Gloucester Cathedral 2 Antiques Roadshow

We're back for our second programme from Gloucester.

One thousand years ago,

the cathedral was home to a community of monks

who would have been confused to know that this historic place of

pilgrimage was to become not only the location for a television show,

but a school for wizards.

Harry Potter, the boy wonder from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft

and Wizardry has captured the imagination of muggles

the world over, and if you're going to battle evil on a grand scale,

you need a grand place to do it.

LIGHTNING STRIKES

Preparing Gloucester Cathedral for our Roadshow is a fairly subtle process...

adapting it for a blockbuster movie was something else. Do you remember the scene?

Harry Potter and his mates are running for their lives down this corridor pursued by a troll,

they take refuge here

in the monks' lavatorium.

On this wall, a message written in blood warning

that the Chamber of Secrets has been opened...

disaster!

Water pours out of this door, everyone's up to their necks in trouble,

the climax of the scene takes place about here.

The troll is destroyed, and Harry and his pals survive

to face many more dangers. Thrilling, eh?

But so clever, just look at this.

Hogwarts is a school of course, not a church, so some of the

stained glass windows were disguised and one or two doors just vanished.

The film unit brought 52 trailers with them

and were on location for 100 days...

all that to produce ten minutes of screen time.

On the other hand, without a trailer in sight,

we can value 10,000 items, create hours of television

and still have time for a game of quidditch.

Having said that, let's see if we can conjure up today's Roadshow.

HARRY POTTERESQUE MUSIC PLAYS

This must be one of the most charming naive or primitive pictures

I think I've ever seen.

Do you have any idea who the children are or where they come from?

They would have been

great aunt and uncle of my great grandmother Rotheridge,

but unfortunately we're not sure whether they died in a fire,

but there was a house fire shortly after this was painted.

Oh, dear.

So...that's all we know.

-And it's painted by a man here in Gloucester.

-Yes.

-Called Fisher.

Yes, that's right but we are unsure who, who the artist is.

-I've tried to find out a bit about... and I really have failed.

-Right.

And I think, you know, there must be records of artists

but these sort of primitive artists perhaps were not very commercial

and didn't keep records, so it's going to be very difficult

to know anything about Mr Fisher.

But, clearly, they were well to do children,

the house was called Sandpits Court, is it?

Sandpits Court, which is just outside a village called Turley

which is in Gloucester, Gloucestershire.

-So they're, they're local children?

-Yes, very local, very local family.

Well, what's quite extraordinary about it is here you've got

-the little girl with her lovely coral necklace.

-Yes.

And she's holding a little basket.

-That's right.

-And here we have the very basket.

-Yes.

-I don't think I've ever seen that and it's made of straw-work.

-Yes.

-Which is terribly fragile,

so to have that... And the little whip that the boy is holding is here.

-Yes.

-And it dates from 1834 and all these are contemporary objects

with, with the children, lovely bonnets and so on. Just...

jam-packed with contemporary detail, a lovely thing.

So how do you remember it as a child?

I remember going into my grandmother's attic as a child

and being fascinated because of the connection with the whip and the basket.

-Were you allowed to play with them?

-I played with it.

-Did you?

-Yes, and it's lucky to have survived.

-Extraordinary, isn't it?

Yes. Well, I think it's terribly important to keep it all together,

it would be an awful shame if, they were parcelled out

-to various members of the family.

-Absolutely.

I wonder, if it's passed down, nobody's probably bothered to ever

pay attention to its worth, cos they love it, so it doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter. It'll be in the family for years to come.

Well, I hope so too, but none the less, it does have a value and

I think it's such a charming thing, with the objects as well,

and as a group of things I think it's probably worth

-about somewhere between £3,000-5,000.

-Right.

It's marvellous to be here in this wonderful building among

these fantastic stone works, I mean it's glorious, isn't it, really?

-Yes, wonderful, yes.

-And this is your collection, or part of your collection.

-Part, yes.

-Yes, and how did you come to start it?

Well, um, I come from Tunstall and we lived opposite

-the factory that made this.

-Yes.

-And we, er...

-This is the factory is it?

-That is the factory, yes, yes.

-Yes.

-Yes, and we had, my family had a butcher's shop

just opposite there and I used to watch it being made, you know.

