Phil Collins Donates his Alamo Collection to Texas
OZZY Osbourne may have taken a leak on The Alamo, but Phil Collins has a different connection with the famous Wild West battle that took place 180 years ago.
When Phil isn’t making muscular pop and stadium-filling music as a solo artist, or with Genesis, he’s diving headlong into the world of Davy Crockett and has amassed an incredible collection from the Battle of the Alamo. It has been under his watchful eye for many years, but now, he’s donating his artefacts to a Texas museum.
And bafflingly, people still think of him as a git, because he apparently said he’d leave Britain if Labour got in. He says he didn’t say that at all.
But this is about Phil and The Alamo.
He said: “Some people would buy Ferraris, some people would buy houses, I bought old bits of metal and old bits of paper. It’s at my home, in my basement in Switzerland. I look at it every day, but no one else was enjoying it.”
Davy Crockett, in the person of actor Fess Parker, points to the crack in the Liberty Bell and tries to explain to 8-year-old John Davy Crockett of Bridgeport, Pa., why the crack is still there despite the song which says the legendary character patched up the split, in Philadelphia, Pa., June 17, 1955. Young Crockett claims he’s a direct descendent of the Crockett family. Co-star of “Davy Crockett” Buddy Ebsen looks on at right. (AP Photo/Sam Myers)
Collins’ love grew from being a kid watching Fess Parker play Davy Crockett in the ’55 Disney show ‘Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier’.
“I’ve had a love affair with this place since I was about 5 years old,’ said Collins before a cheering crowd of dignitaries and tourists who gathered in front of the Alamo, especially for the occasion. ‘It was something that I used to go and play in the garden with my soldiers.’
In the museum, there’ll be a receipt for the sale of the saddle of John W. Smith, an Alamo messenger who rode through Mexican lines, begging for reinforcements before the battle, as well as a rifle owned by Crockett, his leather shot pouch and a pair of powder horns.
There’ll also be Jim Bowie’s famous knife, which killed a lot of Mexican soldiers. Collins’ has also donated items from the Mexican army too, with officers hats and more.
He added further: ‘I’m just an enthusiastic amateur. What I know is out there to be learned, it’s just that I took the time to do it, because of the book and to find out what I was buying.”
The collection is said to be worth millions but Collins said: “Being British, we don’t talk about that kind of thing.’
“I’m not extravagant in other ways, I live a very simple life. Pretty simple. I mean, I came down here from New York in a private plane so it’s not that simple. But on the other hand, I don’t buy extravagant items like cars, expensive houses, jewellery. I’ve got no other expensive interests.”
“My interests, for the last 25 years anyway, have been relics, buying things that are attached to something that I feel very interested about. Even I have a limit … I was offered something once for a million dollars.”
What a lovely thing to do.
Posted: 27th, June 2014 | In: Celebrities Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
