MY FIRST

Nelson-born antiques expert MEMORY: Being in my grandmother's back yard, gazing at a white fantail pigeon. I thought it was a duck and used to ask where the duck was.

HOLIDAY: A day trip to Southport with my mother, during the week. It was a bright, sunny day with Bing Crosby singing Blue Skies on the radio. We went on a Bracewell's coach and my granddad met us there -- he used to go for two weeks.

PET: I wanted a duck, but I got a brother instead. When I reached the age of about nine we got some guinea pigs.

SCHOOLFRIEND: Edward Grimshaw. The family lived in our street, St Paul's Road, Nelson.

CAR: A Renault 4, bright yellow, that we called the Yellow Peril. It had a fabric roof that came off the first time we drove down the motorway. My wife had to hold it down all the way to the Isle of Wight.

RECORD: I Tort I Taw A Puddy Tat by Tweetie Pie, with Mel Blanc as Sylvester.

JOB: I worked for Lyons Tours in Colne in the reservation department before working for an American shipper. My mum and dad had started collecting what my brother and I thought was junk but when I worked for the shipping company I realised that this was stuff that Americans would pay big dollars for, and the mercenary in me was awakened.

ANTIQUE PURCHASE: A coffee cup and saucer made at the Kaughley factory in Shropshire dating from about 1780 and decorated with a pattern called Dresden Flowers. I bought it in 1971 for £14 from the shipper I was working for, when my take-home pay was £12. He thought I was mad but I thought, "what are the chances of ever seeing another?" I could have bought a similar one not long ago for something like £100, which I thought was too much TELEVISION APPEARANCE: It was on Pebble Mill at One in 1980 or 1981 when I took on objects from a fascinating collection of bygones and curiosities.

EMBARRASSMENT: When my nana used to come round the street corner and do a little yodel to me and my brother and call us "chickabiddies". We would dive into a hedge while our friends laughed. When she got into the house we would run in because she had brought us our comics.