Myself and Dick Harper, a dealer friend from Temple Sowerby, near Penrith, with whom I enjoyed a long and profitable relationship from the early 1960s until his retirement at the age of 90. He was the Stationmaster for Newbiggin, where he lived at the time I first met him, Culgaith and Kirkby Thore Stations, and had inherited an antiques-business sideline from the previous Stationmaster. I remember well, as a student at Carlisle Art College in 1962, taking him a suitcase full of bits and pieces I had bought in the junk shops of Carlisle, and coming away with £4.10s, showing me a profit of £2, which was the equivalent of my mortgage per week at that time. We still made regular forays, to Barnard Castle, for example, where there are still several antiques shops, and Harrogate, right up to his passing away, a few years ago.
