Yorkshire soldier at heart of £50K war collection for priceless reason

An amateur historian has accumulated a staggering £50,000 collection of military memorabilia all housed in his dining room - and his pride and joy was built by a Yorkshire soldier.

Ray Fricker, 67, has dedicated 14 years to amassing approximately 900 items from the First and Second World Wars --which now adorn the walls and floor of his dining room.

His interest in modern history was ignited as a child when he discovered World War Two-era helmets in abandoned air raid shelters of demolished houses in Manchester.

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Years later, he transformed a room in his three-bedroom family home into a 'war room', filled with machine guns, gas masks, carvings from POW camps and letters from soldiers. Despite the impressive value of his collection, Ray insists that his motivation has always been to preserve these artefacts for future generations.

He stated: "I don't buy to make a profit I buy to save. I've got letters, I've got diaries, and I've got stuff from prisoner of war camps, where people have made stuff.

"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. I love the chase, and once the chase is over, the piece goes in the war room and it's saved there."

"It's just something you've got to do...but sometimes it can take a long time." Ray, who works part-time at a VW dealership, revealed that his collection began in 2010 after he bought a tin hat, intending to convert it into a clock.

After examining the World War Two British protective gear, he realised it needed to be conserved and he started acquiring more vintage pieces. He said: "I had one hat, so I put it in the war room.

"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'. Before you knew it, I'd started collecting after getting the bug from when I was a kid."

The roughly 13ft long by 9ft wide room in his Manchester home is now filled with items from countries such as Germany, Russia, France, Britain and the USA. Ray has shrapnel-battered German helmets worn during D-Day, along with disarmed grenades, a minesweeping device and a 1940s-era radio.

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. Ray further has a de-activated Russian Maxim machine gun, which was imported from the country, and is now valued at around £3,000.

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 Torun, German-occupied Poland. 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.

Ray said: "The barrel never got finished on the tank, probably because anything long and thin could be used as a weapon. But I've managed to save this piece of history which is a piece of him. Imagine trying to find some bits of wood. It could have taken him months.

"That's close to me because I can feel the history and I know the person who made it, and it's that and what it's been through and how he had to hide it. That's priceless to me." Ray revealed that he gathers these historical pieces by visiting antique shops during his travels around the UK, with friends also on the lookout for items in France and other parts of Europe.

He doesn't shy away from displaying controversial German memorabilia either - including a reproduction Nazi flag bearing a Swastika. He said: "I always explain, I don't support this stuff at all - it's there. It's part of World War Two. It needs to be shown. So the swastika goes with all the German side, which is the MG 42 machine gun, the First World War helmets and Second World War helmets."

Ray has no intention of selling his private collection, foreseeing it will eventually be donated to a public museum. He expressed: "I'm just a caretaker hanging onto this until the next guy pops over and takes it all. I wouldn't ever want to sell it. I would imagine it would all go to a museum. However, he did mention the estimated value of the collection: "It's not far short of £50,000. ".