JAMES HAS SPENT £50k ON HIS COLLECTION
A CLEANING freak has spent more than £50,000 on a collection of vacuum cleaners.
Dust-buster James Brown has Hoovered up more than 350 machines over 30 years.
And he now shows them off in his own museum.
Single James, 38 – who calls himself Mr Vacuum Cleaner – uses one of them at home and keeps the rest for display.
His interest was sparked when he saw his mum’s Electrolux 345 Automatic, aged four.
James said: “I was eight when I got my first vacuum.
“I was at my dad’s house playing outside when I spotted one in a storage area which someone had thrown out.
“I took it back inside and worked.
“Later, I got another from the market and then it’s like anything – once you have one or two you get bored and others catch your eye.
“I shared a room with my brother at the time so I was only allowed six machines. If I wanted another I would have to get rid of one because there wasn’t room to keep lots.”
He owns a whole host of models including Hoovers, Electroluxes, Kirbys and Dysons, including a gold-plated Kirby worth £4,000.
His oldest pump vacuum dates from the First World War and his oldest electric model was built in the 1920s.
James runs a vac repair shop in Heanor, Derbys, and keeps around 160 models at his on-site museum.
He also has a house full of vacs, while friends and family store dozens more on his behalf.
James, from Hucknall in Notts, set a Guinness World Record for the largest collection of vacs in 2012 when he had 322 examples.
His most prized possessions are his three gold-plated Kirbys shipped over from America. They were handed out to the brand’s most successful salesmen.
The Hoover hoarder loves his collection but says he has faced criticism in the past.
He said: “My mum was always perfectly fine with it but some people weren’t keen.
“When I was a child some people thought it was more suited to girls, but obviously attitudes have changed a lot since then.
“I did encounter some opposition but I just ignored it and carried on anyway.
“I have lots of people bringing their children into the shop and museum now because their kids are interested in learning more.
“I thought I was the only one but there are a lot more of us out there than you think.
“It’s hard to explain what it is about vacuums that I love. I just think they’re great – the way they move around and make things disappear.
“It’s the history and the different styles which interest me – they’re appliances which can actually do quite a lot.” it The noises a fox makes are the stuff of legend. It’s very common for the police to receive calls reporting an assault or worse after someone hears the animal’s chilling winter screams.