Farnborough 1 Antiques Roadshow

This week's Roadshow venue wouldn't win any beauty contests

but it's what helped Britain conquer the skies.

Whoa!

Look at the size of that!

In here, our best boffins tested the designs of, among other things,

the Spitfire, the Hurricane, parachutes.

It's quite a story.

Welcome to The Antiques Roadshow

from Farnborough Wind Tunnels, in Hampshire.

Farnborough Wind Tunnels borders Farnborough Aerodrome.

This is where the history of British aviation -

from kite flying, ballooning, gliding

and then powered flight - really took off

in the early 20th century.

What was known as the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough

pioneered our jet engine industry.

The development of the Hurricane, the Harrier Jump Jet,

the perfect delta wing of the Concorde...

and yet, this historic site could have been lost to us for ever.

The whole area was being sold off

by the Ministry of Defence in the early 1990s,

when a former RAF fighter pilot, working nearby,

wondered what was shaking the foundations of his office.

He stumbled across one of the wind tunnels

carrying out its final test before decommissioning.

Findlay Gordon decided the site was worth saving

and with friends, colleagues and councillors,

launched a charity - The Farnborough Air Sciences Trust, or FAST.

Together they set out to save the dusty remains of design models,

prototype engines,

buildings, from the scrap heap,

to save a crucial part of Britain's aviation history.

Facing down the MOD,

they spear-headed a campaign to save this -

the oldest wind tunnel building in the UK, built originally in 1916.

Nothing sums up the achievement of that group better

than this incredible piece of design and technology built in 1935.

The laminated mahogany propellers are 24 foot long.

The space is so huge that full-size aircraft were tested here.

It took three years for the plucky band to win through

and secure the future of these buildings

by getting a heritage listing,

and they also rescued hundreds of thousands of objects and images.

The wind tunnels are decommissioned now,

but I'm told they can be operational

if they're plugged into the national grid.

Today they can be admired on occasional open days,

so we're delighted to bring a large crowd

to today's show to admire them.

And, by the way, today's volunteers helping our visitors,

are members of FAST who saved this whole site.

-You need to go to the shed.

-Hiya.

-Morning!

A fabulous Victorian shell house.

-Yes.

-Where did you get it from?

Well, there was a second-hand furniture dealer in Aldershot

and there's an old guy there reminded me very much of Charlie Chaplin,

used to wear - a little chap - a bowler hat,

we brought it home, and we've had it ever since.

And where has it been for all those years?

On wardrobes, top of cupboards,

it's always been on a shelf somewhere.

And you love it?

Oh, yes, yes.

What I love about it is the amazing detail.

You've got this fabulous peacock there and the gentleman,

and all these different shells which would have been imported.

-Yes, yes.

-What did you think about it?

Do you remember it growing up?

I do, me and my brother used to spend hours just...

I used to spend hours with my face pressed up against the glass,

trying to see all the little detail of it,

because if you look in the windows, it's all completely furnished

and there's children playing in the front room and it's just amazing.

My favourite is the little old woman just coming out of the door,

with her shawl on.

-And she's feeding the chickens.

-Yes.

-And the little pussycat chasing the mouse.

-Yes.

-Yes, yes.

-I mean, that's just beautiful.

And it would have been made about 1850 or 1860,

-it's quite early Victorian.

-Yes, yes.

Of course, the Victorians were very keen on worthwhile pastimes

and I could see possibly the man of the house

actually making the house itself,

and then a woman putting all these shells on,

and it would have taken months to do.

Have you ever seen any like this before, or...?

This is one of the most detailed ones I've seen.

I've seen shell houses before,

they were that sort of early Victorian period.

They started in the 18th century

but the early Victorian period they were very popular.

-I know you've got a glass dome for it too which keeps it...

-Yes.

-It's in beautiful condition.

-Yes.

I would say, if this came up for auction,

you'd put an estimate of £800-£1,200.

-Really?

-But I could see it, I could see it selling for more than that

because it really is sensational.

Oh! Thank you very much.

-There you go. Happy?

-Oh, yes.

I love this picture. I mean, it's so Impressionist

and that's what, I think, makes it attractive.

So do you think this is French?

No, I think it's German because on the signature it says "Berlin '87".

Quite right, 1887 that would be,

and you can see the signature above.

