Signing up for Broughshane museum
Thursday, 10 July 2008
THIS Saturday (July 12) one Broughshane man's astounding collection of celebrities autographs will go under the hammer in England.
Thomas Scullion's passion in life was writing to famous people in the hope they would respond and his massive collection proves he was hugely successful.
Mr Scullion, who was a grocery driver, has been hailed as the world's greatest autograph hunter.
Now his family hope to raise £50,000 to set up a museum in his home town to house facsimiles of the best of the autographs and the stories behind them.
World famous holy men, politicians, pop stars, actors and artists are amongst the 40,000 names collected by Mr Scullion in his 72 years.
A greatly diverse range of respondents included household names like Pope John Paul II, Martin Luther King, Grace Kelly and Pablo Picasso, who sent a dated autograph with an artistic touch.
It wasn't only much loved celebrities who he contacted, infamous names such as the Kray twins, OJ Simpson, Charles Manson and Spanish dictator Francisco Franco all replied to the Braid man.
Notorious London crime leaders the Krays even sent Mr Scullion a poem.
The secret of his success was flattery. His letters were written in impressive, and self-taught, calligraphy as his brother Wilson told the Independent newspaper:
"He started writing to peo-ple when he left school at the age of 15. He taught himself calligraphy. That impressed people. He would flatter their egos. If you stroke someone's ego well enough, it's amazing what you can get. He was very persistent and would write over and over again to people."
Mr Scullion, who died in 1996, was one of ten children. He was a keen reader of newspapers and that is where he found his source material. He would source contact details for any famous names mentioned in the press and write to them, penning as many as 25 letters per week.