-The building looks very like a pottery.

-Yes.

-But of course doesn't go right back into Victorian days.

-Absolutely not.

Not until the 1950s or so...

-That's right, that's right, yes.

-A firm called Friar.

-Yes.

And it's very, very exciting stuff isn't it?

THEY LAUGH

-Do you like it?

-Not particularly, no.

In actual fact, I think you know...

my memories go back...

-the pot bank used to belch out such terrible smoke.

-Yes.

We couldn't peg the clothes out because it always

got black with dust and soot and to think that something, you know, quite bright really...

-because that's what it is...

-Came out of all this dirt.

..came out of all this dirt and...

So why did you collect the stuff?

Just really collected it because of the family connection

and the fact we knew where it was made and could visualise

the people actually painting it and making it, er...

I'm to blame generally, because whenever I saw any I bought it

and then got told off for buying it.

-So you used to buy it?

-I used to do the buying...

-Did you like it?

Well, I did, but I didn't know a great deal about it, to be honest,

and it looked rather attractive, so I thought,

well, all right, I'll start collecting some

on behalf of my wife, as she had associations with the factory.

Looks a bit like Clarice Cliff?

I don't know about that. We could have bought,

-we could have done that.

-You could have bought Clarice Cliff?

-We didn't like it.

But years ago you could have bought Clarice Cliff for next to nothing but the people who produced it, and

the people who lived in the area, didn't like Clarice Cliff at all, and, er there is a story

that there was a large hole in one of the roads that was going to be brought into the area.

-Yes.

-As a new arterial road, and two lorry loads of Clarice Cliff was dumped to fill the hole up,

so there's a fortune underneath the roadway.

-Somewhere there it's worth digging up.

-Oh, we know where it is.

-Because Clarice Cliff is more valuable now than it used to be in the old days.

-Oh, yes, yes.

-But this isn't of great value.

-No, no, we know that.

It'll be a long time before it gets valuable,

per piece I suppose £10, £20 perhaps, something like that.

-Yes.

-But well done though, and wonderful to think about Tunstall in those old days.

-Yes, thank you.

-Oh, yes, yes.

Now, most people have to wait a lifetime to get a jewel like this,

as spectacular as this.

And it seems that it's fallen to you at the right time in your life, tell me how.

Um, well when my gran died and...

my Dutch Grandma, Grandma Oma, she left it to me

and I just acquired it, but I've never worn it - I've been too scared.

What happened when you first opened the box, what did you feel?

I was in awe. Just too beautiful, with all the light shining on it.

It is, it's the most fantastic return of light, isn't it? That's...

There's a word for that -

scintillation and it's doing it, isn't it?

-Yes.

-And so that was your granny's and she bought it where?

-At a shop in Apeldoorn in the Netherlands.

-Marvellous.

Curiously enough it doesn't actually look like a Dutch jewel to me,

it looks almost German and it's made in about 1900 and it's in the style

called Jugendstil, the young style.

It's modern for its period, it's made of platinum which is not often found

much before this period and we see inside here

a little message from her, what does it say?

-It's in Dutch.

-It says "this is for Hanna Kus Oma" and then her name.

Very touching isn't it?

And you knew her well, obviously?

Yes, but I was quite young when she died, so...

Yes, well I think the magic of these sort of jewels in the family

is that they march through from one generation to the other

and it's the same piece of jewellery for your granny as it is for you,

and it's a lovely token of remembrance from her,

and that's what we see on the Antiques Roadshow -

family jewels, but not necessarily valuable jewels in their own right,

but they're, they're priceless within the family. So here's one that's spectacularly marvellous

in every possible direction because it is a valuable jewel, it's set with diamonds and it's worth

£10,000.

That's incredible.

Interesting objects, where do they come from?

They belonged to our late mother and she loved them, they were her

favourite bits, my father bought them for her about 30 years ago now.

-Do you know much about them?

-Um, not really just that they're enamels

and come from China, Canton, and are quite valuable, I think.

-You're sisters, are you?

-Yes.

Is there a fight going on as to who has what?

Not really, we just had them altogether and...

Oh, I see, OK.

The history of enamels in China is really quite interesting,

it probably goes back to...

certainly goes back to the 15th century and to me,

the quality of the painting on enamels

is often infinitely superior to that on the porcelain,

and you know, these display it really very well.