"JUL" - Jul for Julius,

and then Jacob or "Ya-cob". J-A-C-O-B.

And he's a minor artist, born in 1842,

died in 1929.

That's literally all the facts we have about the artist.

But I assume, as it's inscribed "Berlin",

that he lived and worked in that region.

Doesn't always follow that, of course,

because many artists studied abroad so, you know,

you could have Norwegians, for instance,

-where I believe you may originate from...

-Yes, I do.

..that studied in Dusseldorf,

so you often see a picture by a Norwegian artist signed "Dusseldorf"

-but that's just by-the-by.

-OK.

-Did you buy this picture or inherit it?

No, I inherited it from my grandparents.

-Right.

-It was bought in Norway

from a very posh arts shop,

by my grandfather, but I don't know any more about it.

There's a big connection between Norway and Germany.

Right.

And so there was a lot of artists from Germany painting in Norway

-and vice versa.

-Right.

And I love this picture,

but it is very much a sort of typical Impressionist style.

This was just after the real sort of true Impressionist period in France,

in the 1870s, so the influence of Impressionism

is creeping across Europe,

and you can see with these beautiful broad strokes of the clouds

and this idyllic landscape here in front of us.

I think it's just beautiful.

Well, I mean there is always a good market for German art

but if it had been French -

been by a French Impressionist such as Monet -

ooh, we'd be talking about a lot of money, wouldn't we?

For this size, two or three million,

but being German, I would say we're probably looking at

-something in the region of £3,000-£5,000.

-Right. OK.

-Not too bad?

-No, very good.

Reading, writing and arithmetic

are still obviously part of the national curriculum,

-but here we've got an 18th-century book on penmanship.

-Right.

The art of lettering, calligraphy.

-Right.

-Can you tell me, where did you get it from?

Well, there was... where I worked there was a gardener

and he used to be given material

and things that weren't wanted to burn on a bonfire

and I used to chat to him,

so he very kindly said,

"Oh, if there's anything that interests you, I'll keep it."

And he gave me that and of course I was delighted, couldn't believe it.

-Yes.

-So lovely.

-It is, it's a charming book.

I mean, it is a lovely book. It still gives me a bit of a thrill.

-And it's typical sort of 18th-century binding as well.

-Yes.

And we've got the name of the calligrapher,

the person who wrote it, here, it's "John Lewis..."

and "..is the true owner of this book,

-"written in the year of our Lord God 1734"

-Yes.

-What I hadn't realised when I opened it...

-Yes?

..it's actually an alphabet.

Oh, yes, because it's quite difficult to decipher the initial letters.

The initial letters, absolutely,

the initial letter of each page is in alphabetical order.

-Oh, wonderful, yes.

-And so here, on the first page,

is a capital A and it reads -

I've just managed to decipher it - "A wise man will..."

and then it gets rather tricky, actually!

-But that's the A, the capital A.

-Oh, right, yes.

And then if we go a bit further on,

-this one is a "C" for contentment.

-Yes.

"Makes a man happy without a fortune."

And again he's signed it, "John Lewis 1734".

This coincides with a book that was published

-by a chap called George Bickham.

-Oh.

Who published a book called "The Universal Penman"

which is the classic calligraphy book.

-Yes.

-And I have a suspicion that

young John Lewis possibly had a copy of Bickham in front of him

and was either copying it, or imitating it.

-Yes, yes, yes.

-If we go a bit further on...

that I think is a "G", although it's terribly complicated.

-Yes.

-But it does work out as being a G.

He was quite good at it, wasn't he?

Oh, he was very good, very competent, absolutely.

It's so...it's exciting to have it.

I mean, I enjoy looking at the way he sort of developed it.

Some of the styles are different, aren't they?

Yes, indeed, we've got some sort of old...

-what one might call more Gothic script.

-Yes.

-And then there's the sort of typically...

-Little head.

These lovely decorations as well.

-Yes, yes.

-Absolutely charming and it's worth money, actually.

-Really?

I think if you... if it came up for auction,

-it would make somewhere between £300-£500.

-Really?

-I'm amazed at that!

-It's charming.

I thought, being a sort of one-off thing, it wouldn't.

Well, that's what makes it so interesting, it is one-off.

-It's lovely, thank you.

-Oh, well, thank you. That's very, very helpful.

This is called a cap tally.

