Glamis Castle 1 Antiques Roadshow

This week we've come to the childhood home of the Queen Mother.

This is Glamis Castle, about ten miles north of Dundee.

But the castle's royal associations go back hundreds of years.

All hail, Macbeth. Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis.

All hail, Macbeth! Thou shalt be king hereafter!

CACKLING

"Is this a dagger which I see before me?

"The handle turned toward my hand?" Yes, it is.

But Macbeth was never Thane of Glamis - he lived 200 years

before the title was invented.

The setting of Glamis was a bit of Shakespearean licence.

In fact, Macbeth DID kill Duncan, but 100 miles away in Elgin.

Glamis Castle wasn't built for battle, but as a hunting lodge.

It's been adapted and extended over the years,

but most of what can be seen today was completed in the 17th century

by the Third Earl of Kinghorne.

The Old Pretender - James Edward Stuart -

Bonnie Prince Charlie's father,

stayed here during the first Jacobite Rebellion in 1715.

In the chapel, the Old Pretender laid hands on people suffering

from scrofula, or king's evil... apparently, they were all cured.

The locals needed no further proof that he was the rightful king -

only a true sovereign "had the power".

When the Queen Mother came here as a child,

she loved to explore the old rooms with her younger brother, David,

and she would have known all about the secret room behind these walls.

The story goes that one Lord of Glamis and his friend,

the Tiger, Earl of Crawford,

once played cards here on the Sabbath - taboo, of course,

and it's said that the devil himself joined in, and dealt himself a hand.

For years afterwards, so many strange disturbances and sounds

were heard around here,

that, eventually, the room was sealed up behind here.

Hear it not, Aspel.

We shall learn more about the Queen Mother's early life

at Glamis next week,

but today we're in the Italian Garden at the invitation of

her great-nephew, Lord Strathmore.

So let's find out what the people of Angus have brought to lay

before the Roadshow experts.

When did you last wash these pieces?

-You'll have to ask my mum!

-They're grubby.

Tell her that they need a good wash,

particularly because they're really of wonderful quality.

-They're part of a larger service. Have you got some other pieces?

-Yes.

There's another two plates,

and there's another soup tureen with the small plates to go with it.

-So this has a stand?

-Yes.

-And there are two more dishes?

-Two more, yes.

-What happened to the other bits?

-How do you mean?

There would have been many more - probably 18 plates and other dishes.

I don't know. She got them gifted to her.

-They're the sort of quality you'd find in a big house like this.

-Yes.

And they really are lovely bits of George IV china.

She'd always liked them and so they were passed on to her.

Well...they were made at Coalport in Shropshire...

in about 1822.

-Mm-hm.

-The inspiration for this moulded pattern

actually comes from Sevres porcelain,

but they didn't do it like this.

This beautiful white relief here

and then - the test of really good early porcelain -

the thickness of the gilding - absolutely magnificent.

And then we've got... not merely flowers, but fruit.

Flowers and fruit together are a very special combination.

Now, I know it's Coalport because here on the back,

there is actually an impressed "6",

and that impressed number 6, always in the middle, is a Coalport mark.

Really beautiful quality. These two with their stands,

er...are worth...

-..between £1,200 and £1,500.

-Gosh!

And each dish is worth...

-between £400 and £500.

-Uh-huh. Very good.

And they'd look even better if they had a wash.

Not your fault, you know.

-You go home and sort your mother out!

-I just brought them along!

I have to say, when you first handed me this package,

I wondered, whether in fact, you were in the right queue!

But luckily all is revealed. Here we have the Forth Bridge

in its various stages of construction. Very appropriate.

I was driving over the road bridge and looking at the Forth Bridge

and thinking how magnificent it was. Here is a record of it being built.

Do you know when it was built?

-1892, I believe.

-1892, yes. And here are wonderful views -

these lovely loose plates in this particular volume.

Here we have the Queensferry vertical columns,

showing the girders and platforms after the first and second lifts,

-Here they are, showing this amazing piece of Victorian engineering.