These two dishes are beautifully painted with a rock...

this blue thing is a rock...

a sort of scholar's rock,

chrysanthemums, classical flower, bird and this wonderful,

scrolling peony border on here

and characteristically, this blue squiggle

which you find very frequently.

All the pieces that you've got here date from 1740 to 1760

right in the middle of the 18th century.

You've got a very beautifully decorated bowl here,

I mean, superb quality painting on there.

We've got a teapot,

-wonderfully decorated teapot.

-I've got another one.

-Mm?

-I've got another one.

-You've got another one?

-Yes.

Well, that's one each then, isn't it?

One each, yeah, we can split them, and another one of those.

I think it was collected with you two in mind somehow.

That of course, is a tea canister

and that's actually a Chinese wine ewer form.

-Oh.

-But I think it was probably made for a Western teapot.

-Right.

-Well, I think they're absolutely fantastic, I love them desperately.

Um, you've got...

I would actually think about these as individual to be quite honest,

a set of those would be worth around...

..£1,000. A pair of those,

£400 the pair...

That in that state, £120.

-Each one of those...£400 to £600.

-Oh!

-And that, £1,000.

-Right. Those are beautiful. Yes.

Aren't they wonderful? They could fetch more, they're really wonderful.

-Well, that's terrific, thank you so much.

-Thank you.

-Thank you for bringing them in.

-Thank you.

I have never ever seen a needlework picture

-done with the text here so that I can read it.

-Yeah.

-And on the right-hand side it's in reverse.

-Yeah.

-Very unusual.

-It is, is it?

It dates from about 1870,

this was sewn by somebody from quite a good background.

-Right.

-You can tell this for various reasons - one is its size.

-Yes.

The canvas and the wools, probably from Berlin,

would have been expensive, so it's a big picture

and look here, you've got a summer house,

a conservatory, an orangery with two figures sitting outside.

-These look like pennants, banners.

-Right.

-Maybe that's...

-to denote some sort of hidden meaning in here.

-Yeah.

-Which we'll come to, so you've got a mirror image on each side.

-Yeah.

-A girl spinning with her distaff represents virtue.

-Right.

-The fish, fish...

-Right.

-..for godliness.

-Right.

-And the poem...

do you know anything about the poem?

The poem was written by somebody called Isaac Watts and from about 1715 I think it was.

-So this is a known text?

-I believe so, yes.

Now if you look at the text, the text is about the clothes that we wear.

-Yeah.

-And it shows that we're rich on the outside.

-Yeah.

-But what matters is that the clothing is only an image.

-Yeah.

In fact what matters is that you hold in your heart "knowledge and virtue".

"These are the robes of the richest dress."

-Yeah, yeah.

-Here we have it in reverse,

it goes on to another verse, now my hypothesis is...

-you don't see everything when you first meet somebody.

-Yes.

They're dressed in their clothes, you can't read that straightaway,

you need to know what that says and by looking in a mirror...

-Yeah.

-..the words appear,

-so it's not straightforward.

-Yes.

This is all about what you need to be a virtuous good person.

-Yes.

-You can have all the trappings of money and elegance,

but if you aren't good inside you won't go to heaven.

-Right.

-But it is rare and because it's unusual, it's rare,

and overall condition, it's not bad.

-Yeah.

-You need to be careful.

-Yes.

-Value is reflected in its unusualness.

-Yeah.

I think if this were to go onto the open market,

-I would put something around £1,500 to £1,800.

-Right.

Thanks for telling me about it cos it's been there all my life

and I've never known anything about it.

-Have you been to Gloucester Cathedral before?

-No.

-Harry Potter has, did you know that?

-Not really.

Some of it was filmed in the cloisters round the corner.

-So, er...are you a Harry Potter fan?

-Yeah. I've read all the books and seen all the films and everything.

I've read the first two, I wavered at that point. What have you brought along today?

-Um, a wax sealing stamp.

-How do you end up with this wax sealing stamp?

I bet you don't use it every day to seal your letters.

-No.

-You probably don't post letters.

-Not really.

-Are you an email person?

-Yeah.

-Right, then a completely useless object really, isn't it?

-Yes.

Anyway, how do you end up having it?