It goes around the cap of a naval man, a sailor.

I thought it went round the arm.

No, it's around the cap and it says "HMS Hood".

That's a very famous ship.

Now, why do you have this?

Well, my great-grandad was on the Hood when it sank.

He was a boatswain.

-A very important job.

-Yes.

-And these are his medals?

-Yes.

-So of course he would never have got to wear them, would he?

-No.

You've brought this album, tell me what's in the album.

Well, in the album are the pictures he took

before he had to fight against the Bismarck.

And if we go onto this page... there's a picture of him in here.

That's him, that's your great-grandfather?

-Yes.

-In uniform.

-Yes.

-Now, the interesting thing about that

is that he's wearing a cap tally that says "Submarine" on it,

so there's a reason for that -

whether he did serve in submarines at some point, I don't know.

Now, the interesting point about this cap tally is,

during the Second World War, because of the danger of spying,

the ship's name was taken off the cap tally,

so it only said "HMS" so you couldn't identify...

If you saw a sailor in a port,

you couldn't identify which ship he was from.

-I see.

-Had to keep secrets during the war.

Now, do you know the history of the sinking of the Hood?

-Yes.

-Do you know how it was destroyed?

-Yes.

-What do you know about that?

Well, I believe it was hit in the decking by the Bismarck.

Well, there was a great battle that took place

because the Bismarck was the pride of the German navy

and it was thought to be the greatest battleship ever built

and almost indestructible.

And we, the British, desperately wanted to sink the Bismarck

and we sent several ships to hunt for the Bismarck

and the Hood was one of those ships.

Now, HMS Hood was one of the greatest battleships

we've ever built in this country.

It was regarded as the pride of the British Navy

and right at the beginning of the battle,

the Bismarck sent several salvos - several shots -

towards the Hood and one of them went into the Hood

and probably exploded the magazine - all the ammunition.

And the explosion was almost instantaneous

and the ship just exploded into thousands of pieces.

It was a terrible explosion

and over 1,000 men died on that ship,

including your great-grandfather.

What do you think of him?

I think of him as a very powerful man.

He must have been very brave to fight for his country

and important to be chosen for the Navy.

But you've got other photographs here too.

Well, that is him sitting on the Hood.

This is actually on the Hood itself?

Yes.

That's a great photo.

I know you're not interested in the value - I'm sure you're not -

-but collectors do pay lots of money for this sort of thing.

-Yes.

And there's a very interesting story behind it,

so I think the medals, the cap tally

and all these photographs are probably going to be worth

something in the region of £800-£1,200.

Well, I'll tell my grandad that.

Now, don't get confused, this isn't Gardeners' World,

this is The Antiques Roadshow

and it's really interesting to see some garden pieces

on The Antiques Roadshow for a change.

I love the way they've been beautifully weathered.

Well, I think they're very old.

-How old?

-Well, they've been in my family for as long as I can remember.

And what else can you tell me about them?

Well, I don't know where they came from,

but my parents thought they were worth quite a lot of money

and I went to the Watts Gallery a few years ago

and I spotted the pots there and I came home and said to my husband,

-"I've seen my pots at the Watts Gallery."

-Bingo!

And I saw another one in Godalming Museum on another occasion

and that's all I know about them,

so I can only assume they're Watts pots.

It was Mary Watts who actually started the business down in Compton

and they're a Scottish family

and her husband, George F Watts,

he was a famous artist

and she had time on her hands

-and so she started this business of making pottery.

-Yes.

And they were digging the local clay - this red clay -

and this is the latter part of the Victorian period

and red clay was highly fashionable

-and these were actually moulded, it's a moulded cast.

-Yes.

And she was selling to the top garden designers.

She was selling to Gertrude Jekyll, Lutyens and Liberty in London.

-They were selling these pots.

-All the best names.

-Exactly, the top names, especially Gertrude Jekyll.

-Yes.

And in the Jekyll gardens you will see them on a ledge.

-Oh, right.

-Because they normally put them on a ledge.

Well, actually, they are...

The part of the garden they're on is raised up,

so from the house they are raised.

-Well, that's aesthetically how they should be shown.

-Oh, right.

-Right, so we've got to get down to values.

-Yes.

Now, these are one of the few items where you can sell these singly

and they're still quite valuable.