-Yes.

And here we have the cantilevers, almost complete,

looking extremely good here, looking as though it had already been done.

So where did you get it from? Where has this book come from?

-It was in our family as long as I can remember.

-A family of engineers?

-No.

No family background in engineering or bridge-building at all.

It was kept in our sitting room,

-on the top shelf of a cupboard - a press, as we called it.

-Yes.

-We were only allowed in that room on Sundays.

-You looked at it on Sundays?

Sometimes. Either my mother played the piano, or we looked at books.

-Wonderful.

-And I took particular interest in this book over the years,

-and I ended up in shipbuilding, actually.

-Oh, really?

-Yes. This is the history of the building of the bridge.

-With photos.

-They're incredibly clear, aren't they?

-They are.

-Beautiful.

-Yes.

Now, about condition. The trouble with a book like this is it's loose,

but you have looked after it extremely well.

It's contained in a portfolio - which seems to be the original.

-It was incredibly popular, so they had to go to a second edition.

-Yes.

Do you have any idea of its value?

Not really. £200 or £300, something like that.

I think we could do better.

I would say about £500 to £600. It's an extremely important book,

and one that collectors anywhere - not just Scotland -

-would love to have.

-Yes.

-It's a great thing and thank you so much for bringing it in.

-Thank you.

Stonehaven's not far from Glamis. Is that why you have this poster?

Not really no.

-My younger daughter, Elaine, was at university in Aberdeen...

-Right.

And one of her favourite spots at weekends was Dunnottar Castle -

halfway between Aberdeen and home.

And so you bought it for her?

That was the plan. The bid was more than I thought,

so I've got it, but she may eventually get it.

-You're the custodian for the time being?

-Absolutely.

-It's a famous local view, isn't it?

-Yes, it is.

The date is the late 1930's,

a period when railway and motoring posters,

-were at a very, very avant-garde state of development.

-Yes.

And a number of companies went to leading artists and said,

"Do us an image," which they then converted into a poster.

It's a great period to collect,

because some of these views are by great names.

They were all originals. This is from an oil painting - 1938,

-so one suspects a painter was commissioned to do this.

-Yes.

-Now here we've got McIntosh Patrick.

-Yes.

-Do you know about him?

Oh, indeed. If you're from this area you must know about McIntosh Patrick,

a Dundonian artist, lived to his 90's, died two or three years ago.

Yes, he was a very important figure.

The language of Scottish painting is about colour and light -

"a Scottish colourist" is a familiar phrase.

He was a later generation, but he was carrying that tradition forward.

To anyone who's been to Scotland, and I'm a mere southerner,

the light is as magic as it can be.

-Yes.

-You get this extraordinary intensity of colour,

this extraordinary luminosity -

that phrase "Scottish colourist" is something that would apply to this.

It's a wonderful image.

-So you bought it at auction quite recently?

-About two years ago.

-Expensive?

-I think it was about £900.

-It's a fair price.

I'd say now we've moved on a bit.

I was going to say £1,000-£1,200, that sort of thing. I hope, one day,

-your daughter comes to enjoy it as well.

-I'm sure she will,

-but she's not getting it yet!

-Not yet. Thank you very much.

-If I may say so, that ring appears too big.

-It's much too big, yes.

What's the story of that, then?

Um, it's a ring that my fiance's family have had for generations.

It dates from...about 1700, when an ancestor of his

was supposed to be dead. She died from the Black Plague

and they took her to the tomb, tried to get the ring off,

but she was rather a large woman, and it wouldn't come off,

and the butler decided that he would go down there on his own account

cut off her finger with the ring on, when he wasn't able to get it off,

at which point she sprang to life.

-And it's come down through the family.

-And she survived?

-She survived and she had two children.

-Good Lord!

So this label here, "export licence" relates to that bit of paper.

This bit of paper which was granted by the government of Cyprus.

-Showing it was imported on April 1937.

-Yes.

As a glass beaker. That sort of provenance is so important,

especially now in the world of antiquities.

