I missed my chance for TV stardom... much to my wife's relief /Dave Thomas

Gawd, I came so close to nearly being on't telly.
He may be a self confessed hoarder but not quite bad enough to feature in a TV show about the afflictionHe may be a self confessed hoarder but not quite bad enough to feature in a TV show about the affliction
He may be a self confessed hoarder but not quite bad enough to feature in a TV show about the affliction

One of the pieces I wrote on here was about my hoard of Burnley stuff. It triggered a response from a lass called Jacqui Lloyd.

She won’t mind me naming her because it will actually help her to find people who are compulsive hoarders. She is a producer of a TV programme that features people who are collectors to the degree that their houses are full to the ceiling with all the items they can’t bear to part with. They are collectors to the point where it is an affliction.

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We are talking here about places so bad that if you open the front door, junk just falls out into the street. Rooms that you can’t get into and cupboards that are overflowing.

I actually knew such a bloke once whose collection of Burnley memorabilia filled the house in heaps and piles and cardboard boxes to the extent that you simply could not move. The boxes of old newspapers began in the hall and then spread into the living room. You didn’t sit on a sofa; you sat on boxes filled with old programmes. I won’t name him because divorce eventually followed.

Another chum was divorced because his wife decided he loved Burnley FC more than he loved her. “Darling,” he said. “I love Blackburn Rovers more than I love you.”

Anyway, Jacqui phoned me and tactfully said she didn’t think for a moment that I was disorganised and in need of help (secretly she probably hoped that I was) but wondered if I knew of anyone who was a suitable case for treatment. The kind of person who would benefit from a team of cleaners and sorters coming in to empty the house and restore some sort of liveability to the place.

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Sadly, I didn’t. The chap whose house was once upon a time worthy of a programme, was now reformed, remarried, and his collection shifted up into the loft.

So: alas I did not know of anyone who fitted the TV bill.

The wife was aghast of course when I told her that I had been contacted.

“Under no circumstances are they coming in my house,” she announced. But that was before I explained that my collection was too organised, neat and tidy.

When I mentioned 'neat and tidy' she simply humphed. “Don’t you dare use the words neat, and tidy in the same sentence,” she added. “When was the last time you even dusted it?”

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“Dust,” I replied chirpily. “What is dust but layers of history to be preserved and cherished?"

Jacqui and I chatted and what I said was that the interesting and sad thing is, the way in which serious collectors like myself, eventually enter the twilight zone and we must think about what on earth we do with all our accumulated treasures. What do you do when there is no one in the family interested enough to receive it?

That would make a really tear-filled programme, I suggested, about ageing collectors chatting with misty eyes about how it all started and how it was nearing the end, as we shuffled along in our old age towards the end of the perch.

So the point of all this is simply to ask for help. If you do know someone who is afflicted to the point of it being out of control, and would be willing to be featured, do get in touch, and I will pass on the details to Jacqui. It could nearly have been me, an almost suitable case for treatment, but not quite bad enough.