East Kirkby Antiques Roadshow

# Coming in on a wing and a prayer

# Coming in on a wing and a prayer... #

Welcome aboard.

We're back for a second visit to the former Lancaster Bomber Base at East Kirkby in Lincolnshire.

Many good men and women served here, and the last time we came, we were inundated by visitors.

We're hoping for the same, of course. Over and out.

I must be one of the most vehement anti-smokers there is around,

I really don't like cigarette smoking at all,

but when it comes to some of the objects associated with it, historical objects, in effect,

this must be one of THE classic items.

This is a superb smoking compendium.

Where did you get it from?

It belonged to my father and it was handed down to me.

Did he have any association with the aircraft industry? Was he interested in anything to do with aircraft?

He did fly in a Lancaster.

Ah right, OK.

Of course, the Lancaster Association is particularly pertinent today, but how can I say,

this lot would have been arch rivals because this is German, basically.

This is a German manufacturer.

There are certain places at which it is marked DRGM Germany.

It's very interesting, the way it all fits together.

Let's open the back compartment, where you would have stored tobacco.

The whole thing is chromium plated on brass, but you've got a silvered interior

which would stop the metal from deteriorating with the tobacco in it.

The cigarettes or little cigars would have been housed in the wings,

which are very neat.

They both come to pieces like this and open up, which is rather clever.

If you were smoking a small cigar or a cheroot,

then you would have cut the tip with the propeller,

there's a superb little cutter concealed in the propeller.

Put it in there, spin the prop and cut the tip off.

Then we've got a nice set of little ashtrays which could be spread out.

There they are, nesting ashtrays.

And, of course, most importantly, we have the match striker on the top

and a collection of matches inside.

Now what's superb about this example is that it's so complete.

Often they're damaged or you find part of the ashtray's missing or whatever.

-How has it survived so well?

-I'm not sure.

Have any of you ever smoked, or did you father smoke at all?

Yes, my father and mother smoked.

Did they use it as a smoking compendium or was it an ornament?

-I think they did, you know, occasionally, yes.

-Right, OK.

-Yes.

And what would you say on date?

Would you have any idea of the date?

Um, well sort of 1930s.

That's about right, about 1925-1930.

It says much about the period, attitudes of the time.

People smoked like troopers in that period,

so, of course, it wasn't regarded in the same way, so putting it in context like that. Value...

value is a difficult one.

I've seen damaged ones of these make considerable sums of money

and I think this is worth in excess of £2,000 at auction.

Which is a staggering amount of money for a smoker's compendium.

So, I have to say, it's one of the best examples I've seen for many years

and it's been a pleasure talking about it.

These are great. Do you know where they come from?

The only idea I do have, apparently, many, many years ago, they stood at an entrance to a circus.

And how long have you had them?

I've had one, this one, for about 12 months.

-Yes.

-And that one for roughly about ten months.

And did they not come together?

No, they didn't, no. We bought this one first.

I found him in a garage because this person was advertising tools

and with my husband being a woodworker, he was looking at the tools

and this chap was at the corner, covered in mould,

so I spoke to the chap and, er

I managed to buy him off him.

-Oh, well done.

-Then he informed me that he was one of a pair.

-And the pair came back together.

-Yes.

Actually, this circus connection is not so far off from the truth, actually,

because I think these things were probably used in a showground,

they were on a carousel that went around a Noah's Ark, and originally

there would have been a vertical bar of metal

that ran from the floor of the carousel

up to the ceiling of the fairground carousel

and that bar would have been attached to the rearing beast, Noah's Ark style,

on the side of the neck here,

and you can see on the other horse, there's also another vertical bar.

So I guess originally there may have been 30 or 40 of these prancers, all mounted up

-in an enormous carousel, which would have been a sight, wouldn't it?

-It certainly would have been.

But the really oddball thing about these is, that instead of being made of soft wood,

which is what you'd expect a European bit of fairground art, these carved figures, to be made of,

these are made of a form of Oriental hardwood

and I've a funny feeling that this came off, perhaps, a fairground in Singapore

or in Hong Kong, so there's been a European twist with this, because these are Oriental-looking horses

and there's also some age to them, because if we go down here to this haunch, you can see there's a large

patch that's been crudely repaired where some child would have mounted the fairground horse like this.

