The exact coordinates are, of course, top secret. But somewhere in Greater Manchester, on an unassuming suburban street, I’m standing outside a shuttered lock-up. Nick Bennett, 57, is next to me, armed with a jangling ring of keys to rival that of any school caretaker. He makes me promise not to share this location. I assure him I’m not a double agent. As the door is heaved open and we enter the premises, I understand why. Each room of the locked-and-loaded house, a rough-around-the-edges HMO, is stacked floor to ceiling with objects worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. It’s a hoarders paradise, filled to the max with merchandise. Every single item is related not to Bennett, but another man: James Bond.
Created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, the MI6 agent has featured in 12 original novels and 27 films, the latter of which have made a killing (£17.1bn) at the box office. But the gun-toting, martini-drinking, bullet-dodging spy of Ian Fleming’s imagination wasn’t always the object of Bennett’s obsession. “I used to collect things to do with The Professionals TV series. There were guns and cars and whatever but there wasn’t that much,” says Bennett, propped up next to a stash of Bond gadgets, from replica golden guns to pristinely-presented watches. Realising that he had more in his collection than the author of The Professionals collecting guide, Bennett grew bored of the show and moved onto the Gremlins series, soon maxing out everything linked to the impish monsters.
