Episode 10 Priceless Antiques Roadshow


Episode 10

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We see some special things on the Antiques Roadshow.

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But when it comes to provenance, nothing is better

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than having a royal seal of approval.

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In this episode we dust down the treasures

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that were once touched by royalty.

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Yes, there are some fabulous Roadshow finds with

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impressive royal provenance coming up in this edition.

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We get an intimate insight into the royal family.

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Well, my grandfather was a gamekeeper on the royal estate

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at Sandringham but he also had the special responsibility

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of living at the kennels and looking after the dogs of the royal family.

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Also, the king of glass, Andy McConnell

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relives his Roadshow debut.

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I like that. So where did you find that then?

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I mean, I was so nervous. Some people complain about having

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butterflies when they first appear on theatrical things or whatever.

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I had, you know, butterflies in the tummy, I had two brontosaurus mating.

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And pictures specialist Philip Mould unmasks the hidden stories

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behind magnificent portraits.

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It became clear that there were other suggestions

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that the artist might have first thought about

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but then decided to paint out.

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Little ghostly ideas began to show through.

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And we immediately embarked,

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therefore, upon an X-ray to see what lay beneath.

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If the Roadshow's archives were catalogued like a museum's contents,

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I reckon this first section would be entitled

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"From the cabinet of curiosities."

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That's a polite way of saying the bizarre or just the downright weird.

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That doesn't mean they are any the less interesting,

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quite the opposite, in fact.

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We've given some of our specialists special access to the vault

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to unearth some of their favourite freakish finds.

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I've never seen anything like it.

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What a wonderful piece of modern sculpture.

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Oh, my word!

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Probably one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen

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was a couple of years ago, back in Bishop Auckland,

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when a gentleman came in with a massive cabinet.

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I've seen some extraordinary collections on the Antiques Roadshow

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but I think this one almost pips the post because it's a collection of...

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false eyes.

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-It is indeed, yes.

-And what makes you want to collect those?

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He told me the story about how his father had been an optician

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and used these as models in order to create false eyes.

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This was one of his great passions, he made artificial eyes for people.

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He used these collections,

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not to put into people's eyes, but in fact for colour matching.

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He had a very faithful group of clients who he used to love.

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And hugely important, cosmetically.

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'If you did lose your eye, you wanted something

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'that matched so nobody could tell.' Each one was different.

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And there was, I can't remember now,

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two-and-a-half, 3000 different examples?

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All different colours, all different shapes, all different sizes.

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-Some are more bloodshot than others.

-They are, like some of ours indeed!

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So, in many ways, they are rather like paperweights you sometimes see.

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I mean, they are extraordinary. Each individual tray could be worth

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up to £1,000.

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So, just in this cabinet alone, let alone what you've got at home,

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you're talking about 25 or £30,000.

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Yes, well, that's quite an amazing amount

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and, as I say, I love them as part of my family heritage but I'd never

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really put a value to them at all, so that's extremely interesting.

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Who'd want to buy glass eyes?

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But the market's out there and they're extraordinarily rare.

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So an amazing collection. Very rare and worth a huge amount of money.

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An item that was once ordinary can now do seem bizarre to us.

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Back now to the early days of the Roadshow,

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a little embarrassment from a young David Battie.

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I wonder if you can tell me what this is?

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I think I know.

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I think it's a lady's chamber pot.

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You're absolutely right. I'm glad you said it rather than me.

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I wonder if you know that it had a particular name?

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No, I don't.

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It's called a bourdaloue. It's bizarre in the sense that, compared

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to the way we live today,

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its function would seem to be really odd.

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And of course, one finds sideboards during the 18th century

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with a little cupboard at the back in which there was a pewter chamber pot,

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for use, curiously enough, at the dining table.

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Because, after the ladies had left, the gentleman sat round with their

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port and their cheese and their nuts and the chamber was passed around

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the dining table. It's a curious reflection on the times.

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I suppose, in a way, going back 30 years or so,

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in those days

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a young man talking to an elderly lady about, sort of...

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leakage, you didn't do it.

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So I was pushing the boundaries quite a lot, I think.

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And I think I was probably embarrassing myself the further

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I dug down with the story!

