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Pam first started collecting autographs as a child. She and her father would hang around stage doors waiting for the actors to come out. Even now, as a middle-aged woman, she still uses this technique, although she has expanded her repertoire to include waiting outside hotels and press conferences as well. Her mother rarely joined but appreciated their hobby. To this day, when her mum phones, and Pam is not at her job at a souvenir shop in Covent Garden, the first thing she asks is, ‘Are you in Leicester Square?’

Pam spends more time than she likes to admit in Leicester Square and other venues. This autograph collecting is a demanding job. Today she has been standing for six hours in the drizzly London day. She is in a blocked-off area, her view of the main cinema blocked by the outdoor screen and the Aston Martin. It may seem like a bad location, but Pam knows this is the best spot. When the celebrities are in front of the theatre, they are more concerned with posing for paparazzi photos than signing autographs. Pam’s section, however, is free from flashbulb and microphone distractions. This part of the red carpet is just for the fans.

This odd hobby of Pam’s has interested people for at least a few hundred years. Collecting the letters of famous people became popular in the early 19th century. Back then, the primary targets were literary, political or religious figures. A person’s collection was often seen as a showcase of his or her social status; if you were able to get autographs, you were obviously important enough to move in such circles. In the 1830s, the first collections went to public auction, and recreational clubs devoted to the activity started popping up.

While collecting autographs of performers is nothing new – fans asked Beethoven and Schubert to sign, for example – the 20th century saw the focus shift from literary and political figures to pop culture stars. Collectors themselves even got a place in the spotlight: In 1933, the term “autograph hound” was first used in a pulp detective fiction magazine.  It entered the mainstream with the 1939 Disney movie of the same name, in which Donald Duck sneaks onto a Hollywood studio lot in search of his favorite stars.

Logically, interest in autograph collecting should have died off long ago. While it once had a personal touch, celebrities can now mass-produce their autographs for anyone who joins a fan club or sends an email, making it next to impossible to tell whether the autograph was written by the star or his secretary.  But for Pam and many others, the hobby has become something more than collecting signatures.  It has become a way of life, a social network.

The true autograph hounds engage in friendly competition with each other, but they also help each other out. If one misses an event, another will try to get an autograph for him, or at least a photo. The atmosphere on their side of the carpet is comfortable and sociable. They joke, save each other’s spot, swap stories, take turns leaving to buy coffee and snacks. They are all different ages, with different jobs and from different parts of the country. At the beginning they would see each other only at premieres, but now they have dinner together, go to films, some have even traveled to Europe and America together for film festivals. Pam says the friends she has made here are an ‘extension to her family unit.’

‘They’ve probably been staking out the place out for ages,’ says Rob, a twenty-something security guard, surveying the autograph collectors in Leicester Square.  Boyn, a guard who has worked more premieres than he can count, doesn’t get the appeal of the hobby.

‘My idea of a good job isn’t standing around waiting for celebrities out here in the rain,’ he says. ‘It’s sitting down inside somewhere!’  

During film premieres, when their boss yells at them to ‘watch the crowd, not the stars!’ they have no problem obeying instructions.  They are uninterested in the whole glitz and glamour.  They could care less about the celebrities.  It’s the autograph-seekers they focus on. ‘I watch them closely,’ Rob says, ‘so I’m ready in case they get boisterous and try to jump over the fence or something.’

Another of his co-workers, a gruff, no-nonsense older man who would rather be anywhere else than working outside in the drizzle at this film premiere, has an opinion about those who spend hours doing the same thing without being paid.

‘They’re complete nutters.’

‘And that one,’ he points to Pam, ‘is the biggest nutter of all.’

Pam, however, is oblivious.  She has just been given the most precious gift someone on her side of the carpet can get at a film premiere: the guest list.

‘The list is here!

Pam and her friends swarm the list like the “mosquitoes of literature,” a description Washington Irving once used for autograph collectors. Some make notes in their notebooks, others frantically search their photo collection to make sure they have one for each person on the list.

‘How’d you get the list?’

‘Sorry, can’t talk right now.  We have the guest list!’

Chris stands back, watching with a slight smirk. He’s 25, just graduated from university with a film degree, not a bad looking guy, not the type you’d imagine standing in line for a whole day to look at some famous people.  

‘My girlfriend thinks I’m crazy,’ he says, ‘But I just love films. I hate standing around for so long, but when the action starts, the energy is great.’ He does not mind, he says. waiting a few hours for a special event like this. But only a few hours, and only for special events.

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