Painting 300

“I’ve been collecting for more than 25 years and I’ve been able to buy in salerooms wherever I’ve been living in the county and playing football. When I was with Sunderland, I was buying at auctions in the North East and there’s a good saleroom on the outskirts of Nottingham. Liverpool artists are not always recognised out of the area, but I’ve paid serious money for some of my pictures.

“They might prove to be hopeless investments, but I’ve enjoyed owning them and looking at them. Now it’s time to move on.”

There are numerous highlights in the collection, and most valuable is an oil on canvas by Frank Henry Mason (1875-1965) showing shipping in the Mersey with ferry boats by the Pier Head, which was painted in about 1949. Its estimated value is £2,500-£2,800. Mason was once a cadet at the HMS Conway naval school in Birkenhead and became a prolific maritime artist.

One of the most imposing pictures in the collection shows the 20,000-ton Cunard White Star liner RMS Scythia, which was in service from 1921 until she was scrapped in 1958. The Scythia sailed between Liverpool and New York in the 1920s and 30s, becoming a Mediterranean cruise ship during the summer. In 1943 she was torpedoed off Algiers during the Allied landings in North Africa with 4,000 soldiers aboard. She limped in to port and was repaired.

The collection will be on view at Rogers Jones’s saleroom in Colwyn Bay, on Sunday August 29 (from 2pm until 4pm); Monday August 30 (from 1pm until 7pm) and on the morning of the sale, Tuesday August 31, from 9am until 10.15am.