British wife reveals what it’s really like to be married to the country's ...

When Deborah West looks back over her 39-year marriage to retired banker Nick, she can see the writing was pretty much on the wall from the very beginning.

‘Nick took me to Middle Wallop in Hampshire for a week for our honeymoon. When we got back, he flew to the States for a week for a beer can convention. There was no discussion. I wasn’t even asked if I wanted to go.

‘Our holidays have always involved beer cans since then, although we don’t go abroad because Nick decided to collect British cans.’

She laughs, a sort of brittle laugh that makes you wonder whether she truly finds this amusing or actually wants to throttle her husband.

When Deborah West looks back over her 39-year marriage to retired banker Nick (both pictured with some of Nick's beer can collection), she can see the writing was pretty much on the wall from the very beginning after he took her on her honeymoon to Middle Wallop, Hampshire

When Deborah West looks back over her 39-year marriage to retired banker Nick (both pictured with some of Nick's beer can collection), she can see the writing was pretty much on the wall from the very beginning after he took her on her honeymoon to Middle Wallop, Hampshire

Nick, you see, is an ‘obsessive’ (his word) collector of beer cans. So much so that the Wests, who have two grown-up children, Emma, 32, and Tom, 30, moved homes twice and even built an extension to house his vast collection that stood at 9,300 empty cans at its peak. Today it has been whittled down to a more manageable 1,500 and is tidied up in boxes.

So besotted is Nick, 59, with his cans that — well, best to let him explain: ‘Someone once asked me, “If you had to choose between your wife and your beer cans, which would you choose?” It’s probably 50-50, although I’ve probably devoted more time to beer cans.’

Nick, who has an extraordinarily high IQ of 147, says this in the sort of matter-of-fact way in which many of us might discuss a preference for soft- or hard-boiled eggs.

‘I have this dream,’ he continues. ‘I’m in an old off-licence and the doors have been shut for 20 or 30 years. And, oh, it’s brilliant, there’s all these cans from about the Fifties.’ He looks truly transfixed. ‘Then I wake up next to Deborah and it’s that terrible realisation it’s just a dream.’

This ‘all-encompassing passion’ (again, Nick’s words) which has dominated ‘literally every single day’ of his life since the age of 16, led to him being featured in a book called Dull Men of Great Britain, alongside 39 others, four years ago. Then, recently, he was voted Britain’s Dullest Man in a newspaper poll, beating a traffic cone collector from the Cotswolds and a toy soldier enthusiast from Cumbria.

After getting back from the honeymoon, Nick flew off to the US for a beer can convention. They are pictured on their wedding day in 1979

After getting back from the honeymoon, Nick flew off to the US for a beer can convention. They are pictured on their wedding day in 1979

‘I was quite chuffed to win,’ he says. ‘A few days ago we were on a train and there were only two seats left next to a group of girls. We talked to them and when we reached our station I said, “Do you realise you’ve had the privilege of travelling with Britain’s Dullest Man?” ’

Nick was never really one of life’s winners. As a child in the Cub Scouts, he entered a nationwide conker competition. ‘I got knocked out in the quarter-final,’ he says. ‘That still rankles about 50 years later. It was my claim to fame until now.

‘Mind you, the family have genuinely sacrificed things. In the past, the beer cans have always had the biggest bedroom.

‘If Deborah and I ever had a row going on — say, about the money I spent on the cans — if it was turning a bit nasty, I’d go upstairs, lock the door to the bedroom and put the key in my pocket because I was always worried she’d go in there. Within 30 seconds she could have done a lot of damage.’

Deborah interrupts: ‘I’d threaten to have them all crushed.’ Suddenly she looks animated.

Deborah is, she says, a ‘laid-back’ woman, which is just as well. The family’s sacrifices have included not just bedroom space, but just about every penny they’ve earned in their jobs with Lloyd’s Bank where Deborah also worked as an accountant.

Deborah is not a daft woman. Like Nick she has the sort of IQ which, at over 140, marks her out as near-genius. Of an evening now they play an online brain-training game. Nick tells me he is in the top 1 per cent of contestants and Deborah is ‘not far behind’ in the top 5 per cent

Deborah is not a daft woman. Like Nick she has the sort of IQ which, at over 140, marks her out as near-genius. Of an evening now they play an online brain-training game. Nick tells me he is in the top 1 per cent of contestants and Deborah is ‘not far behind’ in the top 5 per cent

We meet in the Wests’ four-bedroom home in a village on the outskirts of Bristol, where they moved four years ago. Deborah never liked their last house, which was vast and draughty with no garden. Nick insisted upon it — he had an eye on a splendid bedroom that would house his beer can collection. That collection is now packed in boxes in a spare room.

‘I chose this house because he chose the last one for his cans,’ says Deborah. ‘I wanted a garden and a conservatory, which I’ve got. Nick doesn’t really like it. I say, “Oh well.” I like planting my plants and those cans can stay in their boxes so they don’t invade my life.’

The collection has been reduced to 1,500 cans since the Wests retired two years ago. Two thousand of them were donated to Oakham Treasures, a local museum, where our pictures were taken.

‘I think that was very difficult for him.’ Deborah’s face softens. ‘He photographed them in groups so he can still look at them. He’s kept records of every one: the description of the can and his star system — five stars if it was in perfect condition.

‘He put aside the ones he wanted to keep and the others have all gone to collectors, so he knows they went to good homes. We wrapped each one in a page from the Yellow Pages and put a little sticker on it.

‘We could do about 60 cans a night so it took us three months to box them all up. That was a love thing, wasn’t it?’ she asks.

Deborah is not a daft woman. Like Nick she has the sort of IQ which, at over 140, marks her out as near-genius. Of an evening now they play an online brain-training game. Nick tells me he is in the top 1 per cent of contestants and Deborah is ‘not far behind’ in the top 5 per cent.

She says when she began dating Nick at 17 years old it was ‘like a bolt of lightning’.

‘We just had that connection. It’s strange, isn’t it? We’ve always had that. It was just something about him when we started going out. There was just this love that built up. He’s The One.

‘He had 50 cans when we began seeing each other. They were lined up in his room at his parents’ house. His cans were always in perfect order of brewery and size. If he got a new one he moved all the cans on the shelf to put it in the right place.

‘Then, for Christmas, I found him what I thought was the best present ever: a book on beer can collecting by Richard Dolphin. The book had some beautiful pictures of old beer cans in it. Nick thought: “Wow, there’s so much scope out there.”

‘He found out where Richard Dolphin lived and contacted him. They became friends.

‘I have wished I never

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