Amateur historian amasses huge £50k collection of war memorabilia in 3-bed home from chess game machine learning Watch Video

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✓ Published: 16-Jun-2024

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An amateur historian has amassed a huge £50,000 collection of military memorabilia – in his dining room.<br/><br/>Ray Fricker, 67, has spent 14 years collecting roughly 900 pieces from the First and Second World Wars that now cover the room's walls and floor.<br/><br/>His fascination with modern history was sparked by finding World War Two-era helmets in derelict air raid shelters of demolished homes in Manchester as a boy.<br/><br/>And decades later, he created a dedicated ‘war room’ in his three-bed family home with machine guns, gas masks, carvings from POW camps and letters from soldiers.<br/><br/>Ray said despite the collection’s impressive value, his motivation has always been to look after the artefacts for future generations.<br/><br/>He said: “I don’t buy to make a profit – I buy to save.<br/><br/>“I’ve got letters, I’ve got diaries, and I’ve got stuff from prisoner of war camps, where people have made stuff. <br/><br/>“And I’ve got a shell that landed on the British side in World War One when they were battling. It went straight down into the dugouts, and it never went off.<br/><br/>“I love the chase, and once the chase is over, the piece goes in the war room – and it’s saved there. <br/><br/>“It’s just something you’ve got to do...but sometimes it can take a long time.”<br/><br/>Ray, who works part-time at a VW dealership, said his memorabilia collection began in 2010 after he purchased a tin hat, which he planned to turn into a clock.<br/><br/>But after inspecting the World War Two British protective gear, he realised it needed to be conserved – and he started buying up more vintage pieces.<br/><br/>He said: “I had one hat, so I put it in the war room. <br/><br/>“Then the next minute I had another one, and then another one. And my wife said, ‘I hope you’re not going to buy any more of these’.<br/><br/>“Before you knew it, I’d started collecting after getting the bug from when I was a kid.”<br/><br/>The roughly 13ft long by 9ft wide room in his Manchester home is now lined with items from countries such as Germany, Russia, France, Britain and the USA.<br/><br/>Ray has shrapnel-battered German helmets worn during D-Day, along with disarmed grenades, a minesweeping device and a 1940s-era radio.<br/><br/>He also has an original World War Two de-activated German MG 42 machine gun, a replica German mortar, which fires blanks, and a British Enfield rifle worth £600.<br/><br/>Ray further has a de-activated Russian Maxim machine gun, which was imported from the country, and is now valued at around £3,000.<br/><br/>But one of his most priceless items is a model of a wooden tank carved by World War Two soldier James Pardoe while interned at Stalag XX-A POW camp in Toruń, German-occupied Poland.<br/><br/>The infantryman from Scarborough, who served in the Prince of Wales's Own Regiment of Yorkshire, was in his 40s when he chiselled the sculpture inside the detention centre.<br/><br/>Ray said: “The barrel never got finished on the tank, probably because anything long and thin could be used as a weapon.