My great grandfather was a fireman in the Blitz

and he was at Bexhill-on-Sea and one night a bomb landed

and this flew through the air and hit him on the head,

-and he went to take it back, but he couldn't because the shop was bombed.

-Completely flattened?

Yes, so he kept it and it's been in the family ever since.

And here it is today, well it's a really lovely hand seal,

as you say it's for sealing the wax on the back of envelopes,

so that was in the Blitz, 1939-1940.

So do you have a hunch as to how old it might be?

Do you think it was brand new then, or do you think it was old then?

-I don't have any idea.

-Oh, go on, have a guess.

Um, brand new or something?

Well, in fact it dates from about 100 years before that,

so I'd be interested to know what kind of shop he was in front of.

I think it was a stationers.

A stationers or maybe even a sort of antique shop or something,

but it's a really, really lovely example of a hand seal,

it has a lapis lazuli handle, um, a gold top here and then

this is blood stone and in fact it even has initials in the top, "JS".

Who JS was, we'll never know but remarkable really that,

first of all that it flew through the air,

hit him on the head or whatever, didn't hurt him,

didn't damage the hand seal. So are you wondering

whether it was a worthless bit of shrapnel that hit him in the head,

-or something of value?

-Mm. I am wondering, yes.

Well, it's really nicely made and really quite collectable

and I guess that if this was to appear on the open market at auction,

it would carry a value of something in the region of £400 to £600,

so it wasn't such an unlucky night for him

-that evening in Bexhill-on-Sea after all, was it?

-No. Thank you.

Do you know, I am now touching...

to my knowledge... the oldest piece of furniture we've ever had on the Roadshow.

-Oh.

-This has to be 1400s

and it's amazing and I have to ask you straightaway, where's it come from?

From the church of which I'm church warden,

St Mary de Crypt, here in Gloucester.

Well, how fitting, in this wonderful building, this cathedral,

we should have a piece of ecclesiastical furniture

and the only ones I've seen outside museums are in illustrations in books,

I mean, they just don't exist on the market as such.

Um, they were made to take vestments

and of course the church plate and, and tithes, money,

hence all these locks and of course all the church wardens

had a lock each for security.

There are always doubts as to their authenticity,

even some of those in collections

and much of that arises from the fact that

we're always taught that woodworm always comes in and out of wood,

-it doesn't go along the surface.

-Mm.

And here you can see it's considerably infested

and here particularly where it's almost gone to cork.

Now the reason for that is, that this was probably painted originally,

and over...

50 years after it was done, or 200 hundred years after it was done, it went out of fashion,

it started to wear and it's been cleaned

and the surface will have been stripped and that would expose

the work of the woodworm and that's why, certainly in areas like that,

it's just deteriorated further than one would have liked,

but I bet if you put a pin or a little, a needle,

after about a quarter of an inch, it would be like iron.

Such solid, dense wood, it was the original strongbox

and if you take it off of those blocks,

or imagine in your mind's eye they're not there,

it would stand very well indeed.

Obviously it's raised up to protect it, raised off the ground,

but it didn't start life like that, this was it.

Wonderful ironwork everywhere and what do you keep inside it?

Ah, as far as I'm aware there's nothing, well, of course...

-..we wonder if it's opened that we may find a skeleton, something like that.

-Has it not been opened?

Not to my knowledge, no.

-For how long?

-Never.

-Good heavens!

Well, anybody should ever question whether or not this programme

is totally unrehearsed, we're now going to find out.

Let's see, I think we... How does it come up? What happens to that bit?

-Er.

-OK, it's stopped.

-Well, there's a, there's a stop there, yes.

OK, so we've got to undo this, gosh,

a 100-year-old nut and bolt on here.

-We'll get some help, see if I can get someone...

-I think we'll need some.

Does this count as being a legend in your own time?

I wonder, I never thought we'd actually start looking

at Roadshow memorabilia on the Roadshow.

-You never know.

-Now tell me where, where did you get this?

-I worked as assistant stage manager in Oldham...

-Yes.

-..in the late 70s, early 80s.

-Yes.

And it was one of those signatures that I acquired later.

