Episode 6 Priceless Antiques Roadshow

Heard the one about the ceramics expert and the go-go dancer?

No? It's not a joke. It's just one of our stories coming up

as we bring you another Priceless Antiques Roadshow.

A classic edition of the Antiques Roadshow is a perfect triangle,

a memorable meeting between wonderful objects, delighted experts

and interesting owners, each with their own story to tell.

Tonight we're reunited with some of the most colourful visitors to have stepped in front of our cameras.

I think collectors need to be both mad and eccentric.

I think all those qualities help.

-Who made the jacket?

-I made the Hutch jacket. It matches the Hutch doll.

Oriental expert, David Battie, admits to a private passion.

I'm a huge addict of the 50s and 60s.

To many people watching this, I mean, this is the Antiques Roadshow,

this is about antiques.

Antiques have to be 100 years old.

And Roadshow host for two decades, Hugh Scully, picks his most precious moments.

Paul Storr was a remarkable goldsmith,

probably the best native goldsmith this country ever produced.

He made absolutely breathtaking things.

To find items like that really...

Well, it was one of those things that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

This is Kenwood House in North London,

a place that's been home to some celebrated residents, like the inventor John Joseph Merlin.

He was road testing a pair of roller skates he'd designed

when he crashed into one of the fabulous mirrors here.

Playing the violin at the time probably didn't help!

Colourful characters are an essential ingredient for the Antiques Roadshow, too.

As you'll see, we've met quite a cast of them over the years

and these are some of our leading ladies.

-£8,000.

-£8,000! Oh, that's a nice thought.

Another few cruises!

-How old is it?

-A couple of years.

-Oh, no!

You're joking! Are you joking?

SHE GASPS

He's not quite so sozzled, so he's singing.

Yes.

£3,000 to £5,000.

I'll treat him with more respect.

'A dream owner on the Antiques Roadshow is one that's

'full of character and a little edge of eccentricity.'

Somebody that's...vulnerable, perhaps,

and the most vulnerable lady I ever met was in her 90s.

Well, this is a beautiful brooch, a very old brooch. How long have you had it?

Oh, I suppose about 25 to 26 years.

I think I was round about 70 or odd then and I'm nearly 92 now.

Fantastic! Isn't that marvellous?

She had brought me an Art-Nouveau brooch designed by a jeweller called Aucoq in Paris in 1900.

It had been given to her by the lady of the house in which she worked.

My lady had gone out for the day.

It was very strange because she had gone out to lunch with her friend

and I thought, "Oh God, that gives me time to do a job in the house."

We'd just lost our housekeeper.

I was working away and came into the flat

-just as she rang the bell to say she was coming home.

-Mm?

This was a very strong lady indeed,

and she was very articulate and fearless in everything that she did.

Courageous is the right word for her, absolutely courageous.

I opened the door

and her friend and she moved in followed by two men.

The one with the despatch case said to me,

-"Lay down on the floor, this is real!"

-No!

-And produced a pistol or a gun in front of me, you know.

-No!

I looked at him and I said, "What?" He looked so, so surprised.

-I should think so.

-Then he turned round and said,

"Don't be bloody stupid, this is real."

-No!

-So I said, "You get the hell out of it else I'll call the police."

In which they both, he and his partner, turned round and rushed out of the house.

She'd actually fought off some burglars from that house and driven them out into the street.

I chased them part of the way down the road but lost them at the corner.

You are absolutely fantastic!

I came back, sat down on the doorstep and burst into tears.

Oh, no! Oh, goodness.

Well you were very brave, weren't you?

I think your lady thought you were very brave to give you such a beautiful brooch.

Yes, she gave me one or two very nice things in her life.

She ranks enormously high, if not the top, really.

Everybody fell in love with her. It was possible for millions of people to fall in love with her

through the power of television. Wonderful stuff.

Talking about interesting people,

there were two sisters in Arundel in 2006 who were so delightful.

Those were all my soft toys at the time,

-so I was a very lucky little girl.

-All of them? How many are there?

I don't know but we've still got 35 of them out of that picture.

Really?

And they told me which was their favourite

and I told them a bit about their toys and picked the odd one.

When I was little, Flip and this one here, Lop,

used to be with me constantly.