I think you've got to look at between £1,500 and £2,000 a pot.

They're marvellous!

Oh, great. Thank you.

So you were doing a house clearance?

-Yes.

-And...?

-My parents' house.

And somebody came along and offered you how much?

-£2,500.

-For this?

-Yes.

-OK.

-It started off lower than that,

then gradually crept up throughout the afternoon.

So you were bargaining?

-No, I told him it was not for sale.

-It wasn't for sale.

-Never.

So you turned down £2,500. You've also brought this painting along.

-Yes.

-Before I tell you whether you made the right or wrong decision,

I'm going to ask Mark to tell us more about your painting

because that really looks lovely.

Well, it is lovely and it's the most beautiful view of Hammersmith.

-Yeah.

-In London.

And it's by EC Williams - Edward Charles Williams -

one of the great painters of Victorian England,

born in 1807 and died in 1881.

He was part of a huge family of landscape and town painters,

the Williams family, but I've always thought that EC

was one of the better ones.

And what I love about it is the sort of nice early depiction of London

and you can see it's before The Embankment was built

and you've got the old Hammersmith Bridge, so it's beautiful.

Do you live near there or...?

-Yes, we used to, we were in Earls Court.

-Oh, not far away at all.

-No.

-And you journeyed over this bridge?

I journeyed over the bridge, yes,

and I journeyed along The Embankment.

I used to work in the East End, so went back and forth frequently.

So let's say you wanted to raise £2,500.

Well, I think I could do better for this.

I think this little picture's worth £3,000-£5,000 on today's market.

Really? I would never sell it.

-Oh!

-Sorry!

-After all that!

After all that, I would never sell it, no, I love it.

No, you must keep it, because it's really lovely and I'm very envious.

-Thank you.

-So, Lars, what about you?

So you're going to sell the jar instead, is that right?

-No, I'm not selling anything.

-We're not doing very well.

-Not doing very well, are we?

-Let's have a look.

I'll tell you a bit about the jar. Do you know anything about it?

No, not a lot. I think it was in my grandparents' house.

It's one of those things that's been part of the family

-for as long as I can remember.

-OK.

This is a very, very bold, unusually bold mark,

for a piece of Chinese porcelain. You've got six characters.

Great Qing dynasty, Kangxi. Year made.

Kangxi is the clue here.

This is an emperor who reigned from 1662 to 1722

and almost every Kangxi mark that one sees is wrong.

And it's very, very bold as well.

What is nice about this,

is this wonderful imperial lemon yellow enamel glaze

you've got on here, so that is supposed to be reserved for -

that particular colour - is reserved for the Emperor and nobody else.

-Oh, quite right!

-So at £2,500, actually, I would say take it,

if this were a copy of the Kangxi period,

then £2,500 is an extremely generous offer.

-Oh, really?

-Yeah.

However, it is actually of the period it says,

so it's probably worth between £5,000 and £10,000.

LAUGHTER

How fantastic!

Oh, I'm so pleased I didn't.

It's very lucky he wasn't calling at your door!

Oh, I'm delighted. I love this. I love this vase.

Again, it's not for sale.

I love this piece of furniture

and I've watched Antiques Roadshow for many years,

but I've lived in South Africa

and haven't been able to get to The Antiques Roadshow.

And we came to Surrey last year and I looked on the website

and I saw you were in Farnborough.

I thought, well, this piece of furniture I'd love to bring.

This is one of my loves. It's campaign furniture,

which is basically military furniture

made for high-ranking officers

at literally the top level.

And its construction is what I love about it.

It's made of best mahogany but all this comes apart -

it's the early flat-pack furniture, basically.

It would all be stored in little boxes

and it's just unbelievable to find furniture like this.

A few years ago, this would have been sold as a shelf

and no-one would have realised. In the last few years,

people have really taken military furniture seriously.

But it needs to have a history.

Have you got any history within the family?

Well, yes, we do.

My grandfather's great-grandfather was Sir John Hindmarsh

and he was born in 1785,

I think, and died in 1860

and he fought in seven battles.

He was a naval officer

and he then became the first governor of South Australia.

And have you worked out which battles he was in,

before we get onto Australia, or...?

Yeah, quite a number of them - the Nile, Trafalgar, um...

OK, that's pretty impressive!

