Second to none

"HE'S in the back." So I set off into the recesses of The Banana Warehouse realising that about the only thing it doesn't sell is bananas.

There's plenty of furniture, of course. Ex-health authority filing cabinets, horseshoe fireplaces, a couple of collapsing card tables... Need somewhere to sit? You've a choice of everything from carved church pews to a couple of white cream leather sofas fresh from the pad of an Elvis impersonator. Two and a half grand when new, yours for 250 quid.

Then there's the expensive stuff, proper antiques such as a beautiful lacquered French cabinet, priced at £400, or two Goldscheider figures, £1,500 the pair.

Not to your taste? There's bound to be something here to tickle your fancy. Perched at the top of one pile - just above the moose heads and to the left of the Sinclair C5 - is a Victorian glass case filled with exotic stuffed birds. Some of the species, I am later informed, are now extinct.

Nearby a student rifles through hundreds of vinyl albums, hoping to find some Sex Pistols or Chantelles. Rolls of pianola music, jumbled together in a box, date from a different era of entertainment. A box of magazines from decades ago contain stories which could be from today's news stands: "Problem Children - And Their Parents".

Assorted headwear, from Mao hats to army helmets, hang from the ceiling, along with numerous coats, a bicycle and a lawnmower.

Eventually I find the one part of the furniture which never changes: David Douglas Hughes, better known as Dave Dee, owner of The Banana Warehouse.

He is helping a regular customer kit out one of her many rental properties. "If this store goes, my life's over," she says. "There isn't another one like it. My sister comes down from Scotland to buy stuff from here. There isn't an Aladdin's cave like this."

Dave agrees. "I know of nowhere that does it the same as me," he says. "There used to be a place in Beverley, Sell It And Soon. The only other one I knew was in Bideford in Devon.

"People come in here and say 'I haven't seen a place like this in years. There used to be one in my town.'"

It is, he says, "a genuine junk shop". No wonder the Theatre Royal designers, recreating Steptoe & Son's yard on stage, came to Dave: his warehouse is York's last link to Steptoe-style recycling.

That is not to associate the Banana Warehouse with rag-and-bone scavengers. Dave has done deals with the Halifaxes and Howards, those aristos with a nose for a bargain. And his reach goes higher still. There should be a crest on the Piccadilly storefront: The Banana Warehouse, By Royal Appointment.

"These two suited chappies, about 6ft 6, they came in, briefcase in hand. We thought they were VAT inspectors," Dave recalls. They asked to buy a stuffed owl. He said no, fearful that he was being trapped into some sort of illegal deal.

He only let them borrow the bird when they explained it was needed as a model for York's famous stone carver Dick Reid.

A few weeks later Dick invited Dave to his workshop to see the finished articles. Two stone owls intended for the top of gateposts, with one word engraved underneath: Highgrove. The name of Prince Charles' Gloucestershire estate.

There is a postscript to the story. Shortly afterwards, the two guys in suits returned asking again to buy the original stuffed owl. How much is it really worth, they asked? Five hundred pounds, said Dave. "One of them said, 'Five thousand pounds?' Then he wrote a cheque.

"That was it. They bought the owl."

On his website davedeeremovals.com, you can read an impressive testimonial. A letter, on Buckingham Palace notepaper, from Andrew F Farquharson MVO, Assistant To The Master Of The Household, thanks Mr Dee and his team for the help they gave Bishopthorpe Palace prior to Royal Ascot.

This was home to Prince Charles and Camilla during the week, and the departure point for the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh as they set off to Knavesmire in an open carriage.

Bishopthorpe Palace had enough rooms for the royal entourage, but not enough furniture. No problem for the Banana bunch. They kitted out 22 rooms with new beds (as bought for the last 20 years from a Bradford supplier: a single bed with mattress costs £145), not to mention wardrobes, bedside tables, chairs and more.

"My mam and my sister washed and ironed all the sheets for weeks before," Dave said.

They also supplied a number of cheval mirrors, set out in the hall in a semi-circle.

So when the Queen was giving her Ascot outfit a last minute once-over before she met her public, she did so in a Banana Warehouse mirror. Who would have thought?

Meanwhile her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, watched the meeting in comfort thanks to the leather chairs installed in the racecourse royal box by the same supplier.

These are some of the newer highlights in an entrepreneurial career which began with Dave's grandfather and was passed down to dad and now to him and brothers Melvyn and Christopher, whose removals business is on Boroughbridge Road.

One of Dave's first transactions saw him sell a brass model of a steam locomotive to another legendary York dealer, Mick Bulmer. He was eight years old, it was his first experience of haggling. And he was hooked.

Sometimes he wins on a deal, sometimes he loses. Once he arrived at a house clearance and collected what looked like a pile of old wood. Back at Piccadilly, they reassembled it into a giant breakfront bookcase, which sold for seven grand.

Then again, he has seen items of furniture he let go for £45 reappear in Stonegate antique shop windows at ten times the price. Not to mention the pilfering: brass-necked thieves have walked off with a mantelpiece clock and a gramophone before now. Locked, glass-fronted display cabinets have just been installed to protect the most nickable items.

Monday is Dave's 56th birthday. Despite modern burdens, such as excessive bureaucracy and double yellow lines, the Banana man still loves the job.

In December he married his second wife Anne, who does the business's books and has taught her husband not only to overcome his dyslexia and enjoy reading, but to become computer literate too.

One of his three daughters has helped him get to grips with eBay, and now he sells items across the world online.

But the end, if not nigh, is in sight. The warehouse is earmarked to go when Piccadilly is eventually revamped. "When this place finishes, I think I will be finishing," he says.

Where will the royals and the rest of us shop then?

Updated: 16:39 Friday, February 10, 2006