And yet, when Pritchard started out, antiques was a closed shop. “It was like the Mafia.” It’s not quite the same today, but with his advice he hopes he can get anyone through the door and give them a start. “The rest is down to what you make of it. That’s what I love about it.” 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 added: “My parents are still digging up boxes of old rubbish I found when I was a kid – I’d drag it all home. They even built another shed for me as I’d filled all the sheds in the garden with junk." READ MORE: Replacing Drew Pritchard antiques store with Dylan's will add 'vibrancy' to tourist town

Within two minutes I realised this house was an absolute gem. Just as the estate agent was walking out, I said, 'I'll give you this much for it. No survey. And I'll give you the deposit immediately. Take it off the market now'. I've been working on it ever since." The only person getting anything from this is the person who sells you the paint and if it makes you happy then FINE – but as I said stone cladding was in for a while wasn’t it?” The former Ysgol Dyffryn Conwy pupil has been an independent antiques dealer since 1993, having trained initially as a stained glass restorer and designer.I like Drew and I enjoy his programmes, I think he is very knowledgeable and has a brilliant eye for quality – which is just as well, otherwise I might be thinking he is a bit of an arrogant ****** after reading this. 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.

If a generation raised on antiques shows believe the antiques trade is all about Cash in the Attic, then Pritchard wants to assert his passion for the aura of an item. He had spotted the home two years earlier but at that point it was too expensive for him. But the agent flagged it with him last year after the price was reduced. He's known to millions of viewers around the world as the star of Salvage Hunters. And, for Drew Pritchard, digging out treasures has been with him since childhood. So in the 18 th century you have people like Robert Adams and Chippendale championing it [neo-classical) and creating the finest furniture from the finest woods; we owned large parts of the world where these beautiful woods came from so we imported it.”I'm keeping my Conwy cottage, but this is a big move I'm making. It has cost me all the money I've ever had."

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. At every car boot sale and junk shop, salvage yard or antique fair there is one gem; one thing that is remarkable that isn’t where it should be. It might have been lost in the hands of someone who didn’t understand it and it the right hands it is amazing but it isn’t junk.” I was just utterly fascinated with it, and it’s never left me,” he told Quest. “It’s not something I can explain why, I just had to be around this old stuff all the time." I love the fact that it impinges on every aspect of my world. I want it to. I want it to soak into my bones. I like that. It’s a brilliant life, but you’d better be ready to work your a--- off. The work never stops.” What he can’t teach is taste and experience. You’re born with the former, and the latter you have to do for yourself. What he’s tried to answer in simplest terms is how to do “this”. All the questions you felt too embarrassed to ask.

Retailers:

So I ask if, perhaps it was a “worthless” piece of furniture and it’s made someone happy to paint it so they can keep using it where’s the harm? 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. I’d like to say it was for some other reason, but it was because of me. And that sounds really big-headed, but it just is.”