Yeah, and there apparently is a letter, which I haven't seen,

but a letter from Nelson

which appointed him to the ship for Trafalgar

and which is part of the family history.

So this was in my grandparents' house

and I have assumed that it belonged to him

but because I didn't know how old it was...

It's bang on that date.

I mean 1830-1860, it wouldn't have changed much in style.

I would say this is around 1830-1840.

I mean, you can only imagine what this piece of furniture has seen,

-which is why I love campaign furniture.

-Yes.

The battles this could have been in!

Pieces like this, say in the Battle of Trafalgar or the Nile,

they were all flat-packed

and put into one of the boats and towed behind the ships.

Because one of the biggest causes of death was splinters.

So you didn't want pieces - cannonballs coming through,

all this being shattered. So they used to pack it all away.

That's another reason for the flat-packing.

Such a brilliant system.

And these aren't right.

-Oh, they're not?

-No, the finials, these are later.

-You wouldn't have things like this.

-I wondered because they do look odd.

Exactly, and they would just have a manly finial,

-a very small finial on top.

-A manly one, yeah, I like that.

-And all this would go.

-It does, it does.

-Pack down and it's brilliant.

-Pack right down.

-And the condition - it needs a little bit of work.

-I would get this repaired, tidied up and polished.

-Yeah.

But find out that history.

If you can tie anything to a letter or an order,

go through any of the old paperwork, it makes a difference.

As it stands, as a nice piece of campaign furniture,

it would be £600 to £800.

If you can tie it to the battles,

then it goes up to sort of £2,000 to £3,000 -

makes quite a big difference.

Provenance is so important with this stuff. Thanks very much.

-Thank you very much. Really interesting, thanks.

-It's great fun.

These are the notebooks of Sir George Cayley,

who was born in Yorkshire in 1777

and by 1800 he had formulated the theory of flight

and he understood the forces

that act on what we would call an aeroplane today.

He designed the caterpillar track which was used on, you know,

large earth-moving equipment and military vehicles.

He designed the self-righting lifeboat.

In this diagram here of the wheels,

he was looking for a light wheel, so he designed a tensioned wheel

which actually is what's used in bicycles today.

So he designed the bicycle wheel.

-So a real English polymath.

-A real English polymath.

Now, I really am a layman, but even I can see that this diagram here,

which has helpfully been dated 1804,

-that's 100 years...

-100 years before the Wright Brothers.

..before the Wright Brothers.

Even I can see that's a prototype aeroplane.

We have wings at the front here and a tail plane at the back.

The Wright Brothers actually got into aviation through flying models

that were based on Cayley's designs

and they have acknowledged this in their writing.

So, Sir George Cayley - a little-known Yorkshireman -

is the father of aerodynamics and aeronautical science.

Tell me, what about powering these aeroplanes?

I mean, he was gliding, which is clearly a major step forward.

But, as I understand it, in order to take flying forward,

you must have some way of powering yourself...

-He understood...

-..through the air.

He understood that you needed lift from the wings

to counterbalance the weight

and you needed thrust to counterbalance the drag.

If you look at this diagram down here,

here you see an aircraft with the wings to lift it.

The propulsion, which are flapping wings, as he called them,

and they are powered by this engine,

which was an internal combustion engine

that he designed to run on gunpowder.

Now, clearly, he never built it but the concept is there.

And an undercarriage, so that is an aircraft as we would recognise today.

When would he have drawn this?

This was in 1848, towards the end of his life.

Can you tell me why they're here at Farnborough now?

Well, yes, I'm a trustee of the Royal Aeronautical Society

and about 100 yards from here

in one of the other historic buildings,

you've got the National Aerospace Library,

and this is an example of some of the treasures we have in that library.

This little remark caught my eyes.

George Cayley writes, "You, to whom it may concern when I am gone,

"may find the seeds of thought in these scrawls."

-Never a truer word.

-That's perfect, isn't it?

And so these are going to have very considerable value.

I can quite easily see these making £30,000 or £40,000 at auction,

possibly very considerably more.

Well, they're going to remain safe

in the National Aerospace Library, Justin.

Now, whilst flowers like lilies

are sometimes associated with mourning,

do you think that this originally was used as some mourning jewel?

-Because I don't, do you?

-No.

I can only tell you it was a 21st birthday present.

-Oh, right, OK.

-In 1909.

Which is about the right period for it.