The bar is sitting here and he would have charged around the outside, probably given it a kick

and a lump would have fallen off, and some person has simply nailed on that haunch piece.

I think they're absolutely brilliant.

Now, you bought one and then you bought the other one,

do you mind me asking you how much you paid under a year ago, for each of these?

Um, £300 each.

£600.

£600 for the pair, yes.

Well, that I think is extraordinarily cheap, because they're very decorative,

they have got this showground, this fairground connection, which is very popular with collectors,

and I wouldn't be surprised, in the right sale, if you didn't get say between £1,500 and £2,000...

maybe £2,000 to £3,000.

Very nice.

Well, I've got two questions for you.

Do you know what these objects are called? And what are used for?

Unfortunately, I've absolutely no idea what they're used for and I've no idea what they're called.

Right, well they're known as dummy boards and they are

a visual joke, they're sort of pieces of interior decoration that

started round about the 1650s

and really finished by the end of the 18th century.

A lot of people have ideas that they might be fire screens, but if you put

something made out of wood in front of a hot fire, the result is pretty self evident.

They're really designed to fill space in buildings

and on that basis, do you know where they've come from?

Um, in 1835 a local club bought some furniture from Birmingham

and it was transported from Boston

and these just happened to be in the packaging with the furniture

and to date, no-one's come to claim them.

Really? There's quite a good story about these.

During the time of the American War of Independence in the late 18th century,

there was a diary entry of a lady who recorded that one of her friends had gone into a house

and had seen one of these figures sitting in the hallway

and had been so frightened she thought the British had arrived.

Perhaps we might have done better in America if we'd had a whole load of cut-outs.

-Where are they now?

-They're in a store room.

So they're not actually in situ in a great house somewhere.

No, they're just in an open room.

That's the sort of thing that you would find them in the hallway of a big house

and perhaps in a house of somebody who was a senior officer and perhaps there was a great big sort of

trophy of arms over there and these two figures were flanking it, to get that sort of military air about them.

What excites me about them is that they are pretty early, they're about 1730

and I can be pretty certain about that from the style of the uniforms

and there is a well-known drill book written by a chap called Bernard Lens, who also illustrated it,

and the original, I think, is in the National Army Museum,

and the uniform of these soldiers is almost identical.

You can see all the detail of this man's costume and his equipment,

even down to the big bag where he carried his

ammunition and his hand grenades, the bayonet for his musket, even the sort of pose of them, because

this book was designed for people who were the army's elite troops of the day, they're called Grenadiers,

they threw hand grenades which are dangerous, like a sort of spy bomb, you light it...

and they were the elite troops, the storm troops of their day.

Well, they're not in the best of condition but there is a lot of good original paint left under there and

I think that they are sufficiently important for somebody to have them conserved and cleaned.

I think that, cleaned, they would be absolutely magnificent, they would show all their original colours

and I can see those, if they were sold,

making between £5,000 to £10,000.

-Wow!

-You just don't see them, they're so rare.

Better not use white spirit on them.

Please!

If you're going to get them cleaned, they need to be done by somebody who

is a proper picture conservator

who will be able to remove all the dirt and the grot and the tobacco smoke off them

-and then they'll suddenly step out bright, as if they were painted yesterday.

-Fantastic.

They are indeed. Thank you.

Now I don't think I've ever seen an object like this.

When I first saw it, I thought "is it a postcard album, is it a photograph album, what on earth is it?"

you know with this wonderful piece of carpet on the outside

and it's only when you open it, you realise it is actually about carpets,

it's a whole sort of book about the making and selling of carpets

and it's German but it's in English.

It shows all the aspects of carpet making, we see the showrooms, we see the manufacturing processes,

we see the selection of the dyes, all the types of carpets being made, very high-quality carpets.

We even see the Scottish sheep from which they were made, and when we come to the end,

which I think is fun, we actually see them in sort of what you might call a domestic context.

-They're saying in the 1930s, "you in your smart villa, you need our carpets".

-Correct.

