Man with a Van: My Story

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Pritchard asks me to imagine how much art and culture society would have lost to landfill but for the enthusiasm of the antiques dealer. “To me it’s a service. Yes, we make money out of it, but so does a roofer. So does the butcher.” I’d love to be right on about this and PC but no it’s not ok because you have vandalised your environment and put something tasteless and cheap and nasty into it, and even it wasn’t that way you’ve made it that way and you’re not learning from it and it will go out of this small phase and still be something worthless so you have wasted your money [when you could have gone out and bought] something beautiful. Drew told Quest: “I was just utterly fascinated with it and it’s never left me. It’s not something I can explain why, I just had to be around this old stuff all the time." It covers an overview of what the business is all about, what you’ll need, how to buy, sell and also etiquette: how to do things the right way.

Speaking to the Telegraph Drew said: "I’ve had a blip in the middle where everything just got too much for me, which I’m over now and working on. I’ve started again from scratch. I’ve completely binned my old life and started afresh." Reading Pritchard’s book opened my eyes to how much work is needed to do well. Even when you’ve been in the business for decades. “That’s the reality. It’s flat out,” says Pritchard. You can be a dabbler. “But it’s like dabbling in brain surgery. Saying, ‘I do a bit of brain surgery at the weekend’ is fine, but you’re never going to be good at it.” The emporium helped cement Conwy's position as a top destination for shoppers wanting independent stores and attracted visitors from around the UK and further afield.A Volvo estate is part of any antique dealer’s essential kit. When Pritchard was starting out in the 1980s it was that or, if you were slightly posher, a Mercedes estate, but today’s Volvos are better, he says. He groans at the very mention of them. “I wish I’d never put that out there.” He’s bored to tears with people asking him about them. “It’s just become this behemoth.” It wasn't just sheds - nearby woods would be home to old cars that had been dumped. In the summer holidays, he and best friend Tee - who later joined him on Quest TV's Salvage Hunters - would scour fields and beaches to see what they could salvage.

He opened up about his childhood and how he found his passion for antiques. He said he and his friends would go and look in sheds in his home village in Glan Conwy, Wales. But ask him about modern furniture and his passion appears to tip over into anger: “We have been trained like little lab rats to go to Ikea and buy things … and aren’t they great because they’re shiny lovely people who give you meatballs and sell you something that’s comfortable for five minutes and is instantly worth nothing, whereas you can go and buy yourself a chair at any antique shop or salvage yard or online for the same price or less that will be better and will last you all your life and will be more comfortable and that is more green because recycling’s all right but re-use is better. Mr Pritchard is being a bit disingenuous here, I have watched many episodes of Salvage Hunters and a few of the spin off restoration programme. He has not only bought and sold painted furniture, but he has also had his restorers paint pieces. I think his comments amount to ‘I am the arbiter of what is, and is not acceptable’ and hopefully is somewhat tongue in cheek, however passionately expressed. A flat cap among silver spoons and old school ties, our favourite no-bullshit expert may be a one-off, but his story makes us all dream of that obscure piece of antiquity gathering dust in the garden shed... 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.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. Talking about the current crisis, he said: "The rising cost in materials, utility bills and having to increase labour rate to cover our cost of living means we cannot compete with the large furniture manufacturers that mass produce. Currently we have had to loan the business personal money to keep it going and therefore are having to look at what would be financially beneficial to us and seriously consider our future. Pritchard has arguably had the trajectory and supernova explosion of a superstar. He and his ex-wife Rebecca, who worked alongside each other and co-starred in Salvage Hunters, ended their marriage in 2017. A turbulent period in his personal life followed, culminating in a ban (now lifted) from pubs in Conwy after a fracas in 2019. There’s still stuff being lost. “Every minute of every day something is going to the landfill that shouldn’t be. It’s not the people’s fault, it’s just society and education.” But despite being a master of his trade he faces an uncertain future. He said that like many other businesses he had been hit by surging costs - making it increasingly hard for him to compete with mass producers.