Another one here intrigues me,

I don't know if you found out about it, he's called Bingo.

He's called Bingo because it says so on him. He's always been Bingo.

-Yes.

-He once got left on a bus and he was rescued.

-Oh, he didn't!

-He did.

The women were laughing away about their favourite toy,

"That's mine and that's hers."

You could just see these two playing together when they were little girls

and saying, "Well, you can have that one."

"That one's mine." "No, that one's mine."

They were doing it aged whatever they were, in their 80s.

Absolutely heaven!

-You've got a lovely photograph here.

-Ghastly, really.

And that's you, is it?

That's me holding him.

-Holding Mickey Mouse.

-Yes, and that's our mother.

That is her and that is our nanny.

What are you holding there? Are you holding this one?

I'm holding a doll which was known as Big Pam funnily enough

and it was a Chad Valley doll and I've still got her,

but sadly the puppy ate half her face.

-As puppies do!

-They do, yes.

If this is just part of your collection...

-It is.

-36 of them, I dread to think how much they're all worth.

It's wonderful to know.

-How lovely. I'm so glad you came in with them.

-Thank you so much.

'It's ladies like these that bring the programme to life.'

'Our next owner brightened up a damp day in Scotland for Ian Pickford.'

You realise they're shoe buckles.

-Are they shoe buckles?

-Oh, yes, yes. Silver buckles on your shoe.

SHE GASPS

I couldn't believe they were shoe buckles

because they were far too big.

I tried one on my head to see if I could turn it into a hat,

it wasn't wide enough.

I wondered if I could have a lovely, fancy buckle round my waist,

when I was a bit younger, when I had a bit of a waist,

but that didn't fit. So I hadn't a clue.

Her son, who was there,

had said to me, "You're gonna have fun!"

I didn't realise quite how much until I got into it.

What most people don't realise is that cut steel

-was more expensive in 1780 than silver.

-Was it?

And so this was actually a cheaper version.

THE AUDIENCE CHUCKLE

No!

'First she was asking me,'

making rather unexpected comments every now and again.

I think we're looking at a value of about £400.

Oh, how lovely!

Do you know anybody who'd buy them off me?

LAUGHTER

-Well, there are some avid buckle collectors.

-Oh, wonderful.

What about the spoons? What can you tell me?

The spoons are my son's.

But the finale, if you like, when it came to value...

Most people react in a somewhat similar sort of manner.

You can't exactly predict the reaction

but you have a pretty good idea how they're going to react.

Her reaction came absolutely out of left field.

So how much are they worth?

-I don't know.

-I think you're looking at...

-Half a crown each?

I think a little more. A little more.

I think we're looking at at least £500.

-For four of them?

-Each.

Each!

Each.

I must get round my son to leave them to me in his will.

What, wonderful!

It's getting even better.

They were lovely, a lovely crowd.

Oh, marvellous.

All smiling and joking. They just roared with laughter.

Hilary came at a couple of more recent additions to the cast in Bexhill-on-Sea.

It's Starsky and Hutch heaven, really, isn't it?

It is for us.

What was the first thing you bought?

That would be the Starsky doll.

And notice the cardigan.

-I am noticing the cardigan.

-It was knitted by my mother in 1975.

THEY LAUGH

It's sheer devotion. Did she knit you that one at the same time?

No, my friend here knitted this one.

-And who made the jacket?

-I made the Hutch jacket, yes.

It matches the Hutch doll.

So you became friends...

This is not your life.

-No.

-You have normal lives.

-Yes, we do.

-You share this extraordinary passion for Starsky and Hutch.

-We do.

'The two girls'

with their Starsky and Hutch collection I thought were fantastic.

The great thing was it was all fun for them.

They didn't take it too seriously.

And yet the nub of the show, the friendship between the two men,

is what made it so long lasting.

And they were good looking!

-I know that's a minor point.

-Not for me it wasn't!

-I have to say, he was my favourite.

-Oh, yes!

It's about 50-50, yes.

I think collectors need to be both mad and eccentric.

I think all those qualities help.

I don't suppose you remember the theme tune.

-The theme tune, let me see.

-Do you want to go?

THEY SING THE THEME TUNE

Well, surely an Oscar-winning performance!

Some truly unforgettable ladies there.