And there is what is a really major enterprise, in Germany,

you know, Axminster, Wilton, they'd all fit into there with ease.

What I don't understand is where you come in.

Well, my great aunt was a barmaid in Nottingham

and the German businessman who owned the factory used to visit England

to buy the wool to make the carpets

and he met my great aunt in this hotel in Nottingham

and eventually she went back over to Germany with him,

and married the owner of the factory.

So from behind the bar, she became, in a sense, a carpet empress.

-That's correct.

-Do we know anything about her?

-What did she look like?

-There are photographs in the album

because the house in which they lived was also a show home for the carpets.

And there are some photographs here of their silver wedding anniversary.

And she's sat actually next to her husband here,

and this is Leo Koch, the owner of the factory.

-And this is silver, 25 years.

-That's right.

-Well, if we're in the '30s and they've been married 25 years

-this must have happened quite early on, that they met.

-I think in the, early 1900s.

-Yes.

-And she moved over there around about oh, 1910 I believe,

but eventually had to come back before the Second World War because of the Nazi regime.

-So she was never a naturalised German?

-Um, probably not, no.

He stayed in Germany during the war and died during the war, so they never met again.

So this is, in a sense, the end of the story.

It is indeed, yes, and unfortunately they didn't have any children.

-So that was the end of the line?

-It was indeed.

-It's an astonishing story.

It is, it's quite fascinating, it's part of the family history.

How do you descend from them? They had no children.

My grandfather lived in Doncaster and my great aunt was his sister,

so the family history's on my grandfather's side.

-Right.

-In actual fact they sent quite a lot of gifts at Christmas time,

over to this country, including this gold bracelet.

-So this was sent from Germany for the family, in effect.

-Yes.

Well, that's an expensive gift, you're looking at several hundred pounds.

I believe so, it has been valued today at £300 to £400.

So you've talked to somebody who knows about jewellery.

It just looks a jolly good thing.

-So they were sending, casually, several hundred pounds' worth of gifts at Christmas.

-They were.

It was a grand family, and this, if I've understood, this is their house.

This is the house in which they lived.

Well, we can do the comparison.

And so all through here their house shows the carpets, it also shows the incredible style...

-Indeed, yes.

-..in which they lived. How big was the house?

-It's, er... right at the beginning there.

-Oh, yes.

-It is quite a sizeable house.

-It's quite substantial, isn't it?

-Indeed, yes.

-I think this alone is a wonderful document about the carpet industry in Germany.

-Yes.

But when you've put that sort of personal detail onto it, I find it so exciting.

Suddenly, this wonderful but rather impersonal document comes to life, you know, she lived here.

-That's correct.

-She sat at that dining table.

-She did.

This is a great document. If I saw that in a shop for...

£200 or £300, I'd be tempted to buy it, because it's such a wonderful vision of that industry at that time.

-In a sense, this doesn't matter.

-It's family history.

The way all this ties together,

and it tells us a story about incredible enterprise and also how she rose from nowhere.

-Absolutely.

-What a woman!

-Good Lord, a whole squadron of Morris Minors seems to have landed!

-It has.

-How lovely to see you.

-Welcome, Tim.

So what is your role with this crew?

I'm with the Lincolnshire branch of the Morris Minor Owners Club and we thought we'd

-come along today to welcome Antiques Roadshow to East Kirkby.

-Well, that's brilliant.

And is it a thrill now to see the Morris Minor on the pre-title for each Antiques Roadshow?

Absolutely, it's displacing that make we won't mention.

-The foreign rubbish, you mean?

-That's the one.

Quintessential British car for a quintessential British programme.

Quite right too. And how many years have they been making the Morris Minor?

The very first one began in October 1948 and was at the Motor Show of that year

-and it went right up until 1971.

-Did it?

-Mm.

-So there's going to be quite a celebration coming up in 2008 then?

Oh, there will be, the 60th anniversary celebrations,

-we're hoping to have a rally with up to 2,000 Minors at Stanford Hall in the Midlands.

-Brilliant.

So that should be another day to look forward to.

And how many of these motor cars do you think have survived in this country?

