Paul Atterbury: ‘The rich have money because they are very mean’

Paul Atterbury specialises in the art, architecture, design and history of the 19th and 20th centuries and has special interests in railway history, the First World War, sculpture and 1920-30s jazz. He has been an expert on the “miscellaneous” team on Antiques Roadshow for 34 years, has given lectures all over the world, curated exhibitions, including several for the V&A in London, and helped to set up and run the Dorchester Literary Festival. Atterbury, 79, also frequents fairs and art sales and has a stand at Sherborne Antiques Market in Dorset. According to his BBC puppeteer mother, Audrey Atterbury, he was the real-life inspiration for the 1950s BBC children’s puppet Andy Pandy. He lives in Weymouth with his wife, Chrissie.

£10. I like cash and do carry some, but for buying a bus or Tube ticket or at the supermarket I use a debit card. If I’m going round antiques fairs, cash is king and I’d take £200 in case I see something I really like. I buy mostly and sell a bit, but only as a hobby.

I gave them up ages ago because I’m not interested in debt. My grandparents helped me believe that if you want something, you have to be able to pay for it in cash. I’ve grown up thinking debt is to be avoided, although I’ve had mortgages. Living mortgage-free is like coming out of prison.

In school holidays, at 16, I did odd jobs for a puppeteer with a travelling company who set up the Little Angel Puppet Theatre in Islington in a derelict war-bombed church. He started teaching me to carve wood and make puppets. In my early twenties I was stage manager and remember one Christmas season in Darlington with heavy snow, dreary theatrical digs and small audiences — exciting novelty but not my chosen career.

• Dana Gillespie: I never felt wealthy. Not even swanning around with Bowie

On the Roadshow in Scotland, a man came in with a squashy black thing with bits sticking out and covered in a black tarry substance and said, “It’s a dead dog.” He said that this community was once very short of resources and discovered that dogs have waterproof skin and could float. So they were used as fishing floats. I assumed this was a leg-pull but a person nearby from a local museum confirmed it and here was a very rare survival.

Also we did a couple of shows in Australia. A man came in with a smart wooden box. Within it was “a surviving piece of wood from the keel of Captain Cook’s ship, the Endeavour”. He’d done the research; the provenance was all there, and he’d bought it somewhere. What’s it worth? In Australian terms, it’s part of the Crown Jewels. I think I put $250,000 on it, but it’s completely arbitrary. It could be worth what it costs to light a fire.

Bit of both. I was given a Post Office savings book when I was five, in which I had 7 [shillings] and 6 [pence]. I probably still have it. And I love Premium Bonds. My wife and I have quite a big holding and I’ve been getting more from the bonds than from bank interest. The most I’ve had in one go is £300. If you have the maximum amount [£50,000] it’s pretty rare to miss a month. It’s slightly better odds than the National Lottery, which I don’t do. When the Lottery started, I’d buy a weekly ticket and thought this is a typical mug’s game: they lock you in and never give you anything. So I quickly gave up.

We’re probably about the same. At my age they owned their houses and were comfortable; they separated when I was young and had two houses. My father was an entrepreneur and businessman and money came and went regularly; he was not good at it. In the 1980s his business had to be sold because it got into difficulties. My mother came from a more puritan background.

I’ve never felt wealthy. I’ve felt very comfortable such as when I was writing my railway books which were very successful. Out of them we expanded our house, got a garden and a comfortable life. But when that particular phase of life closed down we went back to where we were before.

The worst chapter in my life was in the early 1970s when my former wife and I were trying to buy our first flat with a mortgage. The interest rates were alarming. I was in quite a good job, very badly paid, and we had a crap car. We were never in danger but month by month was quite a struggle. The flat cost £10,000 and was being sold by a company. I was in a job that was under £2,000 a year and I had no deposit. I hadn’t got anywhere with conventional mortgage companies and they said, “We’ll be your mortgage company” and they lent me the whole amount.