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Our next weird item provoked a strong reaction from Hilary Kay.

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One of the most remarkable and interesting objects that came in

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was at Wisley when somebody

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delivered to me a bound foot, a model of a bound foot

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in a tiny shoe from China, round about 1880, I guess.

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What I'm looking at here with you is an embroidered Chinese shoe

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which was made for Chinese ladies - this is not a child's shoe -

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who had their feet bandaged.

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In fact, the interesting thing about this shoe is it's the first time

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I've ever seen one with a model of a bandaged foot.

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Oh, really?

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And this is what the Chinese did to their ladies.

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I found this object actually quite shocking.

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I'd seen the shoes before, but I'd never realised exactly what

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was done to the foot in order to get it into those shoes.

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The bones were restricted, really,

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from childhood onwards, in tight, tight bindings.

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So this is what adult ladies like you and me would have.

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Their feet ended in this extraordinary club

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with the toes tied round underneath.

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Castle Mey was a bizarre experience in every sense.

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The weather was so awful,

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the setting was so wonderful, everything was in conflict.

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And we really had a horrible day in weather terms.

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But I was confronted by a man carrying a sort of black,

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ill-defined object with various wooden plugs in it.

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I have no idea what I'm holding. You tell me.

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Well, some people find it hard to take as an object of beauty,

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but that is a very useful item if you were fishing.

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And that actually was once a dog and is now a dogskin buoy.

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So this is a dead dog?

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And how is it made waterproof?

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Well, this black or dark brown shiny substance is actually archangel tar

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and that was used for an waterproofing before rubber,

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before tarmacadam, etc.

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They were common objects only 150 years ago.

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This is a remarkable survival.

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He then revealed a story about how

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dead dogs or dogs' bodies, with all the apertures sealed,

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worked very well as fishing floats. I thought, is it April 1st?

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So they're all bobbing about on the tide.

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Absolutely.

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And there would have been a whole sort of herd of them?

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This was good news. It meant that there were

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good catches there and they would say, "Oh, the dogs are dancing."

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'I've never seen another dead dog.'

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I did ask if they were common. He said he knew of three or four.

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And I will imagine that I will go to my grave

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not seeing another floating dead dog.

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"The dogs are dancing," means you're in luck.

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Yes and they're bobbing up and down.

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It's a funny phrase but it was also a joyful time for the fishermen.

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I think it was a good time not to be a dog.

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But, you know, there we are. Then, of course, valuation.

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What is the value of a dead dog?

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There is no way on the Roadshow I'm going to value a dead dog.

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No, it's just totally unique.

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If you think you've got an object that can outdo that lot

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in the oddity stakes, bring it along to a Roadshow.

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We'd love to give it the once over.

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So far this series, we've seen some confessions from familiar experts

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about how nervous they were the first time they found

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themselves in front of the cameras.

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They seems so calm and confident, don't they?

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Take our glass man, Andy McConnell,

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perhaps the most extrovert of all our team, yet

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even he tries to forget the first time he got the director's cue.

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My first record, it was great, you know, a young guy had been to a boot

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fair and he'd picked up this Keith Murray vase,

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it was a green torpedo, quite a nice piece of English thirties glass.

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And he'd bought it for two quid at a boot fair or something.

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So my opening line, in that one doesn't get training for this,

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my opening line to him was "And so, sir, where did you steal this from?"

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And of course, "Cut, stop!"

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So where did you find that then?

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I got it at a car-boot sale.

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Car boot?

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And how much did you... how much were you extorted for this item?

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-I paid £3.

-Three quid?

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There never had been a glass specialist on the Antiques Roadshow.

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There had been 420 ceramics experts,

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7,255 paintings people,

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9,415 furniture people, but never one glass expert.

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Signed, Keith Murray, New Zealand architect.

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Couldn't find any work after the Wall Street crash and turned to

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designing porcelain,

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pottery for Wedgwood and glass for Stevens and Williams, Royal Brierley.

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I mean, I was so nervous. Some people complain about having

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butterflies when they first appear in theatrical things or whatever.

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You know, butterflies in the tummy?

