The things I’ve collected all my life

Phillip Adams has collected over 40,000 books. Picture: istock

Like bowerbirds decorating their sex dens, like squirrels gathering nuts for winter, humans are natural-born collectors. For some of us, the impulse becomes an addiction for which there is no help, no hope, no cure. I am one of them, a life-long member of Collectors Anonymous (CA).

As kids, my generation collected things like marbles, autographs, Dinky toys, stamps, pictorial playing cards, matchboxes and footy cards. Also superhero comics, in my case Batman. In adulthood I collected, among other things, pictures, autographed documents (by the likes of Darwin, Dickens, Napoleon, Disraeli, Churchill and long-dead Royals) and, in lieu of comics, actual books. Plus a library of significant fillums and TV shows on DVD.

But first and foremost it’s books, books, books. At the last census over 40,000 of them – virtually everything I’ve read or skimmed since the bygone days of Just William and Biggles. Most were sent to me by publishers or authors seeking interviews. We have five separate libraries at the farm, including a 40ft container and a grain silo converted to the purpose. All chocka. Sadly, few books will survive my death. These days, books are deemed surplus to requirements and are destined to end their lives in landfills. Tragic.

I‘m also a collector of collections, most famously of antiquities – what Barry Humphries unkindly derided as “Adams’ collection of broken rubble”, going on to suggest it was “necessary to smear yourself with Vaseline to squeeze through”. Lindsay Fox was even ruder; when first exposed to what I’d amassed from the dead civilisations, he sneered, “Where’d you get all this second-hand crap?” This from a bloke who collected billions and had more Rolls-Royces than the Rajneesh.

My rubble and crap is, yes, the detritus of Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome – plus contributions from the Etruscans, Incans, Aztecs and a dozen other Meso-American cultures. Hundreds of pieces, big and little, from a humanoid sarcophagus to mummified mice. It all began when Barry Humphries and I went window shopping in Old Bond Street. We were in London filming Barry McKenzie and Humphries – a member of CA as well as AA – was intent on swelling his collections of Belgian Symbolist pictures, first editions and Charles Conders. Whereupon, I spotted a tiny blue faience Egyptian amulet in Asprey’s ultra-posh window – for only five quid. I had no idea you could own Egyptian artefacts, let alone at such a low price. This thrilling discovery set me on a slippery slope – destined for decades of delight, discovery and dutiful dusting. (Only I am permitted to wield the feather duster for fear of breakages.)

I take the view that you don’t really own these things. They own you. Others have owned them in the past, and others will own them in the future.

Anyone who’s watched Antiques Roadshow knows that people will collect anything – from watches to Beatles memorabilia. There are folk who spend all their time, effort and money in pursuit of an elusive Toby Jug, or on the hunt for things connected to Scott of the Antarctic. Nothing is too esoteric, eccentric, or improbable to escape the collector’s attention. Is something somewhere … collecting dust?