I would think probably in regular use, probably 25,000,

could be more, could be double that number, sitting waiting to

-be restored, brought back to life again.

-Lurking in a barn.

-Lurking in a barn, a garage.

What about the international aspect? It went all over the world, didn't it?

It did, because up to 90-95% was exported in the early years

and they went all over the old Empire and dominions,

Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa,

the African territories and even into Europe.

So where are you off to with the squadron now?

We're going to go off to a little pub not very far away and have a meal and a wind down

and enjoy the reminiscences of a great day.

-Good for you, it's been extremely nice to meet you and safe driving.

-We will do, thank you.

Well, I can think of nothing more appropriate, here we are in the shadow of this great Lancaster bomber

and you bring me in a picture of a Lancaster bomber, so tell me about it.

The picture is of a Lancaster bomber of 617 Squadron, the famous Dam Busters.

The Dam Busters, yes.

And back in 1980 I attended a function which was attended by many...

the surviving members of 617 Squadron who carried out the raid,

and I was lucky enough to get these guys to sign the picture for me, so it's got

Mickey Martin, Geoff Rice, Les Munro and, of course, Bob Knight.

Yes. So this was issued as a print, some, what I don't know, 30 years after the event.

-Indeed, yes.

-Really.

Now you must have done a lot of research. Whose is that?

The aircraft was actually the aircraft flown by Bob Knight

and his crew and which is why he's signed it at the top, Thumper,

which was their nickname for the aircraft.

Thumper Mark II. I think that's great fun.

Well, you've crushed it, you've rolled it and crushed it

and that's why there are all these white marks, you've actually

broken the surface of it, but I don't think that really matters, it's all part of its history.

The most extraordinary thing is that you've got this collection of Dam Busters here,

probably the last time they all met up together, what do you think?

-Almost certainly.

-Because quite a few are dead now, aren't they?

Exactly. The event was organised by the 617 Squadron Association

and I think that that probably was their last full meeting.

And during it they flew up to the Derwent reservoir in Derbyshire and dropped a commemorative wreath

in memory of their fellow squadron members.

Yes, yes, and you have another print here of Spitfires, and this one is in good condition and is signed by

-Douglas Bader.

-Douglas Bader and Group Captain Johnnie Johnson.

-Both of them aces...

-Indeed.

..in the Second World War, absolutely fantastic.

Well, the one I obviously like most, the one I'm keenest on, I have to say, is this one.

-If we have to put a value on it, and I suppose we must, that must be a very rare set of signatures.

-Yes.

All together, the print is not worth very much at all,

but that collection of signatures I think is probably going to be worth

somewhere in the region of £300 or £400, possibly more, but it is a very fine collection.

The other one,

with the signatures of Bader and Johnnie Johnson I would put that in at about £100, £150.

-Thank you very much indeed.

-Great to see them, and great to be under this enormous bomber.

It's wonderful, isn't it? Thank you very much.

Do you live in a really seriously grand house?

-No.

-No?

-Only a small bungalow.

-A small bungalow?

They don't, yeah, they don't belong to me, they belong to me grandma.

-And does she live in a seriously grand house?

-No.

Because these are the kind of objects I'd expect to find in a seriously grand house.

Do you know where your grandmother got them?

A neighbour of hers decided he wanted to sell them and

he knew she was interested in antiques and things.

So he went to see her and she purchased them, but she can't remember how much she paid for them.

Right. I mean, do you know what they are?

Um, cornucopias.

Yeah, do you know who made them?

I think they're probably Sevres. She thinks they're probably Dresden.

Right. And you know the Sevres mark, the interlaced Ls mark?

Only because of the S underneath, that's what I was going on.

Ah, so if we have a look at the base of them to see exactly what there is, yeah, there we go. S48.

Well, I'm pleased to tell you they are Sevres.

They're quite late, S48...

48 refers to 1848. Do you know much about the Sevres factory?

Not really, I've heard of it, that's all.

Well, it is the most important French factory, arguably the most important porcelain factory in Europe

established under French patronage, making very, very best quality wares for the very best and richest people.

-So these are not rubbish.

-No.

-These are fantastic.

