Where my interest in antiques began.

I’m often asked where my interest in antiques began, and well, it’s a bit of a long answer, so you’ll have to bear with me and read on…..

You have to turn the clock way back to the 1960’s, when London was swinging and my father took on a stall on the Portobello Road. I came along in 1972, and my earliest memory is staring up from my pushchair  at the rag and bone man with his horse and cart on the corner of Portobello Road. I could only have been two or three years old at the time.

Fast forward seven years or so, and I would help my father on the stall every Saturday, although by now, a man called Vic Schuler was sharing the pitch. Vic was quite the character and would bring the stall every week on top of his Morris Traveller, which would then have to be bolted together early in the morning before the day’s trading could begin.

Vic was an avid collector of Toby Jugs, and I think it’s fair to say became the World’s expert in them, writing the definitive book and even had a jug made in his honour.

It was an amazing time to be in Portobello Road, all the best dealers were there, and the amount of antiques you saw on all the different stalls each week was truly astonishing. If you didn’t know what something was, you could be sure that someone in the Road would, and be happy to tell you all about it, once they’d earned their profit. All sorts of antiques would come and go on our 6ft stall, cork screws, Sunderland lustre, Staffordshire figures to name but a few things, much of which is completely out of fashion today. However, a spark was lit in a young boy, which still burns brightly in a much older auctioneer today.

Vic Schuler Toby Jug