Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Two charity shop mugs sparked my £30k collection..
STANDING among porcelain plates and mugs, books and board games, pictures and tea trays, Tajinder Nahar beams with pride.
The royal superfan, 65, has taken 30 years and more than £30,000 to create his collection, which started out of boredom.
“I was 35 and unemployed,” the semi-retired builder, of Hayes, Middlesex, recalls. “I was at home with nothing to do when my thenwife said, ‘Why not start a collection?’
“At first, as she sent me off to the charity shop, I was reluctant. But when I saw two mugs with Queen Elizabeth’s face on them, I just knew. That was the start of everything.”
Tajinder, who moved to the UK from India at 24, says: “Unlike the distant kings and queens I grew up learning about in history class, Queen Elizabeth was right there. You could turn on the TV and see her, or the radio and hear her. She was always so dignified.”
Following the first buys, he says: “I started hunting for items two or three times a week. I’d visit all the charity shops and car boot sales.”
Within months there wasn’t any space in the kitchen. “It started to creep into every room,” he laughs. “I had to start storing some of it under our bed! She is an amazing woman, who has done so much for this country. My collection is a small way to show that.”
Celebrating the Queen also became a family project.
“I’d come home from my shopping trips with all these bags, and I’d rope my three children into helping me sort through them all.”
They soon became used to their dad’s dash into a shop if he spotted royal memorabilia. “I’d rush in and say, ‘How much? Just give it to me!’”
Decades later his children still jokingly take their revenge.
“If I don’t go to the market they will say, ‘Dad you missed so many amazing things,’ to see me panic,” he laughs.
His hobby was also one of the first things he shared with his current partner Jaya Mekban, 61, when they met in 2008. “I don’t think she knew what to say,” he says.
As for the amount he has forked out, he says: “Sometimes I’d spend £100, other times it could be less than £1 on a thimble or a flag.”
In February Tajinder’s daughter wrote to the Palace, inviting the Queen over for tea. What would he say if she did arrive?
“I know if I was standing in front of her, I’d be speechless,” he says.
She is an amazing woman, my collection is a small way to show this TAJINDER NAHAR ON HIS ADMIRATION OF MONARCH