Last updated 09:27, Saturday, 23 August 2008

Lexie Collier of Carlisle was an avid film-goer and loved collecting film stars autographs.

Screen idol: Tony Curtis

“In the 1940s and 1950s when obviously no-one had a television, we used to go to the cinema a lot.

“There was plenty to choose from in those days in Carlisle and programmes changed mid-week.

“My Dad often took me as he worked shifts. I must have seen hundreds of films but my favourites were the Hollywood musicals – I wanted to be either Doris Day or Ginger Rogers, so that I could dance with Fred Astaire!

“My friends and I used to write to the film stars for signed photographs and we used the same letter every time we wrote to them via the particular film studios they were assigned to.

“I can still remember the wording: Dear Miss... or Mr..., As I am one of your many film fans, I would be obliged if you would send me a signed photograph of yourself. Yours sincerely.

“It was all very polite but it must have worked because I had hundreds of autographs in my collection, which I kept for years.

“When I was in my teens I had a crush on Tony Curtis, ‘the Beefcake Boy’. I would cut photos out of the film magazines and stick them in a scrap book and when word got round people would swap their pictures of him and I would give them any I had of their favourites.

“I remember collecting pictures of Dickie Valentine to swap for Tony Curtis with a girl I attended secretarial college with, and a boy who lived near me was mad on aeroplanes so I would get as many aeroplane photographs to swap too.

“I remember going into the Public Hall cinema and scrounged a photograph from the display cabinet outside the cinema which I still have to this day.

“I also still have the various scrap books of Tony Curtis and I will never part with them.

“My friend once bought me a scarf for my birthday and she embroidered ‘Tony Curtis’ on each end of it. Another friend bought me a pair of ear-rings and painted ‘Tony Curtis’ with nail varnish on each one.

“The scrap books are over 50 years old now and to me they are more valuable than anything else I have.

Have you collected things over the years and still have them? Let Timeline know.