Autograph hunter values signed t-shirt from African child rescue center

The cover of Winchester resident Brian J. Hester’s book. Hester & Barr Autograph Photos scanned by Amanda Callihan/Royal Examiner-National Media

A speaker with an unusual hobby turned up at Front Royal Rotary on July 14 to discuss that hobby – collecting autographs of the not necessarily rich but mostly famous – from President Harry Truman to children in a rescue center in Africa.

He is Brian J. Hester, who lives with his family in Winchester and works for BB&T Bank. He recently self-published a book, “More than an Autograph,” co-written with his friend, Jerry Foreman, which he discussed and later sold a few copies of at the Rotary luncheon.  He gave me one – autographed, of course – in return for a look at my own autograph book, dating back to include World War II and post-war years 1943 to 1949.

Above, figures are looking up for possible German air raid in drawing by vaudeville performer and quick-sketch artist Dudley Dale in author’s WW2 autograph book; below, this Robert S. Gray drawing commemorates Victory in Europe (VE) Day on May 8, 1945 (Brits do the day and month in reverse order from us).

He copied some of my autographs, particularly illustrations relating to the war, to his Facebook while I interviewed him following his presentation.  Royal Examiner colleague Amanda Callihan scanned the photographs from our books which accompanies this article. I retrieved my long forgotten, dog-eared autograph book from a bottom drawer in our Rockland home to share with the speaker.  Also, I was intrigued – I had never met a fellow autograph collector before.

Brian captured his first autograph – the Washington Redskins’ running back Brian Mitchell – at the Apple Blossom Festival in 1993. I got my first from a professional song and dance couple at our local theater in England in 1943.  I quit collecting autographs at the end of my high school years in 1949, just 44 years before Hester started his collection.

Oh! Brian, about that autograph – Brian J. Hester autographing his book about autographs for the author, who also collected autographs, after talk to Front Royal Rotary July 14 (Hester didn’t ask Barr for his signature). Photo/Malcolm Barr Sr.

While President Harry Truman’s autograph came from the fly leaf of an old book, “West Point”, to which the president had written and signed the foreword,  like me, Hester has collected many of his names by simply politely asking the VIP for a signature.  The difference was that Hester has had to pick his spots like in a chance meeting with golf master Arnold Palmer at the 1998 Masters’ Tournament.  Most all of my signers were literally on my doorstep.  During the war, entertainers, politicians, athletes, and many fighting members of the armed forces, including British, American and Canadian air crews, visited my parents’ English pub.  Their night job was to drop bombs over Germany. I can count from looking at my book those who never returned from those air raids.

Another of the author’s vintage WW2 autographs with accompanying poem and flight patch – Royal Air Force Flight Engineer Arthur Wildsmith wrote ‘Don’t be so shy, join the RAF and fly’ poem in the author’s parents’ pub just days before he was killed on a bombing mission over Germany.

Hester’s names include the likes of boxers Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali; baseball great Cal Ripken, Jr; Magic Johnson, the basketball player; golfers Palmer and Sam Snead; football stars Chris Cooley, Jerry Rice, Sam Huff, and the aforementioned Mitchell.

But his most prized, along with the name of Harry Truman, are the T-shirt signatures of the kids at a Sierra Leone child rescue center he visited with a church group in 2005. They were victims of civil wars in the African country between 1991 and 2002.

Hester stayed long enough to teach and mentor the kids, and get those that needed it, medical attention.  He stayed in touch with one of them named Albert, returning to the Child Rescue Center for a second visit in 2008.  This time, his role was to help open a computer lab using donated machines.  He taught the children how to use them.

He said the visits to the rescue center “changed my life” and looks forward to another trip to the African nation.  “Maybe God put (this) calling in my heart, not because I had something to offer them (the children) but because they had something to offer me.

Back and front of a T-shirt with autographs of young African students, victims of civil war, with whom ‘More Than An Autograph’ author Brian J. Hester has established a special relationship.

“I got to see joy, patience, and kindness personified in each and every one of the kids I met. And when you experience genuine emotions like that, it’s hard not to start imitating them yourself.  These kids didn’t have much, but they didn’t care; they simply appreciated what they did have.  I know I came home a better man than when I had left, simply because of the company I kept.”

And his most valued possession, the capstone of his autograph collection – the T-shirts the homeless kids signed upon his departure from Sierra Leone.

Visit www.helpingchildrenworldwide.org for more information on the Child Rescue Center in Africa and elsewhere.