Man with a Van: My Story

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Put your hand on it, say you love it, smile and say you will take it away that day and I guarantee you will get the best price possible.” Drew Pritchard for Barker and Stonehouse – Harling Snuggle Chair Craig has also been dropped from the hit shows by the production company - although remains on good terms with Drew. Apparently he's "too good" for TV, with him making light work of the challenges posed to the team.

The former Ysgol Dyffryn Conwy pupil has been an independent antiques dealer since 1993, having trained initially as a stained glass restorer and designer. Drew Pritchard is showing me around his antique dealer’s office on Zoom. “Brace yourself,” he says, flashing the camera over his shoulder to reveal the blanket-strewn boot of his Volvo estate. In those days, he believes, the antiques trade was like “the mafia”, a closed shop shrouded in secrecy to outsiders. Drew’s success has done much to lift the veil: it’s also created a generation of amateur wheeler-dealers who scour car boots with trolleys. Never has other people’s junk been worth so much. Some people, remarked Drew modestly, are now doing “Drew Pritchard better than me”. I like Drew and I enjoy his programmes, I think he is very knowledgeable and has a brilliant eye for quality – which is just as well, otherwise I might be thinking he is a bit of an arrogant ****** after reading this.

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Between the 1940s and 70s, he explains, the Americans bought all our best antiques (presumably while we were investing in G-plan and mid-century modern furniture by designers such as Robin Day and Ercol) and they hung on to them and all that remained in the UK was a “load of old toot” from after the Second World War. So what are his tips for buying old? Firstly, if you buy an old light he suggests taking it to the “bloke on the high street who fixes your microwave and your telly. Electrics is three wires, there’s no mystery. Clean it up, take it to him and he will fix it for you.” He's known to millions of viewers around the world as the star of Salvage Hunters. And, for Drew Pritchard, digging out treasures has been with him since childhood. His father was a sign writer who collected old bits and pieces to restore motorbikes and cars from spare parts. It fostered Drew’s interest in reclaimed antiques and vehicles. He had, he said, been brought up in a family where it was “normal to have a Manx Norton with its wheels off on the kitchen table and be taken to school in an XK120 with the exhaust held on with baling twine”. Everyone sees everyone trying to get a bargain on the telly but don’t do that because the next time they won’t be there for you to try and get a cheap price off. Give them their money you will still be getting something of value.

Drew Pritchard set himself up as a dealer when he was a teenager, rooting around in scrapyards, working out of a shed and getting about in a ropy old Transit. Now he's a leading figure in the antiques trade with an international online business, and he's hugely popular presenter of hit TV show Salvage Hunters. A star on hit shows Salvage Hunters and Salvage Hunters: The Restorers says he is being forced to consider his future as costs spiral. Expert upholsterer Craig Hughes, from Colwyn Bay, has been a regular alongside Conwy antiques dealer Drew Pritchard on Salvage Hunters and a presenter on the spin off show.A shop is what Pritchard calls in his book “a very expensive gilded anchor, weighing you down”. A distraction from the nuts and bolts of how the money is made in the trade.