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I had two brontosaurus mating in my tummy for my first show at Rochdale.

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If you wanted to replace it, £300 or £400.

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-That's a big profit.

-Not bad for three quid.

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I'll give you four for it, show you a profit.

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I don't think so.

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The only reason that I do quick records is that actually,

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it's for as long as I can hold my breath.

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I go... And then I run out of breath

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and that's the end of the record, because otherwise I go...

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and then fall over backwards in a faint.

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Sometimes, I look down the queue at people and their objects at a

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Roadshow and I try to guess what going to catch our experts' eye.

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The thing is though, they don't take an object at face value the way

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you or I probably would.

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They see hidden messages and secret signs.

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Portrait specialist Philip Mould is a classic example.

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He spends his days unmasking the great and good, getting to the truth

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behind the earliest form of spin.

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Philip has come to Hatfield House in Hertfordshire,

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which was the childhood home of a historical figure

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who fascinates him above all others.

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She was one of the earliest practitioners of the art

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of self-promotion.

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There's a lovely quote from the historian Thomas Carlyle which talks

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about portraiture being "like holding up a candle to history."

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And I love that idea.

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A face, in a way that it offers you a slice of the time and the period

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in a way that you can identify with

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and understand, because it is, after all, a person,

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works so much better than 50,000 paragraphs written

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by the greatest historians.

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Elizabeth I must be, in many ways, the most glamorous and certainly

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the most powerful, in terms of presence and place in history,

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monarch in the history of our nation.

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What is so interesting is

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because she was a woman in a man's world, she understood that there were

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certain things that needed to be done, that played to her strengths.

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She widened the language and brought spin and art together

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at a whole new level.

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The Elizabeth we see represented here in the iconic

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Rainbow portrait is a far cry from her modest beginnings.

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She was 60 when this was painted and a women very much in control

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of her image.

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To me, this is the high-water mark of Elizabethan portraiture.

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You can read it like a book. The gold robe itself is covered

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with these dismembered eyes and ears.

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The symbolic power of it is unequivocal.

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They're not even decorative, it's just telling you something.

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It's saying loud and clear, just how famous she is.

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She's someone who's talked about in the taverns,

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she's someone who's seen from afar.

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She is the great goddess of the new age.

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And then the pearls, the pearls

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that suffuse the picture as well, the pearls of virginity, of course.

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She's a virgin queen, she's not married. Don't forget it.

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But the more I look into Elizabeth's life in relation to her portraiture,

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so you see that these faces, these bodies, this jewellery,

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this expression and symbolism varies so much.

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And I came across, recently, a most interesting early example,

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one of a small clutch of portraits that show you just how radically

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she transformed, how she basically reinvented herself in paint.

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Philip's most recent find is the young Elizabeth,

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when she'd just ascended the throne.

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I was thrilled to have an unknown portrait and not only was it

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a very important early portrait,

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but it was one of those done just at the moment

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that she was surfacing as Queen.

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Not a glamourous image, but more just

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"Phew, my sister's dead, I'm Queen.

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"Take a look at me."

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We restored her. It became clear that there were other suggestions

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that the artist might have first thought about

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but then decided to paint out.

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Little ghostly ideas began to show through.

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And we immediately embarked,

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therefore, upon an X-ray to see what lay beneath.

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So, what have you found out?

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Well, this is the image of the picture as it is,

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hidden away underneath.

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You've got changes in the composition.

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The hand is in a very different shape.

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You can see here, the book that we've got from the final version,

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but underneath here, you've got this orb.

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And then there's difference here, it seems,

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in the style of the lace as well.

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This is a much more puritanical, Protestant type of lacework,

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as opposed to this more

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elaborate, beaded...

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So she's basically had a full makeover, really?

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She's been changed from this opulent portrait to the...

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From the secular to the religious?

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Exactly that, yeah.

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So this is an early example of spin-doctoring.

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This is the Queen or her advisor or someone of that nature saying,

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"It doesn't look good like that, Your Royal Highness."

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Or perhaps Her Royal Highness herself is saying it.

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"And instead,

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"why don't you represent yourself

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"as a pious head of the Church rather than a secular head of state?"

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That would make sense.