Where do you think it comes from?

Well, I don't know.

I know my grandparents used to go to France quite often.

That would be right.

I think it's turn of the century, so we're looking at 1900-1910.

In other words, 1909 would be absolutely perfect.

And I think it's a prime example of the Art Nouveau theme.

It is that typical, naturalistic Nouveau look

that was all the rage at the start of the 20th century in France.

It is enamelled all over the surface,

it's got these charming natural pearls

and it's got the detailing -

diamond chips going down the front.

Most importantly, it's in absolutely terrific condition.

Because when these get damaged, when they chip,

they lose an enormous amount of value.

When they have all the components in place

and it's as prime as this, it adds to the value.

I think if such a piece of jewellery

in that condition came up at auction,

£2,000-£2,500.

That's very nice, but it has to go to my daughter.

-It's a 21st birthday...

-Well, that's a nice thing to hear,

but bear in mind,

the value will keep on rising. It's a great piece.

-I'm delighted to hear it. Thank you.

-Thank you very much.

This is a letter from my uncle,

who was a sergeant major in the Grenadier Guards, 1914, in France.

He was actually a witness to the Christmas Day truce

and the football match which we understand took place

and we know it did because it's mentioned in his letter.

-In this letter?

-In this letter.

It's a pencil-written letter.

Most of these letters home were written in pencil.

Oh, I see here, it says that he's buried 69 men,

"And then the next thing happened -

"a football kicked out of our trenches

"and German and English played football.

"Night came and still no shots.

"Boxing Day the same, and has remained so up till now."

-Isn't that astonishing?

-Yes.

This man was a witness to that now very famous event.

-Exactly.

-It's down in history,

that event, you know, and he witnessed it.

And was disputed that it ever took place for a long time,

by the powers that be.

I find that astonishing, actually.

It's an incredibly historically important letter, this, I think.

And, actually, letters like this

often have very little value outside the family.

-Sure.

-But in this instance, actually, I think it does have a value.

I think a collector of First World War memorabilia

-could easily pay £150 for it.

-Really?

Maybe even more because it mentions that event.

-Yes, yes.

-Very rare.

Yeah, yeah, well, it needs to be preserved for posterity.

Do you know, there's hardly a day in my life

when I don't use my pocket knife.

It's a fabulously useful object

but it's by no means a new invention.

And just in case we were thinking how old pocket knives are,

what about this one? Because this is a Roman pocket knife.

It's 2,000 years old.

How do you happen to have a 2,000-year-old pocket knife?

My father was a metal detectorist

and he used to go out quite often

and bring in coins and all sorts and he found that.

It was given to me when he died

and we went to the British Museum and found one in the British Museum,

so that's how I know more or less what it is and brought it in today.

Well, it's a fabulous little item.

For one thing it really takes you back to a point

where some chap, maybe a legionnaire,

was sitting there, unfolding this knife,

even picking his finger nails with it.

What it is, is a stylised dog chasing what appears to be a hare

and this is a very common theme in Roman pocket knives,

you'll often see these kind of chase scenes. It's made of bronze.

The iron blade, which is now very badly corroded,

is just nestling in the bottom there.

Now, your father, obviously as a metal detectorist,

probably was quite pleased to find this

and I'm sure he reported it to his local finds officer,

which is a very important thing you must do

with objects you find with a metal detector.

But, strangely enough,

being old doesn't necessarily make you really valuable.

For an object like this, what are we looking at? Probably £200-£300.

-Oh, right.

-Maybe a little bit more than you anticipated.

More than, yeah, definitely, definitely.

In sentimental terms it's worth a great deal more to you.

Yes, definitely, it is.

This extraordinary document is Florence Nightingale's passport

but she's not mentioned on this document here. Why is that?

No, she's not, because the passport is a collective passport

for the first group of nurses,

with Florence as the lady Superintendent,

to take them out to the scene of the Crimean War.

And she didn't have a passport, or they had a collective passport,

-because they were women, so not thought worthy of a passport?

-Yeah.

Now, it's fascinating to see this,

because when she went out to the Crimean War in the 1850s,

she was not - she and her nurses - were not particularly welcomed

by the Army medical establishment, were they?

No, they weren't, they were looked on as interfering busybodies, really,

and when they arrived on November 4th 1854,

the Army really said, "Well, we haven't asked for you to come out."