How funny, cos this is a picture of the Antiques Roadshow in Oldham,

it must be 1979 or '80 because we've got Angela Rippon there

and wonderful Arthur Negus, the man with the highest trouser waistband in the world,

and it's wonderful. It's the same thing going on,

gosh, what's this? 27 years ago and here we are in Gloucester

doing exactly the same thing.

The objects have remained the same,

the faces have changed, but a great bit of Roadshow memorabilia.

Do you know, it might be worth money one day.

-I'll keep it and see.

-Exactly!

-Thank you very much.

-It's a pleasure.

Ah...

OK? Well...

My goodness me.

Now be careful...

Are you ready?

Ah, yes.

-Ah.

-Oh, dear.

HE LAUGHS

It would seem as though it has been opened, you know.

What, what date are the newspapers?

Ah, ah, September 1963.

THEY LAUGH

So, after all that...

I, I was afraid it might prove to be disappointing.

It's impossible to value and so has your story

proved to be just wonderful, my goodness gracious.

Well, just...

so much fun and thank you very much for giving us some excitement.

Well, this is very difficult to value...

Ecclesiastical fitments really

don't have a market value, it's impossible to say

because for obvious reasons they should never come on the market.

However, it is wonderful and a privilege

to handle something quite as old as this, I must say.

I shall still remember it as not being opened,

-until we opened it on this programme, for a hundred years, so thank you very much.

-Thank you.

-I understand it's a payment in kind.

-It is really, yes, yes, for my son.

-Your son?

-Yes.

The story is that about 25 years ago, he was at Imperial College, London.

-Right.

-And his father and I went up to visit him one weekend and he said to me,

"Mum, I'd like to come round to this charity shop round the corner and see this object in there."

We went round and she said, "I haven't even priced it yet".

-She said, "Is a pound all right?" A year later he owed me some money and...

-How much did he owe you?

Well, it wouldn't be more than £20.

-Right, yeah, but this was 25 years ago?

-This was 25 years ago.

-OK.

-So he said "Oh, Mum, how about having the cane handle?"

Is he a very elegant gentleman? Does he have...?

-My son?

-Well, it's a cane handle.

No, he's a rugby player, he's a big, big fellow.

It's funny to think of a rugby player, 25 years ago,

going into a shop to buy a bit of decorative porcelain.

-Oh, Gareth was like that.

-Do you know when this dates from?

-No.

-It's nearly 250 years old.

-Really?

Yeah, this was made round about 1760.

-Was it really?

-That's the year George III came to the throne.

It would have had a lacquered wooden cane coming off it.

-Yes, yes, where would it have been made then?

-Well, it...

there are no marks on it to tell you.

-No.

-And no marks on the gold mount either.

-No.

-You've only got the style and the porcelain to go on,

this is made in Germany.

-Yes.

-The top factory is the Meissen factory.

This is not a Meissen cane, it's typically Rococo,

we've got a Rococo scroll here and this lion's face is...

-Do you like it?

-Not really, no.

I think, I think it's great.

-Do you?

-Yeah, it's really funny.

If you don't like it much, why did you take it as payment in kind?

To help him out at that time, because he was a student.

-You are a good mum.

-Yes.

-You are a good mum.

-Yeah.

Yeah, well it's a very nice thing,

when it comes to its value,

it's round about £500.

Never! Good heavens,

and he paid a pound for it... well done.

It's a great thing.

We've got a Symphonium musical box, what history can you tell me about it?

Well, I inherited it from my grandfather, who bought it in a sale near Gloucester

just after the First World War, with other furniture,

I always loved it as a child and he gave it me when I was about 12 in his lifetime so...

-Oh, you can remember a long way back?

-I've had it for a long, long time.

-Any other history about it?

We had a fire in our cottage, um, 33 years ago and our baby was only two-weeks old.

I put the baby outside in her pram and Ross rescued his musical box.

-So the fireman said, "You can go back and take..."

-One item.

-So you got the baby?

-I took the baby.

-I took this!

-Yes.

What an amazing story!

That's a little reflection of how much you appreciate this piece.

Now when I look at a musical box and to put a value on it,

there are many things I have to look at -

the condition of the case is important,

but it's a moving thing, and therefore,

it's important to actually have a look and see how it actually works.

If you take out the disc,

underneath we have two steel combs,

now this is actually what produces the music,

these are tuned steel combs, um, now if one of these teeth are broken,

that can decrease the value by up to £100.