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The process of manipulation and re-presentation of her face

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and body to the nation is beginning.

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Elizabeth's reinvention didn't stop there.

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Hanging on my back gallery wall, greeting me every morning, is such a

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radically different picture,

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a picture of Elizabeth I

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five or six years into her reign.

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And it just shows you how very different

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art can make someone appear.

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And the contrast from this almost hatching insect that you see

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in the earlier portraits to this strutting pheasant of a queen

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is a testament to just how firmly she understood and wanted to harness

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the power of art when it came to presenting her to the world.

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And it's all to do with this, this massive, thick, rich backdrop of

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vegetables and fruits, all twinned and all with one message,

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which is fertility, marriageability, come and get me.

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About this time, she was meant to have suffered from smallpox.

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They thought that she was about to die.

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The House of Lords came to her and said "Please name an heir." She said,

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almost as a riposte to them, "How dare you ask me to name an heir?

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"I can produce my own.

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"I'm a fertile woman."

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The ripe fruits, the pomegranate that are bursting with fertility and pips.

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Every piece of greenery

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was her way of saying "I'm not barren and I can have a child. Leave off."

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And so what at first glance knocks you back as a sort of

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hugely ornate expression is in fact a rather primitive,

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possibly even poignant one.

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It's "I can find a husband, I can have children."

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And why poignant? Because she never did.

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She's always captured my imagination.

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How could she not? She was the person who ruled over a

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transformed England that then reached out across the world and

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changed itself and indeed the world, in the process.

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She's also a woman on a man's stage.

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And to have pulled off what she did

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and to have done it with such style as evidenced in her portraiture,

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she is a great inspiration.

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It's fascinating to think that we can still learn even more

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about an iconic royal like Elizabeth I

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just by looking carefully at her portraits.

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We often see items that have royal connections on the Antiques Roadshow

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and they offer a unique insight into the family behind the crown.

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Nine times out of ten, such precious pieces end up

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on the tables of our royal correspondents,

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jewellery expert Geoffrey Munn and books buff Clive Farahar.

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This is a splendid collection of royal ephemera,

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relating to Queen Mary and I must say, it has

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a very topical ring about it.

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These are all notes to her chef, is that right?

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That's right, yes.

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Saying wonderful things like "Do not give celery again

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"when the Princess Royal dines here."

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And "The dish was not popular." And so on and so forth.

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Another, "Please make a note that Princess Alice and Lord Athlone

0:20:270:20:30

"do not eat potatoes."

0:20:300:20:32

I think it's absolutely wonderful.

0:20:320:20:34

'Royal objects obviously create a frisson'

0:20:340:20:36

at the Roadshow as far as I'm concerned

0:20:360:20:39

because I love handling that sort of material.

0:20:390:20:43

Any letter that comes from a member

0:20:430:20:45

of the Royal Family tends to be, obviously, it's very personal.

0:20:450:20:51

And I love that sort of thing.

0:20:510:20:53

So the frisson is mine, all mine, and

0:20:530:20:55

I love to know where they come from and how they've got hold of them.

0:20:550:20:58

My father went to school with Mr Emilot's son

0:20:580:21:02

and when he died...

0:21:020:21:03

He was the chef?

0:21:030:21:04

He was the chef, Monsieur Emilot,

0:21:040:21:07

he was at Buckingham Palace and then went to

0:21:070:21:11

Marlborough House with Queen Mary.

0:21:110:21:13

-After the death of George V?

-Yes.

0:21:130:21:15

And these had been kept, obviously, by the chef.

0:21:150:21:17

He should have thrown them away or handed them into the archives

0:21:170:21:21

or whatever, but he kept them.

0:21:210:21:23

And it showed Queen Mary making quite

0:21:230:21:25

a bother about the meals and who liked what and who didn't like what.

0:21:250:21:30

You have this with some 40 or 50 notes in and you have

0:21:300:21:35

this lovely signed photograph which I assume came from the same place.

0:21:350:21:38

-Signed by Queen Mary in the war.

-Yes.

0:21:380:21:40

Wilton House provided Geoffrey Munn with an unexpected royal delight.