There's much controversy about whether pieces can be exported,

and from Cyprus especially nowadays.

There's great restrictions on any antiquities coming out, to protect

the old sites, quite rightly.

Looking at the rim here

and seeing that this iridescence goes right the way over it,

it's covered by signs of burial, which is so crucial.

So many pieces of Roman glass are reproduced, and so many pieces,

in spite of their licences, are wrong,

so one needs to see reasons why this is old.

The signs of burial, the iridescence over the chipped-in antiquity,

so the piece IS Roman - not quite 600BC as the label says -

that's a bit of a generous claim.

-I think we're looking at about 1AD, 2AD...

-Oh, right.

..but a totally genuine piece of ancient glass

for drinking your wine in Cyprus.

Centuries old, yet, surprisingly, the value is...

-only £150.

-Oh, really?

More pieces of Roman glass survive than one thinks,

but, I think, at that sort of value, they're great things to collect.

-One can feel history in a piece of glass like that.

-Yes.

You can picture it - he cuts the finger off and she leaps up...

Yes, in her grave clothes.

So poor man - it would have been the most terrible experience for him,

but lucky for her. He saved her life.

Who got the biggest shock, do you think? The butler or the husband?!

-I don't like to think about it!

-In equal amounts, I should think.

-Yes.

Well, the ring itself is not just a wedding ring.

It's called a gold posy ring and inside it's got this inscription,

-"God increase love and peace..."

-Yes.

..which is a little poem,

and they were called posy rings and they were very much of that period -

1680 to the next 30, 40 years,

and because it's a posy ring and with this fantastic provenance,

-I think it must be worth in the region of £400 to £600.

-Wonderful.

I've never in my life come across such an amazing story.

-It is very strange.

-Fantastic.

-It belongs to my father-in-law.

-Right. And do you like it?

-Yes.

It's a very soft painting, it's easy to look at,

-and...

-It's got charm.

-Yes.

-What do you think they're poking?

-I thought they could be fishing.

-Yes, I thought so, with a little net.

-But it's quite good, it's caught the light well.

-Yes.

-It's a silvery seaside light.

-Yes.

-Very Impressionistic, really.

-Yes.

Now, this little painting is by Robert Gemmell Hutchison,

and Hutchison was a man who wanted to get away from a certain kind

of Victorian sentimentality that he noticed in the work of his

teachers and the people who had come before him, the generation before.

And he began to put more light into his paintings than had been the case

and wanted to be more naturalistic. Later in his life - and this seems -

although it's not dated -

to be a late Hutchison - he began to be influenced

by the Dutch naturalist and landscape painters painting then,

people like Jozef Israels,

who was also quite popular in England and Scotland.

-And, of course, Hutchison was a Scottish artist.

-Oh, was he?

-Yes.

His later pictures, I think, suffer slightly from being caked.

If you look at this picture,

it's quite vigorously worked and the paint is dry and dusty,

and although that does generate an effect,

I've seen others where the background is simply too unresolved.

But there's a huge following for his work. It's very sought after.

-Have you any idea what it might be worth?

-Haven't a clue, no idea.

-Ah.

-I know he bought it about 20 years ago.

-Oh, really?

-Uh-huh.

-And he can't remember.

-Presumably, he just liked it.

He has an eye for nice things.

Clearly, because you'll have to tell him that the picture's worth

-between £10,000 and £15,000.

-No!

-Yes.

-Oh, well, that's...wonderful.

-£10,000 or £15,000?!

-Absolutely.

-That's lovely.

-Yes.

-Uh-huh.

It's actually my brother's pot.

He inherited it from a member of the family

who was very keen at buying at auction, in Glasgow. Other than that,

-I really don't know anything about it.

-No?

-Well, it came into

our family just a couple of years ago.

But prior to that, I'm not quite sure how long he's had it. Not long.

It's a piece of Carlton Ware and a very striking design, called Jazz,

and it's rather an unusual design.

All the colours have been bordered by gold lines,

and the fish scales here, little guilloche fish scales.

