I've dragged them to different places

08:37to meet Mr Nen characters at Butlins,

08:41I've even taken them on a holiday to try and see Mr Bump on a cruise ship.

08:46The whole collection is a collection of love for me

08:51because everybody that's bought me something, I've still got it,

08:55even if they're not part of my life anymore, I still have that gift

08:59because there's no way I'm getting rid of anything that's Mr Nen,

09:02I don't care who gave it to me.

09:04I managed to do a count after the Mr Nen anniversary

09:09and we were over 4,000 pieces.

09:12I keep saying I need to think about doing something with the collection

09:16that isn't keep collecting it because if it's postage stamps,

09:20if I had a stamp collection that would be manageable

09:23but this, I mean the new stuff, I need to stop buying

09:29but that's an addiction.

09:31The vintage stuff is what I really like, the artwork, the colour, the design

09:37but my goal is to get the world record and then I can die happy

09:41but then I want to have my picture taken with my world record

09:44which means it's going to have to all come out again, isn't it?

09:46So who knows how long this could take.

09:49I've been speaking to a South Tyneside resident

09:52whose passion for pandas started at a very young age.

09:54I've liked pandas since I was given a toy when I was very small

09:58and the panda bear was actually bigger than I was at the time

10:03but I used to drag it around everywhere with me.

10:05A while later when I was at school and interested in nature

10:10we went to London Zoo because I used to live down south

10:13and I remember this photo being taken of Chief Bear

10:18of Chi-Chi the panda and so we saw Chi-Chi at the zoo

10:23she was there from 1960.

10:27Chi-Chi and Cha-Cha were a pair of pandas that were given by the Chinese government

10:33as a kind of, they bestowed pairs on other zoos.

10:39This handbag is really special to me

10:41and it was given to me in China by this little girl here

10:46called Candy and that's me in the handbag.

10:49What happened was we got on a cruise to go along the Yangtze River

10:54to see the great big dam there

10:57and this little girl was playing the piano in the bar

11:01and we got up a conversation

11:04which only amounted to a couple of words

11:07because I don't have any Chinese other than Ni Hao

11:10but she was learning English

11:12and they learn English from the age of three

11:15but she already liked pandas and I like pandas

11:18and that was enough to kind of start a sort of pointing and smiling conversation

11:23and now she's old enough to have changed her name

11:28she's changed her name to Charlotte

11:29that's what she wants to call herself

11:31because she's 16 shortly

11:33and we're still in regular contact

11:36and that's given me an even better like love of China

11:41so we've visited the pandas together

11:43and we've been a couple of times to stay with the family now

11:46and the double panda tapestry there is one that they gave us on one of our visits.

Category

Transcript

Recommended