0:21:430:21:48

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

0:21:480:21:51

She arrived one day with a little bowl and she called it a lucky dip.

0:21:510:21:57

And she asked me if I would like to choose a piece of

0:21:570:22:00

jewellery for both of my children.

0:22:000:22:03

Amazing. I think this is probably the more spectacular lucky dip

0:22:030:22:06

I've ever seen in my life.

0:22:060:22:09

And it does put an immediate context on to the objects that we find.

0:22:090:22:13

And it's a provenance and it's a very exciting one.

0:22:130:22:16

Well, it says Princess Elizabeth, daughter of King Charles I.

0:22:160:22:21

She was born in 1635 and she died in 1650.

0:22:210:22:26

So it's a remarkably short life, actually.

0:22:260:22:29

And, in a way, this may be some kind of memorial to that life and here is

0:22:290:22:34

-a very beautiful stone in a...

-Very sparkly.

0:22:340:22:37

Very sparkly. And it's doing it right now.

0:22:370:22:39

It seems to like the attention were giving it.

0:22:390:22:41

Anyway, so is it a Stuart relic or not?

0:22:410:22:43

I think it probably is, which is a very exciting thing for me to say.

0:22:430:22:48

I think a link with royalty can add enormously to

0:22:480:22:50

the commercial value of an object.

0:22:500:22:52

And how on earth one's to value this, I haven't the slightest idea.

0:22:520:22:56

Maybe 7, 8, £9,000 for it without any reference to provenance whatsoever.

0:22:560:23:00

Put the provenance on and the sky's the limit, perhaps.

0:23:000:23:03

Maybe £15,000 isn't wrong.

0:23:030:23:06

I think the nicest things one sees on Roadshows that come from royalty are

0:23:070:23:13

letters of a very personal nature.

0:23:130:23:15

-This is from Windsor Castle. "Dear Mrs Way," - Is that Way?

-Yes.

0:23:150:23:21

"Thank you so very much for looking after,"

0:23:210:23:24

-and I think it's "Cling", is it?

-Cling, perhaps.

0:23:240:23:27

"..So beautifully. He seems to have quite recovered from his illness." Who is Cling?

0:23:270:23:32

Well, Cling must have been one of the dogs

0:23:320:23:35

that Elizabeth and Margaret left

0:23:350:23:38

for my grandmother and grandfather

0:23:380:23:40

to look after while they were away from Sandringham.

0:23:400:23:42

Was he a dog keeper to the royal family?

0:23:420:23:45

Well, my grandfather was a gamekeeper on the royal estate

0:23:450:23:49

at Sandringham but he also had the special responsibility

0:23:490:23:53

of living at the kennels and looking after the dogs of the Royal Family.

0:23:530:23:57

Queen Elizabeth, as she then was, also came to visit my grandmother

0:23:570:24:02

and on one occasion, we were playing cricket,

0:24:020:24:07

just with a tennis bat and a ball, and they took part in it.

0:24:070:24:13

And another occasion, they brought along the corgis and we and

0:24:130:24:16

my cousins were running around in our vest and knickers in the summer

0:24:160:24:19

and the corgis chased us upstairs.

0:24:190:24:22

And they think they enjoyed this human aspect, visiting us on that

0:24:220:24:28

basis, because they said in

0:24:280:24:30

the letters that they regarded my grandmother as one of their

0:24:300:24:34

friends, somebody to come and visit as soon as they got to Sandringham.

0:24:340:24:38

This one's signed by Albert. "Sandringham, Norfolk.

0:24:380:24:41

"With many thanks for looking after and training Scummy."

0:24:410:24:46

Scummy or Scrummy. That would have been one of the gun dogs, because

0:24:460:24:51

my grandfather, being a gamekeeper, would have known all about gun dogs

0:24:510:24:55

and the training of them.

0:24:550:24:57

And signed Albert, who is of course George VI.

0:24:570:25:00

This was a very private side of them,

0:25:000:25:02

and that was, I think, absolutely charming.

0:25:020:25:05

Now, I think one of the most exciting royal discoveries I made

0:25:050:25:08

was a memorial stickpin made to Queen Victoria's order

0:25:080:25:13

to commemorate the death of Prince Albert.