Underneath the actual teeth,

I don't know if you can see, but there, are lead dampers.

As the actual tooth resonates,

that makes it dampen down a bit, and if they're touching,

if they oxidise, they can squeak.

A squeaking tooth doesn't sound very good,

but this is in fabulous condition,

it's got both combs, called Sublime Harmony and as the disc rotates

these projections here,

just turn these star wheels and pluck the tooth

so it's quite a complicated mechanism,

but this is in absolute perfect condition,

but the final thing about, thinking about a value, is to see what it sounds like.

It might look good, but what does it sound like?

So we put the disc back on,

put down the...

bar above,

and then just on the side here is the on/off switch

and round she goes.

TWINKLY TUNE PLAYS

Got quite a good tone, hasn't it?

Wonderful tone.

-What is the song? Is this a favourite of yours?

-Swanee River, isn't it?

Swanee River. I'm not going to attempt to sing along with it.

-Finally, I think what makes this quite an extraordinary piece is the stand.

-Yes.

These were imported from Germany and normally came with the musical box

and they were put on any old table, but this is the original table that came from Leipzig.

-Yes.

-This would have been a Symphonium table, so we've got something that is...

sounds good, plays well, fantastic condition and probably what's more,

you appreciate it because you saved it,

and I'm sure as you saved it from a burning cottage you're not going to part with it easily.

-Oh, no.

-However, at auction, with that story behind it,

which any auctioneer would put in their catalogue,

I'd see it making about £3,000.

-Thank you.

-Can you remember what your grandfather paid for it?

I can't, no, not very much, I think.

-Well, it's great fun, thank you so much.

-Thank you very much indeed.

I think I must be dreaming, this is just too good to be true,

this is the stuff that kind of...

when you wake at night hoping what you might see on the show,

this is absolutely it, I mean it makes me think, you know,

that I'm heading up Cockspur Street,

the most fashionable shopping street in London,

in my carriage and I say to the driver,

"Stop at Mr Giles' china and glass emporium."

And I pull out and I step down from my carriage

and I go into Mr Giles' shop and I say "Mr Giles, you know me

"as the wealthiest man in Britain, show me instantly your most expensive glassware"

and Mr Giles dutifully arrives and he brings this piece out, and this,

in my opinion, is probably the most expensive

-piece of glass available in a shop in London in 1765.

-Yes.

So tell me, what's the story?

Well, it's on display at Gloucester City Museum and Art Gallery,

and it was given to us by Stanley Marley who is a local collector

-back in the late '50s.

-Well, good old Stanley.

Yes, very good, yes, he gave us quite a big collection of early Turin glass and paintings.

James Giles is quite a well documented chap because unfortunately for him,

-but fortunately for us, he went bankrupt twice.

-Yes.

He had to sell his stock at auction a couple of times,

and the records of these transactions remain,

and we have detailed descriptions of what was sold at that time,

and about 70-80% of his output was on Royal Worcester Porcelain,

-he was a china man.

-Oh, right.

He bought in blanks from Worcester and painted them in a variety of scenes and patterns but we know also

that about 20-15%, the balance of his work, was on glass,

we know where he bought his glass from,

we know in large part who he sold it to.

He sold it to Clive of India, he sold it to Richard Sheridan, the playwright,

he sold it to Princess Amelia, his clientele was la creme de la creme

-of English society and he was the most expensive glass man in London.

-Yes.

So we are looking at the finest of London glass

and these would have been applied... this is solid gold,

this is gold leaf that is floated on,

the pattern would have been laid out in an egg yolk

that would have been painted on

and then water gently poured onto this

and the gold floated on, against the egg yolk

and that would have engaged,

that would have bound the gold onto the required space,

which would then have been fired in an oven to melt

the gold onto the body of the decanter,

and then it would have been scratched away afterwards

to create the exquisite detail.

So here we have a shoulder-shaped decanter,

here a pot of some description, not precisely what its use was...

-I think just for keeping ladies accoutrements, I suspect.

-Yes.

This sunflower pattern on here is a recurrent theme of his work,

as are the bouquets of flowers,

so with values on a thing like this, it is tricky

because if you wanted to...

if you wanted to replace it,

you would not find another one,

you would be very hard pressed,

but in terms of Giles' output,

as an indication of how his ceramics sit with his glass.