It's harder than it looks to come along to the Roadshow

with your object and just be yourself on camera.

It's not always easy for the experts, either.

One of the new additions to the team is ceramics expert, Stephen Moore.

My first recording was a bit like the first day at school.

I knew some of the experts

but like everything I was a little bit nervous.

I grew up watching the Roadshow, so I knew how it worked

from a public point of view,

but I'd never been in amongst it so, as I say,

like the first day at school you knew some of the bigger boys

and some of the head girls

but you weren't really sure where you'd fit in.

Then out of the corner of my eye I saw a tea set made in Newcastle.

I thought, "Why isn't it coming to me? That's just what I'd love to do."

Then, lo and behold, it was brought over to me and they said,

"This is made in Newcastle. You know about Newcastle pottery.

"You should do this record."

And I thought, "Oh!"

So if you were in bed, imagine your 1930s house,

you'd have your cup and saucer, you'd have the milk jug and sugar.

You'd have dainty biscuits or a piece of toast

just to wake you up in the morning.

Then you'd probably have the maid come in and try and pour and dribble

all over your nice, white tablecloth. Do you have...

'It was comforting for me to have something'

which I was so familiar with, that I knew inside out,

that I'd be able to talk about.

I think the people who owned it had an idea it was something interesting.

'That's the great thing about Roadshow, they bring it to you

'and you can tell them about it.'

It's Maling, who are perhaps the most famous Newcastle pottery.

Really for many, many collectors this is something of an icon for them.

A Maling collector would give their eye teeth for it.

-They would get very little change out of £3,000.

-Oh!

That's more than I expected.

-No more playing dollies' tea sets with it.

-I won't.

'Somehow, this tea set'

coming to me was like a nice, warm welcome from the Roadshow family.

It set me on the right road and never look back, I hope.

I know what he means,

having been warmly welcomed by the team myself recently.

Over the last year, I've got to know the specialists a lot better

and I can tell you we've got some characters.

None more so than ceramics expert, David Battie.

Having watched the show at home,

I knew about his enthusiasm for all things Eastern.

But I didn't know he harboured a secret passion

for the vibrant and colourful designs of pots

produced in the late 50s and early 60s.

His confession slipped out in the presence of an unforgettable visitor to the Roadshow.

AUSTIN POWERS THEME MUSIC PLAYS

I'm a huge addict of the 50s and 60s. To be sitting here surrounded

by all these wonderful textiles and ceramics is to me great fun.

I have a house full of it at home and you, presumably, do too.

Yes, I do. This is only a fraction of what I have.

My flat is actually chock-a-block with stuff.

Many of the ceramics I know all too well

because they're up in my roof at home.

'Ormskirk has embarrassingly faded from my mind completely.'

'I can only remember'

glancing round to one side and there is Jo

in her 1960s kit

and I looked at her and I thought,

"This is extraordinary, I'm not here.

"I'm back in the 60s!"

The kit you're in reminds me so much of my youth I can't bear it.

I was a teenager in the 50s.

And at art school in the 60s.

That's a very formative period for somebody.

What I've got is a sort of folk memory

somewhere drifting around in here, of that time.

It's that, really, which has driven me.

It's not actually the objects themselves,

it's what the period was about.

The striving for something better.

BIG BAND MUSIC PLAYS

Those things sort of insidiously got into my mind

but they didn't come out again until about 20 years ago

when I suddenly started looking at 1950s things and thinking,

"It's really quite interesting."

Some of the recent fruits of David's 50s enthusiasm

now sit alongside his ancient Japanese treasures.

I find objects fascinating.

Whatever they are, I'm interested.

Those are three things I bought in the last six months.

Less than that, three months.

They are German and they're of a group called Fat Lava.

The middle one, the large one,

really I thought that was a staggering bit of shape making

and the colouring worked perfectly, very intense red.

That kind of sort of links to the lacquer layer.

And they were not expensive.

So I started buying them. Didn't cost anything.

My wife absolutely hated them.

Still does. They weren't allowed to be out anywhere. This is...

This is only cos it's hidden away.

Everything else has been up in the attic.

We decided to give David the chance

to dust off a few select pieces to show his old 60s pal, Jo.

