Hey, big spenders!

11 April 2012

The minute you walked in the joint, you could see the passion in the eyes of the die-hard Shirley Bassey fans. They thronged a saleroom in South-East London to buy the contents of the flamboyant singer's West End flat.

Everything had to go because 68-year-old Miss Bassey has gone to live in Monaco. 'It's all very her,' said Ian Cadzow, chairman of auctioneers Rosebery's, as her piano went for £916.

While a tiger theme predominated - because Miss Bassey was the girl from Tiger Bay - she could not resist leopards either. Her vast bed was covered in leopardskin and among the ornaments was a near-lifesize leopard statue.

The proceeds from the sale, which totalled just over £20,000, were all being given to charity so no bid was too small.

'I can't believe it,' said auctioneer David Holmes as he knocked down a vast 17th- century- style ebonised cabinet for £121 when he had thought it would fetch £800. 'When Dame Shirley phones up I will make sure I'm not in.'

The cheapest lot, a black marble coffee table, sold for £12. The most expensive, a pair of carved wood blackamoor figures, sold to a telephone bidder for £2,652.

At the front of the saleroom Marilyn Meisels could hardly contain herself - or her credit card - as the 91 lots went on sale. Mrs Meisels, 52, a mother of four from Stanmore-North-West London, claims to have seen every single Bassey concert in Britain - once occupying the same front-row seat on each night of a fortnight's run at the Royal Festival Hall.

'Her voice gets into my heart until I can hardly breathe,' she said. 'I play her records all day long. I buy her Christmas and birthday presents.'

Indeed, one of those gifts - a Tiffany travel alarm clock - was Lot 881. Mrs Meisels, who admitted that finding her present discarded was 'a bit sad', tried to buy it back but was beaten by her neighbour in the front row as the bidding soared to £350. Instead she compensated herself with Dame Shirley's Louis Vuitton 'SB' monogrammed suitcase (£482), her china dinner service (£145) and her eight dining chairs with leopard print seats (£169). 'My husband will kill me,' she said.

Across the room, Jean Clay, 64, who had got lost on the way from Epping in Essex, was so flustered at being late that she started bidding as soon as she sat down.

'I don't even know what I'm buying,' she said, as Mr Holmes banged down his gavel on a marble two-tier table for £25. 'Think positively,' he said. 'It's easy to put in the car. It would make a great headstone for a pet.'

Some of the fiercest bidding was for a signed photograph of the singer which cost retired accountant Dave Linney, 62, from Dunstable, Bedfordshire, just over £300. 'It was a last resort because I had not got anything else,' he said. 'I have been a fan for 40 years although my wife Jane is not. She was prepared for me to spend more than this so it should be a pleasant surprise.'

The leopard-spotted bed, meanwhile, was sold for only £121 after a last-minute telephone bid of £1,000 was mislaid. The buyer, Croydon antiques dealer Andy Bond, promised to give it to his 23-year-old daughter Angela.

'As soon as I saw it, I wanted it,' she said. 'I have just got a new flat and I hope it will fit. It's just great - in your face, isn't it? The only trouble is that my boyfriend Dan isn't a big Shirley Bassey fan, nor of leopard print either.'

Also, somewhat disconcertingly for her, her father had got the telephone number of the man who had offered £1,000. It was a diamond purchase, but it might not have been for ever.

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