They'd been sent out from England

and, as you say, they weren't welcomed at all.

What Florence Nightingale proved was that so many men were dying,

not from their injuries,

but from infection and disease that followed the injuries

that were incurred as a result of their stay in the hospital

and that really put people's backs up, didn't it,

-amongst the medical establishment?

-Yes. It did.

20,000 dead of the British Army, only 1,600 to enemy action.

All the rest were disease and infection, mainly bowel diseases.

-She made a remarkable difference, didn't she?

-Yes, she did.

It really...it took them away from the untrained medical orderly

to the caring nurse, which of course still goes on today.

Now what about this sash?

This is Scutari Hospital which is where she and her nurses worked.

Yes, Scutari Hospital, in Constantinople

was where Lord Raglan said his hospital base was going to be.

And of course they needed to identify these nurses

from all the other ladies that were there in this old, barren hospital.

Providing a different comfort?

Providing a different sort of comfort, yes.

And of course there were widows there, some of the wives still there.

So it identified them as the nurses

for when they wanted to get access to the wards.

And so when people talk about Florence Nightingale -

The Lady With The Lamp -

she would be, I mean, is this a truthful image?

They wouldn't allow any nurses on the wards at night -

they said it wasn't a fit place -

except her, to look at her sick and her wounded soldiers.

Well, these are a testament to a remarkable woman,

whose reforms we still feel the benefit of today.

Yes, absolutely.

It's so lovely to see such a wonderful collection

of China-trade silver.

Now, have you actually collected this yourself or...?

No, it's all come to me through the family.

Right.

My mother's family lived in China for three generations.

Wow!

And it's silver that they collected while they lived there

and this is what has come down to me.

There were four sisters, my grandmother being one,

so I've had the items that came from her.

So this is a quarter of the collection?

Presumably, yes.

So whereabouts were they in China?

-In Shanghai.

-Ah, that's lovely to know

because of course once the Chinese realised

that Europeans loved silver,

they started to make specifically for the European market

and you can see this lovely sort of fusion of the two ideas.

So, with this mug...

I mean, nothing could be more English than a mug.

Christening mug.

It's got my grandmother's initials and the date of her birth,

-the year of her birth.

-Oh, that's super!

Well, of course, entirely Chinese decoration on it,

and they actually did develop a marking system

which, of course, we can see just there.

And, in this case, you've got both straightforward initials

but you've also got the guy's name in Chinese characters.

So I would tend to assume the pieces were from Shanghai.

And you think of a tea service - tea being very Chinese -

but the concept of a three-piece tea set isn't at all Chinese!

The picture frame there. Those are very sought-after today.

-Are they?

-Yes, people really like those.

The trade itself, of course,

started to develop because of the people arriving to do business -

the shippers, the diplomats -

and there were the great China-trade ports -

Hong Kong, Shanghai and Canton.

And, of course, as your family were from Shanghai,

well, there's no prizes for guessing where these pieces should be from.

And the vast majority of these, we are looking at

the latter part of the 19th century.

So, I mean, a mug like this...

-that on its own would easily be £500.

-Really?

And, similarly, the picture frame,

-that's going to be £600-£700 quite easily.

-Really?!

And if you start totting this little lot up,

I think you wouldn't get much change out of 10,000

for what is actually on the table.

Goodness! Wow, I'd better take care of it then!

-Look after it.

-Well, thank you very much.

It's a great sign of the times

when the BBC are creating memorabilia

that appears on The Antiques Roadshow.

Here we have a letter from the chief BBC announcer,

the famous John Snagge,

who was on the radio on a daily basis,

pre, during and after the war.

And it's written to a "Dear Frank".

-Who's he?

-Frank Phillips was my father.

He was a BBC newsreader during the war

and this letter is from John Snagge,

enclosing quite an important script

that he read on the morning of 6th June 1944.

-That being D Day.

-D Day.

Well, that's an amazing archive find

and so kind of him to give it back to your dad.

So we've got four pages here, in script, not typed.

That's quite strange, isn't it?

I mean, I would have thought it would have been typed

before being read out.

Well, my understanding, from reading John Snagge's letter to my father,

is that it was regarded as too confidential,

because it was essentially announcing D Day, to entrust to any typist.

And real men didn't type in those days

and so it's a hand-written script.