It's reminiscent of Chinese or Japanese cloisonne where the enamels

were encased in metal banding,

and we have the lustreware of the main body in this mottled background

with a...it's almost a marine subject. These remind me

of little bits of seaweed

with little bubbles coming up, and these flashes, almost, of lightning.

There's been a very big growth of interest in Carlton Ware

and ceramics of this very dramatic 1930's style.

Carlton factory opened in the late 19th century,

but the collectable pieces really were made from 1910 on,

and the factory closed in the early 1960's.

Increasingly, Carlton Ware has become a collector's market

and they now have specialised sales of it in the auction rooms.

It has one or two firing faults in the glaze,

but nothing major and no damage. I think if you were to sell this now,

-you could expect to fetch upwards of £1,000 for it.

-Oh, my goodness.

-Yes.

-Lovely.

-That's it.

-Oh, well, I'd be pleased. Lovely!

Well, she's been in the family all my life. She belonged to my grandmother,

and she used to be kept in the back of a very dark, cluttered cupboard,

and, once a year, if my sister and I played our cards right,

she would be brought out

-and my grandmother would wind her up. And off she'd go.

-She'd do her thing.

She's dressed beautifully in this silk, which is...deteriorating,

but it's inevitable,

when you think that she was probably made in around 1890-1900.

The fact that your grandmother kept her in a cupboard, I'm sure

was not to keep her out of your way,

she merely wanted to conserve the fabric,

and that, I'm sure, helped.

You can see it's beginning to go into tatters here.

She's standing on a little velvet-covered box,

which contains all the gubbins. It contains the musical movement

-and it will contain all the cams and the cogs to set her going.

-Yes.

But what I want to do is to turn her round, and just see...

if there is anything that might be revealed on the back of her head,

and there is.

The letters S.H. and the number 1,300.

That tells me that she was made by a company called Simon & Halbig.

The 1-3-0-0 is actually the mould number of her particular face,

so I would have said

that she is probably dating from about 1900 or so, from the head.

People say, "How come that they made

"these very fragile toys for children?"

And the answer is,

they weren't for children at all, they were actually made for adults

as after-dinner entertainment pieces, a sort of rich man's toy.

They were originally made in Paris - there were a number of top makers,

and she was made by Leopold Lambert.

She would have been dressed for a particular market, in this case,

for Spain, exported and sold down there.

The market for these is really very strong,

and the more that the automaton does,

the more movements that it has, the more expensive they tend to be.

And looking at her, she's got movements to her...

Oh, this bee obviously thinks that she's a very delicate flower!

I'm just going to...blow him away. There we go.

So move the tambourine, her head moves and so on.

So she's got several movements there, and I think that at auction,

we'd talk about a figure of between £1,800 and perhaps just over £2,000.

-Oh, very good.

-So she's lovely.

I'd like, if we may, just to play her, so I'm going to give her

a bit of a wind at the back there.

Turn the knob...

TINNY MUSIC

Mother used to refer to it as an Irish coffin table

and it's been in the family as long as I know.

That's about as much as I can tell you about it.

Well, that is absolutely right.

These pieces of furniture

are usually only found in Ireland these days.

It is for putting the six-foot coffin here,

so the body stays in the family until it goes off to be buried.

It's an ancient Celtic tradition. When somebody died,

there was this worry that an evil spirit would take not only the soul,

but the body with it, and the family didn't want that.

As time went on, the bodies were sat with until they were buried,

and so these coffin tables - or wake tables, as they're known -

are very much part of an Irish family,

and you'll often see them in the big country houses still.

This is a particularly nice table.

It's a nice piece of mahogany, which, if we just put this leaf up,

extends the table into a large oval,

which, of course, nowadays can be used in a different way.

This is a particularly popular shape and size for a dining table.

It's a fantastic piece of mahogany of the George III period,

but, at some stage, the top colour has gone,

it's got this matt finish.

-Well, it had always had a felt covering.

-Ah.

