Harold’s treasures are set to go to the highest bidder
A HP SAUCE BOTTLE AND TRADEMARK PIPE ARE JUST SOME OF THE POSSESSIONS OF FORMER PM HAROLD WILSON SET TO GO UNDER THE HAMMER. REPORTS
RARE, unusual and downright bizarre items owned by Huddersfield-born former Prime Minister Harold Wilson will go under the hammer next month.
Lord Wilson died in May 1995 aged 79. His widow Lady Wilson died last year at the age of 102 and now many of her husband’s possessions are to be sold off.
The items include one of his trademark pipes and a special HP sauce bottle. Lord Wilson was renowned for his love of the brown sauce, which he would pour liberally over his food at every opportunity.
A vast collection of items from his former London home includes everything from his pipes and his passport to his leather armchair and ashtray.
He kept everything – including his Boy Scout badges – which he treasured until the end of his days, along with a multitude of other items, including personal letters and a school story that he penned in 1934 called ‘Perfectly Monstrous.’
There is even a book about HP sauce, together with a miniature bottle with his name emblazoned upon it.
The items will be sold by T V auctioneer Charles Hanson, of Hanson Auctioneers in Stafford, on May 10.
The son of Herbert and Ethel Wilson, Harold was born on March 11, 1916 at a house in Warneford Road, Cowlersley. His father was an industrial chemist and his mother a school teacher.
Harold nursed political dreams from a young age. When he was eight, he visited London where a well-known photograph was taken of him outside 10 Downing Street.
At the age of 10 he went with his family to Australia, where he became fascinated with the pomp and glamour of politics. On the way home he told his mother : “I am going to