Pop picker who hoarded every single single
HE was a man with a very singular obsession. Keith Sivyer bought every new charting single in the UK for six decades, starting at the age of 15.
With Music Week under his arm, each week he visited his local record shop to find the latest songs to hit the top 40.
When he set out on his musical mission in 1954, he also bought the previous hits from when the British charts began in 1952.
And by the time he died aged 75 in February this year, the mammoth collection spanning 62 years had grown to 45,000 singles comprised of 27,000 7in vinyls, 8,000 12in vinyls and 10,000 CDs.
As well as working for British Airways in Heathrow for 37 years, Mr Sivyer made the most of his impressive horde by entertaining revellers as a mobile DJ.
‘The Beatles, Stones and... Wurzels’
Now the archive including The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Queen, ABBA, Madonna, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, Michael Jackson and, er, The Wurzels and the Birdie Song, will be passed on to other pop lovers. It is being auctioned off with an estimated value of £8,000.
Alastair McCrea, of Ewbanks Auctioneers in Woking, Surrey, who valued Mr Sivyer’s vinyls and CDs, said: ‘We believe the collection to be one of the most complete and possibly unique in private hands in the country.’
Mr Sivyer was divorced and so after his death his brother Gerald, 68, was faced with the imposing task of sorting the singles. And Gerald even found stacks of CDs still in their cellophane wrappers as his brother had not found time to listen to them.
The vinyls had been filed in alphabetical order on floor- to- ceiling shelves in the lounge of Mr Sivyer’s home in Twickenham, south west London, with barely a space for the window to illuminate their colourful sleeves. The CDs were all crammed into a spare bedroom.
Gerald, a retired builder, said: ‘It became an obsession for him. I had to reinforce the floor of the house at one point because of the weight of the boxes he kept some of the records in. He then took over the whole front room and started putting up these shelves. He told me that one day it would all be mine. I would have loved to have kept them and if I had a big house I would have but I live in a flat and it is just not practical.’
The collection has been divided into three lots for the auction, with the 7in records estimated at £6,000, the 12in singles at £1,500 and the CDs at £600.
The sale takes place on May 21.