The quality of the decoration is truly stunning, there's this wonderful

painting of flowers around the inside of the lips, and an unusual

combination of biscuit porcelain here and glazed porcelain here and here.

And wonderful, rich gilding.

They're truly magnificent.

But I have to say, the market for this kind of Sevres,

this mid-19th century period is doing quite well at the moment.

I happen to know that one, just one,

sold in the last year

for £5,000.

Oh, dear.

-It was a slightly earlier one.

-Yeah.

But it was white and gold,

it didn't have this wonderful colouring, this wonderful painting.

So it's a question of balancing the fact that they're slightly later, there's a pair of them

-and they're just glorious.

-Yeah, yeah.

-They really are glorious and, I think

we could say as an auction estimate probably £8,000 to £10,000 for them.

Oh, dear.

She does know I like them and I've got my eye on them.

They're truly fabulous objects, the very best of 19th century Sevres porcelain.

During World War Two, Lincolnshire was known as "bomber county"

because it had more airfields and squadrons and aircraft than any other part of the United Kingdom.

As well as local people, several members of our team have close family connections with the area.

Bill Harriman, your dad was stationed around here.

He was an engineering officer and in 1941 he was at 58 Maintenance Unit

at Newark and I can remember him telling me that he spent his life

driving around Lincolnshire picking up bent aircraft.

-There would have been a lot of bent aircraft.

-Yes, yes,

he was an engineering specialist and they were looking

also, not for just the remedial work of mending bent aircraft, but improving their performance.

This is my father, Flight Lieutenant Joseph Fletcher Harriman, Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve

and this, I guess, was taken at the end of the war when he'd be in his

-sort of early mid-20s.

-So he collected a few medals on his way.

Yes, these are the ones that so many people bring to Roadshows

and these are my dad's and the advice I give to people is that they should put them on a bar,

as you would hang it on your suit in civilian dress

and if you have a photograph, get them all framed, and any other documents

-and then they make a lovely piece of family history.

-Do you want me to value them for you?

Oh, it would be very kind of you, and I might even just follow my own advice before I'm much older.

-Priceless.

-Well, they are to me, because I never knew about these when my father was

alive, and it was only after he died, when I was rummaging through his effects, that I came across these.

He never spoke about them, but that, I'm particularly

proud of that because that's an MBE which he was given for his work on working on engines for the...

I think it was the Second Air Force, that was sort of over and above.

Well, he certainly made his mark.

How did the young Bill Harriman get involved in militaria?

Well, one of the things that my father was very keen

that I should not have any involvement with was firearms.

I think he was actually quite keen on them and he had an old air rifle and I was occasionally allowed

to use that under supervision, but what he did have, and which I absolutely adored was an old revolver

which his father, who is this Lance Harriman, entertainer and humorist, he had his own cinema but during the

silent films when the cowboys were coming on, there'd be bang, bang, bang around the back with it...

they had a great big sheet of tin to do the thunder, Grandma used to play the piano for incidental music

and my father had these pistols and I remember discovering them in a box in the garage.

I was in absolute heaven and I've never looked back.

-He must have had a few casualties amongst the audience.

-Well, one hopes he used blanks.

So coming here today for you is quite an emotional experience.

Well, it is, because I heard what my father said

about his experiences and it's very much a sort of sentimental journey.

I'd love you to tell me about this brooch. How long have you had it?

It was my mother's. I think Dad bought it for her.

-And you have been given it...

-As a 50th birthday present.

-Fantastic! And have you worn it?

-I have.

-Brilliant.

Well, I tell you, it is just such a wonderful piece of jewellery, I have never seen anything quite like this.

-Really?

-Yeah, I mean, for me, jewellery is all about movement

-and this has everything going for it, so your mum was quite a mover.

-Yes.

-Was she quite a mover?

-I think so, in her day.

Brilliant. Well, you see here why I talk about the movement is...

you will see the sinuous lines of the leaves and of the fuchsias

and this is the fantastic bit here,

the baguette-cut diamonds that are dangling from each of the fuchsia stamens.

-This is also giving me an indication of the date of the piece.

-Oh, really?

So I would date this at around about 1925-1930.

-Oh, right.