A Giles painted teapot was sold in New York earlier this year,

for 135,000,

whereas a decanter very similar to this

-was sold last year in England for £15,000.

-Yes.

-So it just goes to show how underpriced glass is.

-Yes, yes.

-But you're not selling these?

-Definitely not.

-But they are on permanent display?

They are. We've got lovely new galleries in the City Museum and these are on permanent display.

-That's a really good excuse to see them.

-Yes.

Right, you're clearly the run away winner for the award of the biggest gun at Gloucester.

Do you know what this firearm was used for?

I believe it's for shooting ducks with, but that's all I...

-Well, why do you think that?

-Because my dad told me so, and I've got a book...

-Yes.

-..that's in there that shows a picture of it,

which he highlighted which shows a boat and...

Ah right, that's called a punt gun

and that was a great big gun that fired a big charge of shot

at a flock of ducks that people in the 19th century

-used to use for getting ducks for the market.

-Yes.

Not the most sporting, very, very skilled though.

-This isn't one of those.

-Oh, right.

-Even though it's about the same size.

This amazingly is a gun that was used for defending fortifications...

-for long range sniping.

-Right.

Yeah, well that's why it's so big and it's really an over-sized rifle,

it's got grooves in it, makes the bullets spin, it makes it accurate.

Now a rifle from this period, which is about the sort of 1820s,

something like that,

if you were a really good shot you could hit somebody at about 200 metres with it.

With this, with a whopping charge of powder

and a ginormous bullet, you could probably hit

an individual in a group of people at about 500 or 600 metres

and they're called wall pieces or rampart guns

and they're really very, very rare.

So, tell me, how does this get into Gloucester and into your family.

Er, I think it was my grandfather's gun and my dad's had it

and it's been sitting in our hallway for as long as I can remember.

So I suspect that nobody's thought about what it's likely to be worth?

No, not really, that's why I was sent down with it today.

Well, it's an extremely unusual gun,

you don't see many of them, it's a sort of cross between

a small arm and light artillery

and there are some people who have houses big enough and strong enough

to sort of collect things like that, and it's a very desirable thing

worth on the retail market at the moment

between £3,000 and £4,000.

-Worth getting it back home.

-It needs a big pair of brackets in the hall.

-Yes.

-It'll look great on there, very, very unusual item.

Brilliant. Thanks very much.

I think The Sluggard is a wonderfully appropriate name for this bronze.

How did it come into your family?

Well, my mother inherited it from her father,

she's South African, and my grandfather bought it in Johannesburg.

-Oh, did he?

-I don't know how many years ago it was,

but it's now come into my mum's possession.

Well, probably 50, 60 years ago.

-Probably.

-Yes, how interesting, and do you know who it's by?

-Fred Leighton?

-Absolutely right.

-Do you know anything about him?

-Not a huge amount, no.

Well, he was a remarkable man, he was born in Scarborough in Yorkshire

and he was a very talented painter

and he came to London, exhibited at the Royal Academy

and he became a pillar of the Victorian art establishment.

He was President of the Royal Academy, he was knighted,

then he was made a baronet, then towards the end of his life

he became Lord Leighton, and is the only artist ever to have been elevated to the House of Lords.

So he was a very talented man,

and let's have a look at it, it is, as we said entitled The Sluggard

and it shows a man stretching and there's a wonderful story

about how this particular pose came into existence.

Leighton was in his studio and a male model

was doing a life study for him and had been sitting there for hours, he was an Italian, Giuseppe Versani

I think his name was, and eventually Leighton said, "right that's enough Giuseppe, we can relax now"

and he got up and he was exhausted after sitting there for hours in the same pose and he stretched

like this and Leighton said "hold it, that's a wonderful pose, stand there, just like that"

and he got a maquette and immediately made a wax model, of it so he could...

and so poor old Versani was...

had to stand there for another hour, but that is how the sculpture came about.

-I think it's absolutely terrific.

-I think it's lovely.

-Um, have you ever had it valued?

-No.

-Any idea? Have a guess.

-I wouldn't have a clue.

-No?

-Not a clue.

Well, bronzes like this, obviously there

are several made from the mould, so examples do come on the market

from time to time and it's one of the great bronzes

by one of the great 19th century artists and sculptors.

