DAILY EXPRESS, Tuesday, September 13, 1994
MUSIC buff Roy Deane's home is one great blast from the past - with the largest collection of rock and pop memorabilia in Britain.
It houses everything from posters of the Beatles to a pair of peacock-feather trousers worn on stage by the late Jimi Hendrix. Stacked high with tens of thousands of records and countless files of magazines and newspaper cuttings, it is Roy's pop music shrine.
But now the 37-year old, from Coupar Angus in Perthshire, has made the agonising decision to get rid of the lot - because it is squeezing him out of house and home.
He is in talks that could mean The Rockmine Archive, as he calls it, is kept together in Perth and is asking leading Scots rockers like Rod Stewart and Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull for sponsorship.
Roy's collection began when he promoted pop concerts in Edinburgh.
"Nostalgia is big business," he says. "If you get someone who was in a band in his youth, gets married, has a couple of kids and works as a bank manager, he wants something to do with his money.
"These are the type of people who buy stuff from me. It stops them feeling they are getting old."
Roy Deane shows off some of his pop memorabilia which includes a pair of Jimi Hendrix trousers
He has a shrewd eye for a bargain. He picked up a rare Hendrix LP - Electric Jimi Hendrix for £1 and then sold it for £800. A waistcoat also worn by Hendrix was bought for £150. Months later he he sold it on for £2,500 with an Elvis Presley autograph taken in part exchange.
Interest in the old chart-toppers is growing all the time, especially after they die.
The most popular groups include the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Queen and the Sex Pistols.
They all have one thing in common - an original member of each has died. Roy said: "They are more popular after they die. When Freddie Mercury died he worked wonders for the Queen memorabilia business."
If Roy is successful in keeping the collection together he hopes to have a say in how it is run in the future.
He believes it could Iead to promoting weekend breaks for pop fans and be used for educational purposes.
But if all else fails, he will sell it in lots to the highest bidders - and the UK's biggest rock and pop collection will be broken up.