-It's probably set in platinum, though there are no marks

and the rubies are these wonderful natural Burma rubies

-and to have this with the set with the earrings...

-Would have looked lovely.

Stunning, absolutely stunning, because this is jewellery

which is to be worn to be shown off.

Because it is so unique in terms of the fuchsias being used and the way that they've used the rubies

to compliment the colour and...

it's just fantastic, so I would say that in auction you'd be looking at around about £4,000.

Really? Gosh.

What a highly decorated box.

Where does it come from?

We rather think it might have come from my mother's family.

Her father was a printer in Northampton and after

World War One, when things were pretty tight, he took many of his

commissions in kind rather than cash and we think that's probably how it came into the family.

You don't remember seeing it as you were growing up?

No, because she didn't like it, so it was put away into a wardrobe and we didn't find it

until we packed my father's house up just before he died.

Gosh, how extraordinary, so your mother didn't like it, what do you make of it?

Well, we love it and my wife in particular loves it.

Well, I think the nice thing about it is that it incorporates such good quality materials.

The veneers that have been used are one of the nicest cuts of burr walnut I think that I've seen for ages

and then these very decorative high Victorian ecclesiastical-style hinges and rope twist borders

and then to top it all off, these lovely little plaques. Do you know what they're made of?

Well, we think it's probably Wedgwood, is it?

It probably isn't actually made by the Wedgwood company but you're right

that Wedgwood introduced this jasper ware, it was made in all sorts of urns and vases, but it was

also used quite a lot to decorate furniture and boxes of this kind.

I'm dying to open it up.

What a stunning tea caddy.

It just looks so fresh and so new and yet you can see that none of it's been restored, it's just the fact

that it's hardly ever been opened and I'm not at all surprised to see

a really good retailer's name in it.

"Howell & James & Co, Regent Street, London".

And they had a fantastic reputation as being jewellery retailers

and selling really high-quality objects exactly like this.

So we know that it's a tea caddy, because, helpfully, on the plaques here is written "black" and "green"

for the two kinds of tea

and normally you get small caddies like this, that just lift out,

but these buttons...Oh!

That is... That is absolutely remarkable.

I don't think I've ever seen that on a tea caddy.

-No.

-Did you get an awful surprise when you first opened it?

Yes, yes, thought it was a jack-in-the-box.

Let's have a look at the other one.

It must have been a patented sort of mechanism. Look at that.

This really is the element that puts it in a league of its own,

although the whole thing sort of oozes quality.

It has to be worth £1,000.

Really? Goodness me! Never thought it was worth that much.

Well, I never thought I'd be saying that a Victorian burr walnut tea caddy was worth £1,000

-but, you know, I just can't see it fetching any less than that.

-It's not going anywhere.

Well, it's obviously found a good home and I'm glad it's found somebody who appreciates it and enjoys it.

Well, this is a somewhat insignificant-looking little object

but it does have a great deal of charm.

-How did you come by it?

-Um, it belonged to my mother-in-law.

And some years ago she asked us what we'd like when she departed,

-and that's what I chose, and I really liked it.

-You chose this.

-Yes, yes.

It's what's known as either a pitcher cream jug,

or some people call them bird's mouth cream jugs

because that's a little bit like a bird's mouth and it's quite interesting to think that the

period this was made, it was actually made in 1730, that

tea drinking was quite at a premium.

It didn't start to come over from China until the end of the 17th century

and it was incredibly expensive, so much so, the servants used to dry the leaves and re-sell them

and used to keep the tea in caddies locked up because it was something like £1 a pound in those days.

But, of course, the Chinese did not have milk with their tea and so this was a purely British invention.

What intrigues me about this particularly is the way it's hallmarked.

Underneath it has the maker's mark, SL,

which is a chap called Samuel Laundry and the lion, which is silver,

and normally you get all four marks on the bottom but they must have been

rather anxious to avoid any forgery because they've put the leopard's head here,

which is the London mark and they've put the date letter there, the P,

which is the 1730 period mark. And where does it live at home?

For the last couple of years it's been wrapped in a piece of kitchen roll in a drawer.

Oh, that's a bit sad.