It's in lovely condition, the patina I think is fabulous

and if this came on the open market

I'm confident that it would sell for £20,000.

Thank you.

-Absolutely terrific thing.

-Get it insured now. Yes.

-So thank you so much, it's a pleasure to see it, it really is.

-Thank you.

What's this kit bag? What's the story?

Well, it's just my ATS kit bag

and they were just issued to us then, when we were going abroad

by ship to Naples and then, so that was the new style ATS kit bag.

-This was the latest thing?

-That was the very latest thing,

otherwise you had a kit bag like a man, with the over-your-shoulder...

I'm going to rummage, cos there's things in it.

-That's fine.

-I'm going to take out the first thing that comes to mind...

what have we got? A piece of sheet music

"Holiday For Strings".

-Yes.

-Now, what are all these names?

Well, at the top there is Glenn Miller.

-Go on.

-And the rest are the members of his American band of the AEF.

-They came over here about August, September '44.

-Yes.

And, um, waiting obviously to go to Europe.

-Yes.

-And so,

in the meantime, they filled in every other Thursday at the Queensberry All Services Club.

-In London?

-In London.

-Now I'll tell you something,

I have had a passion for Glenn Miller since I was ten.

When I was at school I was regarded as a freak,

-I wasn't interested in Bill Hayley - which I am now.

-Yes.

Because it was always Glenn Miller for me and I just played his records all the time.

Now this is 1950s so it had all finished, it had all gone on, in fact...

Oh, look at that!

I think the least you could is give me that.

-I mean it's not a real one, but I had to have fun.

-I bet you did.

This is my Glenn Miller jacket... so let's get back to this.

-When did you get it?

-Um...

-How did you get it?

Well, there's a story... in here there's a small...

and I think you'll find the one-off that he autographed.

Oh, yes, there's another Glenn Miller autograph..

That was autographed when he used to come round

-and he'd speak to everybody, so I got that.

-Right.

And he'd come and talk to you all.

-So you chatted to him?

-Everybody said you called him "Glenn" and I said "called him Glenn?"

-He was a Major, I was a sergeant and it was 'Sir' you know.

-Sir.

-And then I said "I love your version of "Holiday For Strings".

-Right.

-I think it's beautiful"

and in those days I could play it, you know, so I said, "Would you autograph it for me?"

he said "Yes, send it to me, send me the music" so this was my music.

-You had this.

-Cost me three shillings.

-So you sent this to him.

I sent it to him and that was the beginning of December.

Yes, 1944.

Yeah, and I got it back...

I now know he must have had it posted

the day before he went on that ill-fated trip,

because the band had gone then, the band was in Paris.

-Let's deal with the history. The band went ahead.

-Yes.

-He stayed behind to do some business.

-That's right.

-He flew out in a single, um engine Norseman.

-Yes, that's right.

He never arrived, disappeared into the Channel, December...

-Nobody's ever known...

-We do know what happened -

he was a victim of what is now called friendly fire, that's been discovered.

-Well, that's right, yes.

-But, so you received this after he died?

Yes. A day or two after.

So almost the last thing he did before he died.

-Was post a letter to me.

-Was post a letter to you. Gosh.

Now I feel all sort of shivery, this is like his last will and testament.

-Well, yes.

-Gosh what a story!

Now we have... you know on the Roadshow

we have to do this thing about talking about the value of things.

-I mean to me this is...

-You couldn't value that.

-I can, but, I mean, it's...

-Can you?

-..priceless.

Now a Glenn Miller signature is about £100...

-they're not that rare, he signed a lot of things.

-I know, very good.

You've got two, but this,

because of the totality of the band is going to be about £2,000.

Don't tell my son.

OK, I won't tell your son,

but you have got here THE most wonderful document, you've had a most wonderful life.

Oh, I've had a whale of a time, I really have.

And if I say you've made my day, it's a ridiculous, an under-statement, you've made my year.

-Thank you.

-Thank you very much.

Well, it's been fun following in the footsteps of a boy wizard although the people of Gloucester

have been so keen to open up their chamber of secrets,

that we never got time for that game of quidditch after all...

Next visit perhaps... but for now, from glorious Gloucester Cathedral, goodbye.