‘Hoarding - it’s complex but often starts with trauma’

ONE dreads to think what Paul Cooper's alter-ego, Martin Mucklowe, would have said to the embarrassed, professional female who finally found the courage to admit that she was returning to a rat-infested house every night after work.

- JANET HUGHES

Or how the heartless dad, described as the most despicable character in TV history, would have tried to persuade the man who had lived without running water for eight years to let a plumber in.

How could a man insensitive enough to describe serial killer Fred West as “a bit iffy” in the TV mockumentary This Country have found the right words to talk to the poor soul who literally sleeps standing up behind his own front door because there is no space to lie down? It doesn’t bear thinking about.

But Paul is not the same as his fictional TV character, who is so devoid of human empathy that when in one episode his daughter Kerry asked for a lift to the police station so she could take the blame for him handling stolen vacuum cleaners, he told her: “It's not really on my way, Ker”

‘The real-life father of Cotswold siblings Daisy May and Charlie Cooper, the comedic brains behind the Bafta-winning comedy This Country, knows what to say because it is a subject close to his heart.

“Because a close family member had hoarding behaviours,’ said the 68-year-old when asked how he first became involved with Hoarding Disorders UK.

“I went to a hoarding support group about 11 years ago and then, later on, I started doing some work for them.

“I had been working in recruitment which I found very stressful. I had a heart attack and three stents fitted and had to go back to work six weeks later. If I have to chase money figures, I’m terrible, but if I’m with someone in a hoarded house I don’t mind the stress and anxiety of that at all.

“1 found myself working one day a week and then three days a week on a self-employed basis.

“At first I was working with people in their homes but now that I am an OAP I deliver training and take phone calls. You learn something new with every call.”