But well,

it's very special, it's special to me

and I just didn't really know where to put it or what to do with it.

Well, I think that if this were to come up for sale today, it would probably fetch somewhere between

£500 and £600 and should be insured for something like £1,000.

Gosh! Oh, lovely.

Well, behind us we've got the full-size Lancaster bomber,

but you've brought us something smaller.

Yes, I've brought a replica of the bomber behind, although the bomber behind

is slightly different to that one, because that bomber is Guy Gibson's.

-The very famous Dam Busters.

-The very famous Dam Buster one.

I notice it has the bouncing bomb underneath.

Oh, yes, yes, the bouncing bomb, and the wheels retract

-and it flies, or it did, but I have to ground it because it's too valuable now.

-You made it yourself?

Yes, oh, yes, yes.

How long did it take you to finish?

Two years, four months.

2,900 hours.

-Amazing.

-Yes.

-And why do you like Lancasters, what's your background?

Oh, well, I worked for AV Roe in the war.

-So you were actually an engineer?

-Absolutely, yes.

-So you were actually making these aircraft.

-The real ones.

-The real ones.

I kept the manual for the Lancaster and I copied it and, of course...

-Did the plans.

-Did the plans, reduced them.

-And you made all this by hand?

Oh, yes, yes, it's the only one in the world,

but the only reason why I made it was because, with me being retired, I was bored,

but I did promise myself that one day I'd built a Lancaster, a proper one,

-so this is the result.

-And you also brought us along some flying gear.

Oh, yes, now this flying jacket is different,

it's not like the Irvine one, the British one.

This is American. But this is British, isn't it, the goggles?

Oh, yes, yes, well they did the full trip over Germany,

they did 30 trips over Germany.

-So you know the history behind who owned it?

-Oh, yeah,...

By brother-in-law was a pilot, with 44 Squadron in a Wellington.

Let's talk about values. The goggles and the head gear...

they turn up quite regularly at auction.

-They do...

-And therefore...

They do but the helmet's usually anything from £100 to £170 just the helmet without the goggles.

Now with the helmet and the goggles and the original mask, this is from 1940,

-we're talking about £280.

-You know my job.

And what's the value, do you think, on the American jacket?

Between £500 and £700.

-You're pretty close. You know your values.

-Yes.

Because it's incredibly difficult to get them in this condition, and being American.

Now the model, it took you 2,900 hours, did you say?

And if you tried to commission somebody to make one of those today

it would cost tens of thousands of pounds.

It is a one-off, it is a unique model.

-Yes.

-All the gearing works, the navigational lamps work.

-Yes, yes.

It is the one that everybody remembers, the Dam Busters Lancaster.

At auction, if it came up, I could see it easily making

£10,000, £15,000, £20,000 but it's a unique piece. So, who knows?

-Hopefully one day it'll end up in a museum, because that's exactly where it should be.

-Oh, it will do.

-Thank you so much, it's been a privilege to meet you, sir.

-Yes, thank you, bye-bye.

Well, two quite different pots, two different owners.

I've decided to bring you together for this, because

these pots, in a way, tell the same story because they have something very, very

fundamental in common and, of course,

that is they're both for funeral purposes, they're funerary jars.

Yours is this one, tell me a bit of background.

It's been in the family for quite a long time, it was in

my husband's mother's side and her grandfather found it near Newark.

-When you said "found it"... In the ground?

-No idea.

Right. How do you feel about owning someone's funerary urn? You're not spooked by it?

I'm not spooked by it, no, no.

-Some people would be.

-No.

I like old things and heritage and things like that

and, you know, you feel proud to own something like that.

And yours? This one here.

Well, it was dug up in 1956 in Peru.

Do you have any Peruvian personages?

No, no, I'm into archaeology so...

So we've got quite a stretch between these two pieces,

some 6,000-7,000 miles between Lincolnshire and Peru.

The thing they have in common is that they both contained human remains and I'm going to start with this, because

here I think you have what is not merely decoration, but I think this

is almost certainly a portrait of the person who went inside the pot.

-Really?

