Haven My PIERS MORGAN

The Good Morning Britain host, 52, in his study at his five-bedroom Georgian town house in west London

1 REDUCED TO A GIBBERING WRECK! This house has been my London home since 2009. I live here with my wife Celia and our five-year-old daughter Elise when we’re not gallivanting in America. Aside from my four children, these Arsenal shirts worn and signed by my all-time football heroes Thierry Henry and Dennis Bergkamp are my most treasured possessions. If you don’t understand how football has the power to reduce grown men to gibbering wrecks, then you’re not a real fan. Thierry’s inscription reads: ‘To Piers, a true Gooner, from Thierry, a Gooner for life.’ He quit to join Barcelona a few months later and it broke my heart.

2 STAR STORY I bought this original American flag for £5,000 in a London art fair without realising its significance. In fact, it’s highly unusual because it features 34 stars, which only appeared on the flag for two years from 1861 to 1863 during the Civil War when there were only 34 states, and under just one president – Abraham Lincoln. America’s been very good to me and when they’re not shooting everything that moves they’re great people. I still have a house in LA.

3 BULLDOG SPIRIT Sir Winston Churchill is the greatest Briton, and quite possibly the greatest human being, to ever bestride planet earth. I found this Toby Jug of him in Portobello market and I love his typically uncompromising expression. He was a man with a gargantuan appetite for many of the things I love: strident journalism, vigorous debate, Champagne, cigars, brandy, Stilton and standing up for what he believed in, even if it often made him fierce enemies.

4 GREAT GRANNY Pride of place on the desk in my study goes to this photo of my grandmother, Margot Barber, the matriarch of our family until her death at 94 three years ago. She instilled in us all a deep-rooted sense of mischief and rebellion, and an unwavering belief that whiskey cures all known illnesses. Her favourite motto came from a Covent Garden flower-seller: ‘Life ain’t much but it’s all yer got, so stick a geranium in yer ’at and be ’appy!’

5 MY BRAVE BROTHER My brother Jeremy is an officer with the Royal Welsh and gives me things he picks up on his military travels in return for days out at Lord’s. He served alongside the Gurkhas in Hong Kong in the 90s and they gave him this Nepalese kukri, the machete they use as both tool and weapon. The rare SAS coin was presented to him by 22 SAS for some work he did for them in Hereford last year. On the back it says: ‘We are the Pilgrims, master, we shall go always a little further: it may be beyond that last blue mountain barred with snow, across that angry or that glimmering sea.’ I’m very proud of him.

6 LOVE FROM BURT During my first week co-hosting Good Morning Britain in late 2015 I ambushed Lorraine Kelly on her show in a kilt and clutching a birthday gift for her: a heart-shaped cushion with my face on it. The next day a parcel arrived with this identical cushion with Burt Reynolds’s face on it. I’d interviewed him for my Life Stories show a few years ago and he was in town promoting his autobiography and had seen Good Morning the previous day. A hand-written note on headed paper from his suite at The Dorchester read, ‘Piers, love and warm thoughts always, Burt. PS you’re very special.’ So are you Burt.

As told to Rob McGibbon. A new series of Killer Women With Piers Morgan starts on Thursday at 9pm on ITV.