0:25:130:25:15

Probably been in my possession for about 10 to 15 years.

0:25:150:25:19

I might have only paid about a tenner for it.

0:25:190:25:21

A tenner? Isn't that wonderful?

0:25:210:25:24

It's the most exciting jewel, this, because it's a memorial to one of

0:25:240:25:28

the most famous love affairs that has ever taken place on this planet.

0:25:280:25:33

It's a memorial pin for Prince Albert.

0:25:330:25:35

It got his cipher on the front,

0:25:350:25:38

an A under a royal crown, but more importantly, on the back, it says

0:25:380:25:43

"In remembrance of the beloved Prince,

0:25:430:25:45

"December 14th, 1861, from VR," from Victoria Regina.

0:25:450:25:52

I think the love affair between Prince Albert and Victoria

0:25:520:25:55

was a very public one. It was a very intense one.

0:25:550:25:58

Queen Victoria wrote that she only

0:25:580:26:01

had to look into his dear, sunny face to make her adore him.

0:26:010:26:04

And I think she really did adore him.

0:26:040:26:06

And when it opens here,

0:26:060:26:08

we can see a contemporary photograph of the Prince Consort within it.

0:26:080:26:13

Have you ever had it professionally valued?

0:26:130:26:15

Well, only up to about £200, actually.

0:26:150:26:19

£200 for a piece of jewellery of national importance, really?

0:26:190:26:23

My goodness. I don't think it's enough.

0:26:230:26:25

I think it's worth £3,000 of anybody's money.

0:26:250:26:28

£3,000!

0:26:280:26:29

£3,000, indeed.

0:26:290:26:30

It's a thrilling thing.

0:26:300:26:32

It's just as much an emblem of her grief as the Albert Memorial.

0:26:320:26:36

The Albert Memorial is a vast architectural monument to Prince Albert

0:26:360:26:39

and this is a tiny stickpin, but she wrote to King Leopold of the

0:26:390:26:42

Belgians the day after Albert's death and said,

0:26:420:26:45

"My life as a happy one is ended.

0:26:450:26:47

"The world is gone from me."

0:26:470:26:49

And this tiny jewel says it all about the most important person

0:26:490:26:53

living in the world at that time.

0:26:530:26:55

Clive Farahar and Geoffrey Munn with some of their most

0:26:590:27:01

memorable royal finds.

0:27:010:27:03

Which just about brings us to the close of this episode of Priceless Antiques Roadshow.

0:27:030:27:07

Next time we revisit the archives to hear stories

0:27:070:27:09

of unsung heroes from wartime.

0:27:090:27:11

And this gentleman was so quiet, unassuming, and a real hero.

0:27:110:27:18

I felt very privileged to be there that day.

0:27:180:27:21

Ceramics specialist John Sandon tries his hand at a

0:27:210:27:24

time-honoured tradition.

0:27:240:27:26

Sandons have a reputation for being the worst potters imaginable.

0:27:260:27:30

I don't think this is going to be a masterpiece on a future Antiques Roadshow.

0:27:300:27:34

And we delve in to the story of domestic technology with more fascinating finds.

0:27:340:27:40

It's an amazing object, isn't it?

0:27:400:27:41

It shrieks, literally, sixties at you. These incredible colours.

0:27:410:27:45

It's so dynamic and vibrant.

0:27:450:27:48

Before we go, another classic Roadshow outtake.

0:27:480:27:51

Pictures expert Mark Poltimore usually has

0:27:510:27:54

a fabulous eye for detail but we all have our off days! Goodbye.

0:27:540:27:58

Here we have a 17th century subject but, in fact, it's probably painted

0:28:010:28:08

in the 20th century, in the early part of the 20th century.

0:28:080:28:11

Probably about 1900, 1905, something like that.

0:28:110:28:16

Well, the date's on there.

0:28:160:28:17

You're absolutely right. Can we start again?

0:28:170:28:20

1891.

0:28:200:28:24

You made me rush.

0:28:240:28:25

Shall we start again now? I was out by 10 years, come on!

0:28:270:28:31

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0:28:440:28:46

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0:28:460:28:49

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