-It's pretty typical of Peruvian works of the Chimu Tribe

and that would date it to sometime around the 14th-15th century, thereabouts,

just at the time when Spain was making contact with the so-called

New World, which was immensely old anyway, and I love the little

hands sort of stretched up and the anatomical details on the pot.

Well, let's put him back - or is it a him?

-What do you think?

-I don't know.

I think, you know, looking at the details on the pot and looking at

-these objects which were found in the pot, I think, I think it's almost certainly a female burial.

-Mm.

You've got two objects which, I have to admit, I don't know what they're for.

Well, some sort of spinning.

It looks as though it has something to do with spinning or thread.

You've got two little pottery falls at the centre of each,

but they are beautifully made, these tapered sticks.

-Yes.

-And in the dry atmosphere of Peru they have survived for

what, 500 years without any mal effects.

But this is older than the Peruvian pot, this is Anglo-Saxon,

so we're now going back to somewhere around what, 500, 600, 700AD, thereabouts.

I love this because I have seen people in New Guinea to this day, making pots like this.

This pot has been made by using a coiling method.

You take sausages of clay and you add them onto a disc

and as you grow the disc, the disc grows in your hand

and, using your thumb and forefinger, you squeeze the sausages

and gradually these sausages work themselves into

a very tight wall, the wall builds up and eventually it almost automatically encloses on itself.

This object, the shape that it is, has been determined by the human hand

and it's something that has been going on for thousands and thousands of years.

Well, to the uninterested eye, those are just two rather rough-and-ready little pots,

but these were of immense significance to the societies that produced them, and without ceramics,

we would know very little about the huge area of humanity.

We know so much about our pre-history because of ceramics,

-so you can't put a value on them.

-No.

But I'm going to.

-I think that the value of these is somewhere in the region of £1,000 each.

-Really?

Well, this is a tiny little ring. Where did you find it?

I was digging in the back garden trying to remove a root of a cherry tree that had died,

-and I dug down and I noticed this yellow thing, thought "ha it's not rusted, it's gold".

-Yes, very good.

And I dug it up, cleaned it up under the tap and I noticed

that there was an inscription on the inside which said "keep promise"

but keep promise not as we would write but "kepe"

so I looked for the spelling, in that spelling on the internet to see whether it was a family motto.

Mm, that's a good one, that's very good.

Looked on the internet and it only came up in that term in some 16th century solider in Holland

writing back to somebody in England and uses the term "kepe promise".

-So I thought, oh, is it 16th century, ah, you know.

-Mm.

But beyond that, that's as far as I went.

Well, I think you're on the right track, to be perfectly honest.

This is a posy ring, and posy is a corruption of "poetry" and they're very short, almost poems.

This is only two words and they vary enormously in their intensity,

some are very full-on messages of love and some are more formal.

This is actually a little bit more formal, it says "kepe promise"

and I think 'kepe promise' is a sort of vow in marriage.

I'm pretty confident that this is a wedding ring for a very tiny little girl, frankly,

I mean a tiny little woman.

She seems to have got the tiniest circumference to her finger

but, of course, our ancestors were a great deal smaller than us, their diet was really rather poor

and they simply didn't grow in the way that we grow today and so it sort of fitted her.

Quite a high-status gold ring decorated with enamel, black and white enamel,

and black and white decoration is very very much a part of Elizabethan and Jacobean decoration.

This thing is actually exactly contemporary with William Shakespeare, it's a marvellous thing

-and I'm very enviable, I might add, because actually digging out gold from the roots of trees...

-Yes.

..is almost something too marvellous to happen in one's lifetime

and it's sort of transporting for everybody.

And these things are very widely collected, so how to value it?

I think it's very cheap at £1,250.

Things like that happen to other people.

No, they don't, they happen to you, mate, and not to me!

I'm very envious, I dream of finding things like that.

-This is pulse-makingly exciting stuff and I love it, and thank you for bringing it.

-Thank you.

Thank you.

Got you all emotional now, hasn't it?

Well, another successful mission for the Roadshow.

Many thanks to the crew who run East Kirkby airfield for their help and enthusiasm

and to everyone who joined us for the day.

And now from the big skies of Lincolnshire, goodbye.