A WOMAN auctioned a lifetime of memorabilia. Mary Carr, 76, said it was the end of an era" when she sold more than 600 collectibles in an auction. She decided to sell the goods after her husband, Ivor, who shared her passion for collecting, died two ye

A WOMAN auctioned a lifetime of memorabilia. Mary Carr, 76, said it was the "end of an era" when she sold more than 600 collectibles in an auction. She decided to sell the goods after her husband, Ivor, who shared her passion for collecting, died two years ago. Mrs Carr, who now lives in Arrington, said: "I should think we were collecting for about 25 years and we both loved it. I was sad to see it all go - it's the end of an era." The items auctioned range from Victorian kitchen utensils to vending machines, to old postcards. Mrs Carr said she and her husband had scoured the country in search of collectibles. "We've been from Newark to Southend-on-Sea, from the east coast to the Midlands, and everybody knew us," she said. "We went to rallies and antique fairs mostly and were passionate about it. We really did do it seven-days-a- week." Her niece, Angela Pierce, said her aunt collected all kinds of memorabilia, much of which would not have been valuable at the time. She said: "There was a lot of old kitchen stuff that sold well at the auction - things that are collectors' items that you or I probably would have thrown away years ago. "Not everything went though, just because of the sheer volume of it all," she said. And self-confessed horder, Mrs Carr, admitted she did collect "just about anything old" - a passion she says was sparked by her parents. "I've collected all sorts of things. I've always been interested in old things, my mother and father were old when I arrived, so I think that's what started us off," she said. The auctioneer who sold the memorabilia, Tom Wisson, knew Mrs Carr's husband for more than 30 years, and said he was a "wonderful man". "Everybody knew and loved him," he said. "It was almost like a history lesson looking at all the items he had collected and people really enjoyed the auction. "Mary came along and viewed the items before the auction in St Neots and there was a tear in her eye." He said that pictures of Biggleswade and surrounding villages such as Ashwell and Steeple Morden taken at the turn of the 1900s were among the most popular items. "Groups of pictures went for as much as £200," he said. "People came from all over, we even had a dealer from southern Ireland, but it was mostly local people who wanted a bit of local history to take home," added Mr Wisson.