And when I was small, I was dared to go near it, Sunday lunch only

and it was well protected all the time.

-And it's always been kept covered.

-It needs polish on it...

-Uh-huh.

..and it'll be fantastic - a really, really nice dining table.

And because it's very popular, very expensive. If you wanted

-to buy one of these you're talking about £8,000 to £10,000.

-Grief!

Very nice.

Thank you.

This belonged to my wife's grandmother

and was passed from her through my mother-in-law

-to my wife.

-Right, because we have on the cover an inscription which says,

"from the Honourable Sir Rupert George Bt to James Stewart Esq,"

-so this is principally a gentleman's travelling toilet service.

-Yes.

Let's go through the fittings -

we've got silver-mounted glass jars, toilet jars, and so on, inkwell,

and this is a shaving jug, with a detachable ivory handle

and with a glass jar inside as well.

-How did that work? Was it on a stand or...?

-That was on a stand.

Often you have a burner to keep the water hot.

Let's have a look and see what date it is.

Let's find a big piece.

There are the hallmarks on the inside of the cover -

1839 is the date that the service was made.

All the covers are decorated with this engine turning

and with a crest of a stag.

-Is there a secret drawer?

-Yes.

Let's get it open... There we are. Fabulous. Look at those fittings.

Beautiful.

Here we have a medicine spoon.

The interesting thing about that is that is dated 1887...

and I can see Victorian hallmarks on virtually all these pieces,

so I think what we have is a toilet service

-which has been added to over the years.

-Yes.

-These are much more for a lady than for a gentleman...

-Yes.

..so we have a slightly mixed set.

But it's absolutely fantastic, beautiful quality.

Rosewood case, inlaid with brass work.

Travel was very much part of one's education

in the 18th and 19th century,

and these were made in quite large numbers, but very rarely do you

see one as complete as this.

It's not an easy thing to value because it's of two different dates,

but, nevertheless, a lot of these items individually

are worth several hundred pounds - certainly the shaving jug and stand.

That's £500 or £600 on its own.

The inkwell is worth probably £300 on its own. The medicine spoon

is a collector's item on its own - that's worth a few hundred pounds.

And also we have this wonderful rosewood box,

-which is easily worth £1,000.

-Really?

Bearing in mind, it's such a wonderful thing, it must be worth

£3,000 to £4,000, maybe even £5,000.

-Thank you very much.

-Great pleasure.

Hey, look at that!

That's fabulous. How long have you had it?

It's probably been in my family for about 60, 70 years, I would think.

I have had it for 45 years, but I think my father had it before me.

Right, right.

So I'm guessing it's dating from the 1920's, but I'm not sure about that.

-You're spot on.

-Yeah.

It's a German toy make. Actually, S&D is the maker

and I believe they abbreviated the name as it was a wonderfully

-unpronounceable German name.

-I see.

So they abbreviated it to S&D. Made for the commercial market, of tin,

so for the export market,

and consistent with German toys of the time.

I just love the novelty of it, it's fabulous.

-Yes, yeah.

-Any idea of the value?

-I'm guessing - £50 or thereabouts?

-No, it's about £300 to £500.

-Amazing! Can I have that in writing?

Two very interesting coffee cans and saucers.

People call them cups, but with the straight sides they're called cans.

-Where did you get them from?

-They were my grandfather's.

As far as I'm aware, they were gifted to my grandfather, I know not when.

Any other history?

They were given, I think, by a Lord Kinnaird who lives at Rossie Priory

-in the Carse of Gowrie.

-Oh?

-Yes.

-We've got a mark which simply says "Paris".

-It's different writing.

It's different writing and it's clearly belonging together.

Now, at this date, and we're talking about 1800, somewhere around there,

there were a large number of factories in Paris,

and we don't know a lot of them,

and they've left no real records as to who did what,

so it's quite probable one will never be able to track down

-which factory made it.

-Yes.

-But it is unusual to have just the word "Paris" on.

-Yes.

-That's rare.