# I remember you...#

We've turned the tables on him

and invited her to take a look at his collection, ten years on.

It would be fascinating to see Jo I don't know how many years on.

I'm hoping she's gonna come in her kit.

I hope that the spark will be there and that she hasn't lost interest

in the 50s and gone back to the Rococo period or something.

MUSIC: 'Shout' by Lulu

There's no danger of that

because Jo's still very much in the swinging 60s.

So much so, she's recently taken up go-go dancing.

I'm really looking forward to it, it should be great fun.

I think it's a very clever thing to have done to have got her down here.

-Jo! Good to see you.

-Great to see you again.

-How are you?

-Very well, thank you.

-Fantastic. You haven't changed.

Thank you very much, neither have you.

Are you still collecting?

I am collecting. The passion never dies.

It doesn't, does it? Absolutely not.

What do you think of these bits and bobs?

You've got some nice Homemaker.

I've got quite a lot of Homemaker which was made by Ridgway

from 1955 to 1965.

It was exclusive to Woolworths and they made 6 million pieces.

I think it's wonderful. That's a coffee pot. I haven't got a teapot.

-Haven't you?

-Have you?

-No, I haven't.

-They're terribly rare.

-They are.

-Anything here tempt you?

This.

Casson.

-It's gorgeous, isn't it?

-It is good.

He was a very good watercolour artist.

He taught Prince Charles to paint.

You could buy a piece of Casson for £15 or something.

Yes, I would think so if you're looking for a small sugar bowl.

Exactly.

The baby blue colour

-just comes through beautifully.

-It works, doesn't it? Yes, yes.

Actually, that sort of powder blue,

-which you were allowed during the war.

-Oh, really?

-Yeah.

In 1953 the colour restrictions come off

and the whole thing goes completely bonkers.

-It just exploded.

-It exploded in colour.

Has your collection moved in a particular direction?

I'm still very much collecting everyday household things,

still collecting clothes.

I try to be a bit more elegant now as I move into my dotage.

Oh! I think that clip of us, however long ago it was,

you were fantastic with your white stockings.

Quite a swinging style, wasn't it?

It really was, yes.

-You do turn heads if you walk into a room like that.

-I can imagine.

Next time you see David entranced by a piece of Ming porcelain

think of him at home, equally besotted with a 1950s tea set.

You see? Now you know the real David Battie.

And one man knew the real Antiques Roadshow, behind the scenes as well as on camera.

Hugh Scully hosted the show for 19 years, and we asked him to pick his most priceless moments.

Not surprisingly, some of his fondest memories are of Roadshow legend Arthur Negus.

Now what's this?

I'm curious to know what it is.

It's been in the family for years.

We often wonder just what it's for.

It's lovely, isn't it?

Well!

This is very interesting because that's a door handle!

THEY LAUGH

That's a door handle, and this is a brass vase for a little posy.

What do you mean it's always been like that?

It's always been like that, for years and years!

Go on with you!

It's been a pleasure looking at old clips from the Antiques Roadshow,

and in particular seeing, in those early editions, Arthur Negus again.

I always reflect on the fact that if it weren't for Arthur, I don't think any of us would be here

because Arthur was the first person to make antiques a popular subject on television.

That certainly is just an ordinary door handle.

-Oh, dear.

-Which opens any door.

That would look pretty, with a rose or little posy.

-It does look nice with a rose.

-There you are.

Shall I put it back in? They're no relation.

In the introduction to the Plymouth programme,

I told the story of Napoleon Bonaparte coming to Plymouth in 1815.

What had happened was he was then a hunted man in France.

After the Battle of Waterloo, if the French had caught him

they would have strung him up from the nearest tree.

He was extremely unpopular in France.

He made his way to the west coast of Brittany, where there were two ships.

One was a ship heading for America, with a French crew,

and the other was a Royal Naval ship called HMS Bellerophon.

He thought he'd be safer

surrendering to the British Royal Navy

than he would be going to America with a French crew.

So he surrendered to Captain Maitland of the Navy,

and he was brought over to Devon, first of all to Brixham and then to Plymouth,

on board HMS Bellerophon.

But that led to something else later in the programme,

and when I saw it I could hardly believe it.

I told you the story of how Napoleon Bonaparte came to be in Plymouth

in 1815, after the Battle of Waterloo.