Being a writer of about 40 books. They’ve all come from requests to write a book about X or Y, so you’re bound to be paid — a flat fee and sometimes royalties. Out of 11 railway books I probably made £100,000 over a long period and thought: this is my pension fund. When the publisher abandoned them, my pension fund disappeared. It didn’t matter, it was just a dream. I did lecture tours in Australia — 21 talks in 24 days for $11,000, which was £6,000 we declared in the UK and paid tax on. I didn’t see this as earnings, just bonus money. The $11,000 from the last tour in 2019 is still in the bank, so when we go next year we’ll have some pocket money.

I’d get up to £3,000 for cruise ship tours. You work quite hard for a couple of weeks, but you get a cabin for two and everything paid. My income package has been a mixture of things: lecturing, writing, bit of television. Writing might supply £10,000, tour-leading £10,000, cruising £10,000, but never all at the same time.

We own our house in Weymouth outright. The previous house had a bit of a mortgage and, finally ending up in this house, we wanted to be mortgage-free, which we are. Nearby we’ve also got a rental terraced house that we own outright.

No. I’m not a capitalist really, although a long time ago banks, insurance companies and utilities handed out shares free for some reason and I’ve still got some of those, producing £100 or £200 a year.

I can tell you my worst. When we were developing our house in Bridport my wife is very creative and I gave her a part-time garden design course, costing £400, so she could create a garden for it. Roll on two years and £25,000 later on earthworks and everything, we had a really good garden. It didn’t matter because that’s what we wanted. My best: buying a house. I’ve never made money from houses. My timing is always bad; I always miss the boom. But I buy it because I want to live in it, never to make money.

To stop working for corporate life. I don’t fit in. I was finally fired in 1981 from my last job, where I was paid £5,000 a year to run the arts and antiques magazine The Connoisseur. On my way home on my bicycle I vowed never to work for anybody again and I never have.

No. We buy things we like and want and it’s not big money.

I’d pay off the mortgages of family and friends. I’d support things; my world is museums, galleries and libraries and I’d want to pour money into them. We’d have a couple of treats. I’ve always been keen to see Antarctica but haven’t got the money and I’d want to drive round Australia in a camper van — I’m not sure my wife shares these ambitions.

My earnings have been diminishing rapidly year by year. The most recent figures I have are my audited earnings for the tax year 2021/22: turnover £27,567, profit before tax £20,772.

A property, because you’ve got to live somewhere. We’d get by because we live debt-free on our state pensions. It would be a pretty unexciting life and we wouldn’t have any treats but we’d survive. We wouldn’t if we were paying rent or mortgages. I also have a £200 a month pension from National Magazine Co for the Connoisseur job.

• Niall Gray: My career took off in a £250 Toyota Starlet

In 1986 or 87 I bought a painting by the English abstract painter Roger Hilton for £3,300 cash from a gallery. I only had the money because my first divorce had come through and we’d sold the house. In 2010 we’d committed to buy a house, assuming we had sold ours, and we hadn’t and had to sell the painting in a hurry for £27,000 to bridge that gap. It was about timing: the price for a Roger Hilton in 1986 was £3,000-5,000; in 2010 £20,000-£100,000. But I’ve never bought anything for an investment; if it happens to make money, that’s lucky.

It’s a facilitator, that’s all. It enables you to go on holiday, lead an interesting life. I’m not interested in investing it. I learnt the only reason rich people have money is because they’re very mean and very good at money. When I was ten a very wealthy friend of my father said, “Why don’t you and Paul come with me and my son on a Mediterranean cruise?” We went on a very nice ship with three crew and fantastic food. To amuse ourselves, his son and I sat on the deck and threw a bottle into the sea towards the bow. As it bobbed past us we’d throw other bottles to try and sink it.

One day his father, standing watching, said, “I’d rather you didn’t do that. There’s money back on those bottles.”

When we went ashore he’d make us walk to every single bank to see which gave the best exchange rate. He might have made an extra £20 by doing so. Both my father and I thought: God this is a mug’s game, let’s not be rich.