This one has got revolutionary Napoleonic symbols on it -

a sort of Imperial eagle on there,

and trophies of war - typical of Napoleonic times.

Well, they were known by a member of the family

as "my grandfather's Napoleon china".

-Oh, were they?

-Yes.

-Oh, so somebody worked it out, right.

-Yes, yes.

This one's very much more unusual

because we've got a matt-frosted gold,

which has then been tooled with this figure on horseback in a landscape.

Now, this is an unusual technique.

The tooling of gilding was developed at Sevres,

and when you fire gold...it comes out of the kiln matt, like that.

And then to get it shiny, you have to burnish it,

and you burnish it with an agate burnisher,

but to produce this quality of painting on the gilding,

they used the hobnail from a boot.

They set it into a bit of wood and they burnished the design in -

-extraordinary technique.

-Only in certain lights you see the pattern.

-Absolutely, and when you see it...

-Yes.

-..it's breathtakingly good.

Er, now this one has got a slight crack,

a hair crack in it, but it's very slight.

So, values. Do you rate them highly?

I've always liked them. They've been in the family...

Er, I don't really have an idea.

-I suppose...

-You have no idea?

-No.

-Well, this one, despite its crack,

-we're looking at £800 or so for that one.

-Very nice.

That one, which is in good state - the decoration's not as good,

but the condition makes up for it,

so around £800 to £1,000 for that. So they were a nice pressie, really.

-A very nice pressie!

-The laird would be a bit grumpy if he knew.

I think there was actually more.

-Really?

-But my granny was a bit cavalier with china.

-Thank you very much.

-OK, thanks.

Here's one of many thousands of pictures of the young Queen Mother,

with her favourite brother David, the one she had all the pranks with,

and this distinguished gentleman. Who is that?

That is my great-grandfather, James "Dancey" Neil.

He was a dancing master, thus the nickname Dancey, a violin teacher,

and, I think, a teacher of deportment and general behaviour.

So how much of their lives would they spend in his company?

I suspect that it was at least twice a week

and I understand he rode around Angus on his bicycle

to all the various grand houses,

-and had, really, a pretty "upmarket clientele".

-Yes.

Now, your great-granddad looks here like a rather stern

George Bernard Shaw kind of figure,

but what are the children dressed up as?

Well, I think the little boy, David,

is a jester, while his sister - the Lady Elizabeth -

with, perhaps, great prescience, is dressed as a princess.

What else?!

This is my great, great, great grandfather, John Broadwood,

and this is his second wife, Mary Kitson.

-And we're descended from his youngest son, Henry Broadwood.

-I see.

So these have been in your family since the end of the 18th century?

Since they were painted, yes.

-And this is the John Broadwood who invented the modern piano?

-Yes.

Well, I think that's an extraordinary combination.

They're signed with the initials SC,

but that's not a problem because it's clearly noted on the

back that they're by Samuel Cotes.

He was a very prominent miniaturist in the late 18th century.

He was very successful. It would have been entirely appropriate

for him to do John Broadwood.

What's also intriguing is that they're dated. This one of him

is dated 1784. Now, it's a good year for John Broadwood - 1784.

He brought out the patent for the new piano just the year before.

He was 52 when this was painted - he's at the height of his success.

What he managed to do was to build pianos almost with mass production.

I mean, it is said that he built thousands of pianos,

whereas before pianos were just made by craftsmen

as one-offs for musicians and there were very few pianos in the land.

By the time of his death, there were thousands.

That makes him a very important person. In 1814,

his success was such that he sent one of his pianos to Beethoven,

which was quite extraordinary, I think.

Cotes's miniatures themselves aren't really worth a huge amount of money.

Perhaps a handsome pair like this would be worth £2,000 to £3,000.

But with the sitters being who they are, I think an estimate could be -

-a realistic one - £6,000 to £8,000.

-Cor!

That's a lot of money.

They were given to me by a lady

who got them when she married into a rather wealthy family,

about 70, 80, 90 years ago.

Mm, they're all set with diamonds. All around about 1900, 1905.

