Ex-EastEnders Star Sells Queen Vic Sign, Dance Shoes

Former EastEnders star Ricky Groves has revealed he is flogging a series of personal items, props and movie memorabilia to raise cash. 

The actor, who played Gary Hobbs for nine years before he was axed in 2009, has recently sold off his Queen Vic sign and Strictly Come Dancing shoes as well as several other items he has collected over the years. 

Ricky took a Queen Vic outdoor sign he salvaged after the pub burned down to Ryedale Auctioneers, Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire and fetched £200 for the prop.

Elsewhere from the EastEnders set, the actor sold a neon sign for Laura’s cafe along with a laminated Laura’s opening times sign for £440.  

Ricky even flogged off his Strictly dance shoes he wore on Series 7 of the BBC competition along with his Strictly lanyard and a signed framed photo of all the contestants with their dance partners for £42.

Among the most bizarre items was a pair of Union Jack shorts signed by Olympians Steve Cram and Sally Gunnell which fetched £50.

He also flogged a collection of empty Jean Paul Gautier perfume bottles for £28.

A Mercedes Benz hood ornament from the Mercedes driven down the railway line in Octopussy with a personalised letter from James Bond stunt driver Clive Noy about said hood ornament fetched £190.

Ricky also sold fly fishing rods, chairs, TV entertainment system (£800), glassware, a bread bin, a Copeland Spode Wicker Dale tea set and a wicker basket, German WW1 swords, a Paddington Bear set and his coin collection including a Jack Nicklaus Scottish 5 pound banknote.

The actor first joined as part of the Slater family with his character married to Lynn (Elaine Lordan) before embarking on numerous flings ahead of his unlikely romance with show stunner Dawn Swann ().

He went on to appear in Celebrity Coach Trip and  Come Dancing before making a surprise one off return to Eastenders in February 2025.

Ricky split from wife and co-star Hannah Waterman, who played Laura Beale, in 2009 after he said the actress revealed she had been having an affair with now husband Huw Higginson.

The couple went on to welcome a son, before moving to Australia where they tied the knot and Hannah appeared in rival soap Home and Away.

The actress, who had dramatically lost two-and-a-half stone as part of a fitness regime which featured in a DVD, was still married at the time to Ricky, who blamed her exercise DVD for the break-up.

She made no secret of her admiration for him, saying: 'Huw is lovely in real life. When there's only two of you (on stage), you have to absolutely trust each other … he is a rock.'

She left Ricky on New Year's Eve 2009, before Huw moved into her Essex home in June 2010 after having issues in his own marriage to Geraldine Dove-Higginson, with whom he shares a daughter.

Huw married Geraldine, a stage manager and former art director on The Bill, in 1997. 

Huw, who played lovable but dimwitted police officer George Garfield in The Bill, co-starred alongside Waterman in plays Rattle Of A Single Man and Killing Time in 2009.