And it was such a secret, wasn't it? I mean,

had the enemy had any inkling

that we were heading towards Normandy rather than somewhere else,

it could have been a completely different outcome.

Absolutely, yes.

So he must have been full of trepidation about the day,

this important...

And it says, "From the BBC in Great Britain,

"we are sounding the alert

"for the countries on the coastline

"of Western Europe occupied by the enemy".

Also, let alone the John Snagge,

there's, I think, a copy of a really important document

which is signed by Winston Churchill and Eisenhower.

That's right. My understanding is that is the communique

that my father was trailing, if you like,

and that John Snagge read the communique itself,

and I think it says here that it was signed by those two

and given to John Snagge because he read that particular communique.

So I'm not sure that his generosity

extended to passing on the original signed communique.

And I think what's also very evocative is...

Obviously, during the war,

the radio was such an important part of society,

both here in the UK and presumably across Europe.

As an example here, we've a letter addressed to your dad from Holland,

and it goes on about how important it is for him.

"Here is one out of the multitude of listeners

"to your famous transmissions

"during the five long years of enemy occupation."

And it goes on to say how important it was in his life.

It was indeed, yes.

And, in fact, that particular individual

named his son after my father,

his first two Christian names are Frank Phillip.

-Well, you can't get a better accolade than that, can you?

-No.

My goodness, what's it worth?

That day was the turning point of the war, wasn't it?

And an amazingly important transmission.

It's unique, one's never been sold before.

I'm sort of thinking about a figure of maybe...

certainly a couple of thousand pounds.

-Fine, well, I'm not selling it any time soon.

-I'm glad to hear it.

Thank you very much.

Well, my first question is, what nationality do you suppose he is?

That's a question I've wondered.

-He's got a turban.

-Yeah.

-So he looks, could be Indian,

but he's got a feather in it,

so he might be sort of Arabian Nights type of thing?

OK, well, I'm going to suggest he might be Turkish.

Right.

And do you know anything about him?

Nothing apart from it used to belong to my grandmother

and I don't know where and how and when she got it.

I mean, he's got some age, and he's got some dents and scratches...

-He has, yes.

-..and chips.

And dents and scratches do rather affect this material.

This material is known as Delftware,

which is a earthenware covered in a skin of white glaze

-which is then - in this case - decorated in blue.

-Right.

To the untrained eye, this looks like porcelain,

because we associate blue and white with porcelain.

And that's actually what these potters were trying to achieve,

they were competing with China.

But there's a reason for him being a Turk and the clue is here.

Have you worked out what these are for - these holes?

Well, they look as if they should have flowers in them

but it's a rather peculiar flower vase

that's got a head in the middle of it.

OK, now, let's just put all of that together.

So, he is a Turk, but he's made in Delftware

and in fact Delftware is, of course, Dutch, generally speaking.

Right.

What flowers would you associate with Delft or Holland?

Tulips.

Tulips, and we've got there, because tulips were developed by Turks.

-Oh!

-So it's entirely appropriate that a vase intended for tulips

should be modelled in the form of a Turk,

and tulips were extremely popular in the 1620s-30s,

there was a tulip mania.

-Yeah, yeah.

-But ever since then, vases like this have been made.

You can go out and buy them in the shops in Holland today

and you can buy them and they generally have a maker's mark -

such as this one on the back -

imitating the early Delftware pieces.

Now, the question is,

is this an early Delftware piece

or is it one of the many, many, many copies. We see lots and lots.

It's quite difficult sometimes to make up one's mind.

I'm sure you would like it to be an original

and I would love to be able to tell you that it was an original.

-However...

-17th-century would be nice.

-..it looks too good to be true

and looking in the bottom there, there's a sort of nice rough patch.

There's not a great deal of wear. Is he a copy?

As a copy, this is worth somewhere in the region of £500-£1,000.

-Really?

-Yeah.

Ah, fabulous, well.

Perhaps I like him a bit more now.

-You do?

-Yes.

-Um...

Actually, I don't think it is a copy.

So we'll bump it up a bit.

Shall we say somewhere between £20,000 and £30,000?

No! I wasn't going to do the gasp, but I've gasped!

Hmm.

Well, I think it's fair to say, another satisfied customer.

From The Antiques Roadshow team, until next time, bye-bye.

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