Some of them are a little bit later in manufacture,

but most of them are typical of the late-Victorian period.

I particularly like this one,

mounted in gold. Have a look at the back...

The Victorians were so practical -

and there's the facility at the back to screw in a brooch fitting.

Well, snowflakes and floral clusters were all the rage around 1900,

and they've silver-set the stones,

these lovely white diamonds, in this very tight cluster.

It's such a pretty piece and it's so wearable because of its shape.

The diamond half-hoop ring is almost the same date, really -

1895-1900, and in this one,

they've mounted a line of five graduated diamonds

and they've put it in a scrolling setting - typical of that period -

mounted in a high-carat yellow gold frame.

And, of course, the late-Victorian star brooch...

Stars, crescents and flower sprays

were the most popular sort of thing. So this is a lady

who obviously KNEW her jewellery, she wore them. Do you wear them?

-Yes, I do.

-Which pieces do you like wearing?

-I like this one,

because that was rescued.

-That was stolen and the thieves tried to burn it.

-To burn it?

-Yes.

When the police brought it back, it was black.

-I wonder why?

-I've no idea.

-Curious thing to do.

Well, this one was made around 1905.

It's an example of Edwardian naturalism,

and it's set with these pale blue sapphires - Montana sapphires -

this sort of pale blue colour - and little cusps of half natural pearls,

and then on the back, mounted up in yellow gold,

probably 15-carat gold, typical for pieces of that period.

The one item that's a little bit later in manufacture is that,

which is more a Deco design.

So, this piece here is probably the most modestly priced,

-but even that's worth around £500.

-That's nice.

But then, these ones here are more valuable, more commercial,

-because they're so wearable.

-Mm-hm.

So the cluster star brooch is worth £1,500 to £2,000,

and the diamond half-hoop ring,

always the sort of things that people love wearing,

that ring probably worth about £1,500,

and the diamond snowflake cluster is worth about £1,500 to £2,000.

So this is what you could SELL them for,

-so in total, you've got something in the region of £6,000-£7,000.

-Lovely.

And insurance, you've got to think around £12,000 to £15,000 for them.

Right. I shan't be selling them.

It's good to see how well they've survived -

they're all in good condition, in spite of it being burnt.

And torpedoed.

They were actually rescued

with the lady that owned them from the sea.

She was escaping from Japan, and she had her jewellery under one arm

and her one-year-old son under the other and escaped.

-Well, she sounds a very redoubtable lady.

-Yes, but a very lovely lady.

Thank you very much.

This lovely elegant piece of furniture has been

really greatly admired today.

How long have you had it for?

I've had it for 25 years. I inherited it from an aunt.

And where do you keep it?

-I keep it in the sitting room.

-Well...

one thing that struck me when I first saw it,

and I think it's the proportions are slightly unbalanced.

The top and the bottom didn't start off life together -

a very, very common thing that happens,

and it could be that the top was too big to go into a low-ceilinged room,

so they swapped the cabinet for something that fitted better.

This is a George III cabinet,

lovely mahogany with these diamond astragals, and then the bottom

has got a secretaire drawer,

which if we just pull out, and if you drop the flap your side...

Very nice, very simple, very pretty interior,

and then if we go on down the chest, there's something different...

At the bottom, we've got these two very deep drawers

and this one is fitted out as a cellaret.

-Yes.

-I have never seen that before in a piece of furniture like this.

So you've got an absolutely marvellous piece of furniture

which does everything -

it could be used as a piece of writing furniture,

or as a piece of decorative furniture,

with porcelain at the top,

and here at the bottom you can store your bottles.

So that makes it special.

In style, with the ovals both on the drawer front and down there,

it's looking to a design of about 1780,

that might have appeared

in something like a Sheraton or Hepplewhite design book,

but have you ever looked at the handles really carefully?

-Because there's a little inscription that says "Sacred to Nelson".

-Gosh!

Now, Nelson died in 1805,

so Nelson memorabilia would have been produced just after his death.