Look at what's just come in, this green Morocco leather case.

It's actually French imperial green.

And inside is this superb miniature of the former emperor.

He's actually still wearing the green uniform that he had at that time.

This is exactly the sort of thing he might have presented to someone

in gratitude for a service received.

It is therefore not beyond the realms of possibility

this could have been presented to someone in Plymouth,

perhaps even Captain Maitland of HMS Bellerophon,

before Napoleon set out on his final journey to St Helena.

A romantic story, but it could just be true.

It was a particularly exciting find for me

because history has always been perhaps my greatest interest,

and that particular period of history, too,

from the time of the French Revolution, through the Napoleonic wars.

And so to find items like that, it was one of those things

that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

I remember, in 1991, we were in Salisbury,

in the magnificent setting of the cathedral.

A man went to the reception area... Everyone has to go through reception.

He went to the reception area and he had what he thought was a piece of brass.

The woman who saw him first was Penny Brittain,

one of our experts with great knowledge of all sorts of things,

and Penny knew immediately, when she looked at this,

that it wasn't made of brass.

And he let slip in this first conversation

that he had another three at home.

So Penny said to him, "If we got you a taxi

"do you think you could go home and fetch the other three?"

That was all agreed, the taxi came, he went away.

An hour later he came back with four of these salts, as they're known.

Salt cellars, really, but known in the trade as salts.

They certainly weren't made of brass,

and the expert who recorded the item with him,

Brand Ingles, I remember, couldn't believe his luck.

These were made by this very famous

goldsmith called Paul Storr.

Paul Storr was a remarkable goldsmith,

probably the best native goldsmith this country ever produced.

Where did you get them?

My father gave them to me about a year, 18 months, before he died.

The gilding on them is so wonderful, it's so thick and heavy.

Just the quality of the work, everything is absolutely brilliant.

They're not worn,

all the chiselling on the little mermen here is absolutely brilliant.

They are really tremendous, tremendous salt cellars.

Have you any idea what you think they're worth?

I haven't any idea whatsoever, no.

Well! Yes!

I think, on balance,

if I had to buy these,

I think I'd have to be looking...

..at £40,000.

Good lord!

You do surprise me!

THEY LAUGH

So Brand valued it at more or less £40,000,

but, eventually, it sold to The Salters' Company,

which is one of the great City companies, it sold to The Salters' Company,

because they regarded it as so important,

for £66,000.

Hugh Scully, with some precious moments, which brings us to the close of another show.

Tomorrow, arms and militaria expert Graham Lay

recalls some moving encounters as he meets the descendants of prisoners of war.

I feel the Roadshow is terribly important from one aspect in particular.

It helps to uncover, to show to the general public,

those stories people could tell that are mainly kept within the family.

Marc Allum confesses to a mania for collecting.

There are many objects in the house that were acquired in that way,

through patience and waiting, and after many years, coming across one in the right situation,

and knowing that it was just an absolute bargain.

Ceramics expert Henry Sandon tells us about the one that got away.

I didn't do the Whitney Court Roadshow. Son John did it. Curse him!

And he got, I suppose, the most magnificent slipware tyg

that's ever turned up on the Roadshow.

If I'd been there, I'd have fought him tooth and nail for it.

You'll agree Henry's become a bit of an institution.

He recently received his MBE.

But the first time he was singled out for an award, in 1992,

it was a bit more stressful,

because it was the one that strikes fear into the hearts

of TV professionals everywhere - the Noel Edmonds Gotcha.

He was set up.

An unlikely-looking man turned up with a very valuable vase.

Henry was tipped off by a pretend police officer

that they were interested in his client.

Remember, Henry thinks it's all for real. The rest is priceless!

I'll leave you to enjoy it. Bye bye.

-We'd like to...

-Just a minute, sir.

BREAKING CERAMICS

It's all right. Is it broken?

CERAMICS RATTLE

STUDIO LAUGHTER DROWNS SPEECH

Oh, look.

It's all in little pieces here.

Oh, dear.

Now, Mr Sandon...

I might have guessed.

Henry, you are the recipient of a Noel Edmonds Gotcha Oscar!

I shan't recover from this ever!

This will be the last Roadshow I ever do!

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd

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