So we know that this bottom piece couldn't have been made before 1805,

and so what I think we've got here is a secretaire chest,

after 1805 - about 1810,

and maybe the top could be ten or 20 years earlier,

-but very happily married together. Yes. Do you like it?

-I love it.

-What do you keep in it?

-Well, I keep silver in the top.

-Right.

And, obviously, bottles down there.

-Bottles down here.

-And in the drawers, I just keep writing paper.

-So it's a very useful thing for you?

-Oh, extremely, yes.

I think if you had to replace this - and it would be very difficult

with this configuration down the bottom, you would have

-to spend at least £10,000.

-Mmm.

Right, thank you.

-This is my father.

-Right.

Who was, in the First War, at Calshot most of the time.

-So he got his pilot's licence in February 1917?

-Yes.

-And so he came and trained as a pilot at that point?

-Yes.

Where did he come from originally?

He came from the Argentine, where he was a cattle rancher.

-Right, so he came back to Britain to fight?

-Yes.

-As a volunteer?

-Quite.

-Yes. Now, this album was assembled by him during his service?

-Yes.

So these are views of him, are they?

Not all of him. The centre one is him - the two brothers -

-he and his brother were both together.

-This is a wonderful album

because what it gives us is a complete vision of his daily life.

Here is a spread of all the types of aeroplanes that he would have seen

and used at Calshot at the time.

Calshot was a naval base, so they're mainly flying boats.

Flying boats or float planes.

What is extraordinary is the diversity. He'd have to have been

-familiar with all these.

-He was.

And so this is his life in the sense of his practical service life.

Moving on, this interested me

because here we've got everything that was going on around him.

-Quite, yes.

-That's the Olympic -

the great White Star liner, the sister ship of the Titanic,

in dazzle camouflage.

It became a troop ship in World War I.

He had a camera, he took these photographs, he collected them,

-he put these little drawings in.

-Yes.

-He was obviously very artistic as well.

-He was.

-He was very neat.

-Clearly. I think this is extraordinary,

because normally, people didn't have cameras

and they weren't allowed to do it, anyway. It was a forbidden area.

This is a wonderful image, I think,

a parade of aeroplanes going along a suburban road.

Well, the station was built in a sort of suburban setting.

-A most unsuitable setting.

-Most.

Yeah, you can see the somewhat difficult nature of the land.

-Of the terrain, yes.

-So we've got his life. We've got the mishaps...

-Was this one of his mishaps?

-No, that was...

-A colleague's?

-A colleague, yes.

-"Controls jambed," it says here.

-And that came out of it.

-This is the clock from that aeroplane?

-Yes.

-He salvaged that at the time?

-Yes.

-So that was the dashboard clock from that?

-Yes, which they used

-for their patrol work and navigation.

-I think it's an extraordinary story.

We've got his colleagues, friends...

-That's his brother.

-And a wonderful list of Don'ts.

"Don't worry. Don't be timid. Don't be too sure.

"Don't loop, spin or stall a short.

"Don't say you forgot and don't swank."

-Good rules for today!

-Fatal things to do!

-"Notice for pupils -

"Land on the heels of your floats."

-If you landed otherwise, you'd be dead.

-You'd tip over. Great document,

great part of our history and all the life that went with it.

Impossible to value, because it's a family document,

but in collectors' terms, we would be looking at £1,500 - £2,500,

-because all these images are one-offs.

-Quite, yes.

They're something that he took and preserved and that is a fantastic

-slice of that period.

-It is.

-I'm glad you've got the clock.

-It's very precious. It sits by my bed.

-Excellent. Thank you very much.

-Thank you.

Well, if you've enjoyed this Roadshow from Glamis

as much as we have, then I think you'll have had a pleasant time.

We've had wonderful weather, seen some lovely things -

the event seemed like a mix

between a village fete and a royal garden party.

Join us next week, when I'll take a closer look inside the castle

and at the times the Queen Mother has spent here. Until next week,

from glorious Glamis, goodbye.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd