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Our journey through the annals of Roadshow history are about to end. | 0:00:07 | 0:00:10 | |
Just time for one last edition as we dig out some golden nuggets from the vaults. | 0:00:10 | 0:00:15 | |
Just as well - we've left some of our most memorable moments for last. | 0:00:15 | 0:00:19 | |
If you ask our experts which are their most special finds | 0:00:45 | 0:00:48 | |
in 30 years on the Roadshow, | 0:00:48 | 0:00:50 | |
for many it's been when they've touched objects | 0:00:50 | 0:00:53 | |
associated with great moments in history. | 0:00:53 | 0:00:55 | |
In this episode, Paul Atterbury and Simon Bull recall some extraordinary encounters. | 0:00:58 | 0:01:02 | |
'Sometimes an item comes in that really sends shivers down your spine.' | 0:01:02 | 0:01:06 | |
You get this feeling that here is history, real history. | 0:01:06 | 0:01:09 | |
A fantastic feeling, that is. | 0:01:09 | 0:01:12 | |
One of our experts is transported back to his first job working as a porter in an auction house... | 0:01:12 | 0:01:18 | |
Good morning, Knowles, we're expecting a lot of people today, a very big sale... | 0:01:18 | 0:01:22 | |
-Right. -So I want you to be on your very best, attentive behaviour. | 0:01:22 | 0:01:26 | |
And what is the magic of the Roadshow? | 0:01:28 | 0:01:30 | |
One is incredibly lucky, because The Antiques Roadshow acts as a magnet. | 0:01:30 | 0:01:35 | |
And things that you really wouldn't believe existed | 0:01:35 | 0:01:39 | |
just come out of the woodwork to the programme, it's amazing. | 0:01:39 | 0:01:42 | |
For some, the love affair starts young. | 0:01:44 | 0:01:46 | |
Collecting can be an infectious disease caught in your youth. | 0:01:46 | 0:01:50 | |
High time, we thought, to remember some of our youngest visitors to one of Britain's oldest shows. | 0:01:50 | 0:01:55 | |
Our experts have hosted a total of 14 children's specials over the years, and it never gets any easier. | 0:01:58 | 0:02:05 | |
The old phrase "never work with children and animals" | 0:02:05 | 0:02:08 | |
was what sort of went through my mind. | 0:02:08 | 0:02:11 | |
'I have to say that my experiences of working with children are absolutely delightful.' | 0:02:11 | 0:02:16 | |
-I like that one. -You like it, too? | 0:02:16 | 0:02:19 | |
You'd better do up your shoe down there, yes. | 0:02:19 | 0:02:21 | |
Working with children, you know there is going to be that moment | 0:02:21 | 0:02:26 | |
when you are going to be completely upstaged, | 0:02:26 | 0:02:29 | |
and you just have to lay back and enjoy it. | 0:02:29 | 0:02:31 | |
The history of Meccano goes back actually quite a lot further than 19... | 0:02:31 | 0:02:36 | |
-1901. -That's right. | 0:02:36 | 0:02:38 | |
And also, they don't take you seriously. | 0:02:38 | 0:02:42 | |
If you're wrong, they will tell you. | 0:02:42 | 0:02:45 | |
It's a risk. Children are a definite risk. | 0:02:45 | 0:02:49 | |
I've got a slight problem here today, I'm having great difficulty deciding who's who. So who are you? | 0:02:49 | 0:02:55 | |
-Dan. -Dan. | 0:02:55 | 0:02:57 | |
Doing a children's roadshow can be - | 0:02:57 | 0:02:59 | |
you can really get your comeuppance there. | 0:02:59 | 0:03:02 | |
I remember two wonderful boys, who brought in an early pocket watch. | 0:03:02 | 0:03:07 | |
And in order to demonstrate how it worked, I actually needed to take the movement out. | 0:03:07 | 0:03:12 | |
I'm gonna take this one a little bit to pieces. | 0:03:12 | 0:03:14 | |
Do you know how to do this safely? | 0:03:14 | 0:03:18 | |
Yes, I hope so. "Are you sure you know what you're doing?!" | 0:03:18 | 0:03:21 | |
The Children's Roadshow really happened through something Hugh Scully and I did. | 0:03:26 | 0:03:31 | |
We just the two of us appeared on a children's programme, and there was such an enormous | 0:03:31 | 0:03:36 | |
response from the kids that it made everybody sit up and take notice, | 0:03:36 | 0:03:40 | |
and the decision was then to make a special children's programme. | 0:03:40 | 0:03:44 | |
THEME TUNE PLAYS | 0:03:44 | 0:03:48 | |
Dozens of youngsters have brought their treasures along to | 0:03:48 | 0:03:51 | |
Children's Roadshows since they started in 1992. | 0:03:51 | 0:03:55 | |
And the memories have left a deep and lasting impression on some of our experts. | 0:03:55 | 0:04:00 | |
I can almost hear the children now, as I remember the Bristol Roadshow. | 0:04:00 | 0:04:06 | |
There were several children who clearly were already on the road to obsession in their collection. | 0:04:08 | 0:04:14 | |
Some of them were absolutely charming. | 0:04:14 | 0:04:16 | |
One of the most impressive young people who came to the show was the girl, she was six years old, | 0:04:16 | 0:04:21 | |
and she brought in a collection of fossils. | 0:04:21 | 0:04:24 | |
-You've got a little animals' graveyard here. -Yes. | 0:04:24 | 0:04:27 | |
Can you just quickly take me through what they are? | 0:04:27 | 0:04:30 | |
Er, a dinosaur bone, | 0:04:30 | 0:04:32 | |
an ammonite, a crinoid, | 0:04:32 | 0:04:37 | |
petrified wood, some coral, a trilobite, | 0:04:37 | 0:04:41 | |
-shark teeth and echinoids. -Gosh, you could start a whole new planet with all of these. -Yes. | 0:04:41 | 0:04:48 | |
She could pin to each bone and tooth the correct polysyllabic word - | 0:04:48 | 0:04:55 | |
not bad for a six-year-old. And for anybody listening, polysyllabic means long word. | 0:04:55 | 0:05:00 | |
Do you have any favourites here? | 0:05:00 | 0:05:02 | |
Erm, this one's one of my favourites, because I dug this one up by myself. | 0:05:02 | 0:05:08 | |
-And when did they live? -Erm, round the Cretaceous period. | 0:05:08 | 0:05:14 | |
And then at the end, I said, "Is there any fossil you | 0:05:14 | 0:05:17 | |
"would like Father Christmas to bring you?" | 0:05:17 | 0:05:20 | |
No, Santa doesn't get fossils. | 0:05:20 | 0:05:25 | |
But if he did, I saw this skull, | 0:05:25 | 0:05:29 | |
a bit of a skull of a baby mammoth, and it was a real lot of money so we couldn't have it. | 0:05:29 | 0:05:35 | |
It's not every six-year-old who wants a baby mammoth for Christmas. | 0:05:35 | 0:05:39 | |
And at Gateshead in 2008, Christmas came early for Bill Harriman. | 0:05:41 | 0:05:46 | |
This is a Waterloo medal, and it really is one of the | 0:05:46 | 0:05:49 | |
greatest battles in British history, where the menace of Napoleon | 0:05:49 | 0:05:53 | |
was dealt with once and for all. | 0:05:53 | 0:05:57 | |
It's one of those medals that every collector dreams of. Tell me how you got it. | 0:05:57 | 0:06:01 | |
It is actually my great, great, great, great grandfather's. | 0:06:01 | 0:06:06 | |
It was passed down the family. | 0:06:06 | 0:06:08 | |
I think it was an exciting object, because | 0:06:08 | 0:06:11 | |
it was a direct link with the owner's family, and he could say | 0:06:11 | 0:06:17 | |
that he could hold in his hand an object which his ancestor had held. | 0:06:17 | 0:06:23 | |
He was called William McNull. | 0:06:23 | 0:06:24 | |
He was born in 1795, and at the age of 15, he joined the Army, in Leeds. | 0:06:24 | 0:06:32 | |
And so by the age of 20, that's when he went to the Battle of Waterloo. | 0:06:32 | 0:06:39 | |
I just think that that's a launch into your family's history. | 0:06:39 | 0:06:43 | |
And he could also tell you that on 18th June 1815, exactly, | 0:06:43 | 0:06:49 | |
what his ancestor was doing, and that was banging two sticks on a drum. | 0:06:49 | 0:06:54 | |
This is really rare, because you don't often find medals that are inscribed | 0:06:54 | 0:06:59 | |
to drummers. | 0:06:59 | 0:07:00 | |
Waterloo medals, they cost anything between sort of £1,500-£2,000. | 0:07:00 | 0:07:07 | |
But I want you to promise me that you'll look after that | 0:07:07 | 0:07:10 | |
for your family, because it's really important. | 0:07:10 | 0:07:13 | |
-Right. -I also think you don't own it, | 0:07:13 | 0:07:15 | |
you just look after it for the next generation. | 0:07:15 | 0:07:17 | |
I really wish that I owned that, something with my family name on it, | 0:07:17 | 0:07:21 | |
that was at that great event in Europe. | 0:07:21 | 0:07:24 | |
Going back to 1992, an unsuspecting Hilary was about to fight another battle. | 0:07:25 | 0:07:31 | |
This is an enormous box. It says Meccano on the top, is it full? | 0:07:31 | 0:07:34 | |
Yes, it's the number six set | 0:07:34 | 0:07:37 | |
-which was around 76 years ago, in 1916. -1916?! | 0:07:37 | 0:07:43 | |
That memorable recording of the young boy with the Meccano set was sort of all my nightmares put together. | 0:07:45 | 0:07:52 | |
'I had this really young child to interview, | 0:07:52 | 0:07:56 | |
'who I thought would know nothing, but of course he knew everything!' | 0:07:56 | 0:08:00 | |
So every fact I came out with, he sort of countered with a backhand slice. | 0:08:00 | 0:08:04 | |
The history of Meccano goes back actually quite a lot further than 19... | 0:08:04 | 0:08:09 | |
1901. | 0:08:09 | 0:08:11 | |
That's right. That's when he started producing Meccano. | 0:08:11 | 0:08:15 | |
And this tennis match went on, and it was always my ball that ended up in the net. It was completely priceless. | 0:08:15 | 0:08:21 | |
Watching the clip again, it does seem to have | 0:08:21 | 0:08:25 | |
a quite quaint sense of comedy to it, it's almost like | 0:08:25 | 0:08:29 | |
a bit of a pastiche of the Antiques Roadshow, because I seem to come out | 0:08:29 | 0:08:33 | |
with a lot of facts and dates and so on, which I probably wouldn't | 0:08:33 | 0:08:39 | |
have known two days before, and almost certainly wouldn't have remembered two days afterwards. | 0:08:39 | 0:08:45 | |
I don't know if this is something that you wanted to know how much it's worth... | 0:08:45 | 0:08:50 | |
-£50. -No, more than that... | 0:08:50 | 0:08:52 | |
He actually came out with a valuation figure before I could even get mine out. | 0:08:52 | 0:08:57 | |
I mean, I suppose I should be thankful that he was wrong, otherwise actually what was I doing there? | 0:08:57 | 0:09:02 | |
I only have the vaguest memory of meeting Hilary Kay. | 0:09:02 | 0:09:07 | |
Erm, I remember walking past Andy Peters in the gents' toilets. | 0:09:07 | 0:09:12 | |
He was a big children's television presenter at the time! | 0:09:12 | 0:09:15 | |
There's nothing like getting a taste for antiques when you're young. | 0:09:19 | 0:09:22 | |
And that's certainly true for many of our experts, | 0:09:22 | 0:09:24 | |
who learned their trade by starting right at the bottom of the ladder, as porters in auction houses. | 0:09:24 | 0:09:30 | |
So we took one of our best-loved specialists, Eric Knowles, | 0:09:30 | 0:09:34 | |
back to his roots and let him loose on the saleroom floor for a day to see how he got on. | 0:09:34 | 0:09:39 | |
It's years since Eric has been out from behind his desk at a | 0:09:39 | 0:09:43 | |
major London auction house, but there's no time for slacking in a Yorkshire saleroom. | 0:09:43 | 0:09:47 | |
You really do have to start at the bottom of the ladder, | 0:09:47 | 0:09:52 | |
when you start in the antiques world, certainly for an auction house. | 0:09:52 | 0:09:56 | |
More often than not, you start off as a porter. | 0:09:56 | 0:09:59 | |
You're on a learning curve, and I can tell you know, that learning curve was so steep. | 0:09:59 | 0:10:05 | |
Certainly the first three years, and after that it levels off a little bit. But it never flattens out. | 0:10:05 | 0:10:11 | |
And that's what makes this business so fascinating. | 0:10:11 | 0:10:15 | |
Being a potter, it sounds quite lowly, doesn't it? | 0:10:17 | 0:10:20 | |
But in all fairness, it was the perfect introduction for me. | 0:10:20 | 0:10:26 | |
It's quite menial, there's a lot of sweeping up, | 0:10:26 | 0:10:29 | |
there's a lot of humping and lumping tea chests from A to B. | 0:10:29 | 0:10:33 | |
But it is the way to learn. | 0:10:33 | 0:10:35 | |
-So what are you looking for in particular today? -Jukeboxes. | 0:10:35 | 0:10:39 | |
Jukeboxes? | 0:10:39 | 0:10:40 | |
A bit thin on the ground in Wensleydale, you know. | 0:10:40 | 0:10:44 | |
The team have had to inspect, catalogue and display all 800 items in today's sale. | 0:10:46 | 0:10:53 | |
The great thing about working in an auction house is that you would see in a year | 0:10:53 | 0:10:58 | |
quite often what a dealer might handle in five years. | 0:10:58 | 0:11:02 | |
And that was all part and parcel of absorbing this information, almost by osmosis. | 0:11:02 | 0:11:08 | |
Who better to put Eric through his paces then the man who helped him get his first porter's job | 0:11:10 | 0:11:15 | |
32 years ago - old friend Rodney Tennant. | 0:11:15 | 0:11:18 | |
-Good morning, Knowles. -Good morning. -How are you this morning? | 0:11:18 | 0:11:21 | |
I'm fine, thank you, I'm just checking the contents. | 0:11:21 | 0:11:24 | |
We're gonna be very, busy, we're expecting a lot of people, a very big sale, I want you to be on your | 0:11:24 | 0:11:29 | |
very best, attentive behaviour, which includes, please do your tie up a little bit more. | 0:11:29 | 0:11:34 | |
-Oh, I'm very sorry. -There's no point having clean boots and a tie that's askew. | 0:11:34 | 0:11:38 | |
One weak link in the chain breaks the whole thing. | 0:11:38 | 0:11:41 | |
-All right, I won't let you down, Mr Tennant. -Thank you very. -OK. -Good. | 0:11:41 | 0:11:44 | |
I've word that Rodney goes to bed at 9 o'clock the night before. | 0:11:50 | 0:11:53 | |
-I've heard that one as well? -Have you? -Yes, I've had the same rumour! | 0:11:53 | 0:11:58 | |
-He's probably got an electric blanket as well, I'm gonna ask him eventually. -Eric! | 0:11:58 | 0:12:03 | |
Oh, there he is. | 0:12:03 | 0:12:04 | |
His ears are burning. | 0:12:04 | 0:12:07 | |
Just concentrate, we're about to start the sale, please. | 0:12:07 | 0:12:09 | |
-He's looking at me, he wants me to do a bit of work. -Just concentrate. | 0:12:09 | 0:12:13 | |
That Rodney Tennant, his eyes and ears are everywhere. | 0:12:13 | 0:12:16 | |
-Everywhere. -Yes. | 0:12:16 | 0:12:18 | |
40, 50, 60, 70. | 0:12:18 | 0:12:20 | |
At 70... | 0:12:20 | 0:12:23 | |
-Lot 19, a teapot in the form of a cat... -Sample showing... | 0:12:23 | 0:12:27 | |
-Oh, showing there, well done. -Thank you. | 0:12:27 | 0:12:29 | |
Hold them up, Mr Knowles, there we are. | 0:12:29 | 0:12:31 | |
I think the primary reason I wanted to get | 0:12:31 | 0:12:34 | |
into the world of auctioneering was that I actually went to a house sale. | 0:12:34 | 0:12:39 | |
In the doorway now. 260, 280... | 0:12:39 | 0:12:41 | |
I saw the auctioneer, and you know, the porters in their brown coats and everything, it was just pure theatre. | 0:12:41 | 0:12:47 | |
420, 440... | 0:12:47 | 0:12:49 | |
Bells started ringing, because I just knew that this was the place I wanted to be. 460. | 0:12:49 | 0:12:56 | |
You can put them down now, sir, thank you very much. | 0:12:56 | 0:12:59 | |
It must have been the way you held those up. | 0:12:59 | 0:13:01 | |
It's not enough really in this business to be just interested. | 0:13:01 | 0:13:05 | |
The people that I communicate with are passionate. | 0:13:05 | 0:13:08 | |
-Begins with me at 80... -A left-handed jug. | 0:13:08 | 0:13:11 | |
-Very rare, being a left-handed jug, apparently. -Yeah! | 0:13:11 | 0:13:15 | |
When it comes to learning about antiques, it's a case of sort of | 0:13:15 | 0:13:18 | |
look, listen and, in the case of ceramics, feel free to fondle. | 0:13:18 | 0:13:24 | |
-Lot 103, the seven Royal Doulton... Is that 103, sir? -103, yes, sir. | 0:13:24 | 0:13:29 | |
Right, it must be a bull, I've got another part of that, I haven't got it all on my... | 0:13:29 | 0:13:34 | |
-It's definitely a bull, sir. -103, well done. | 0:13:34 | 0:13:36 | |
Well, if you can't tell from where you are, nobody can tell. There we are. | 0:13:36 | 0:13:41 | |
With any auction, the adrenalin's pumping, and even when you attend it, | 0:13:41 | 0:13:46 | |
and you're doing the bidding, you can feel it inside. This man is Formula One. | 0:13:46 | 0:13:50 | |
And I think I might be on the old push bike level. | 0:13:50 | 0:13:55 | |
Right, we've got to 200, so I will now hand over to my trainee, | 0:13:55 | 0:13:58 | |
he's had a session at portering, and he's going to be selling the next 10 lots to see how he gets on. | 0:13:58 | 0:14:05 | |
LAUGHTER | 0:14:05 | 0:14:06 | |
I'm hoping it's a bit like riding a bike. I don't mind admitting, I'm as nervous as hell! | 0:14:06 | 0:14:13 | |
It's the first time he's ever sold in Yorkshire. He's a Lancastrian, so please handle him with care. | 0:14:13 | 0:14:20 | |
-Thank you, Rodney. -And report to me after the sale. -OK. | 0:14:20 | 0:14:24 | |
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. | 0:14:24 | 0:14:26 | |
Yes, for the first time in life my life, I'm wishing I was born in Yorkshire. | 0:14:26 | 0:14:31 | |
Lot 201, which is the Galle style cat, there it is, please, | 0:14:31 | 0:14:36 | |
who'd like to start the bidding at £100 for this lot? Looking for 100? | 0:14:36 | 0:14:39 | |
What you've got to do is to have a successful sale, obviously, it goes without saying, | 0:14:39 | 0:14:43 | |
and for people to go away wanting to come back. | 0:14:43 | 0:14:47 | |
It does bring out the thespian in me. | 0:14:47 | 0:14:51 | |
No bid of £80, start me at 50. | 0:14:51 | 0:14:54 | |
At 50... We are in Yorkshire and not in Holland are we not, Rodney? | 0:14:54 | 0:14:58 | |
Yes, OK. Right at 50, any offer of 50? LAUGHTER | 0:14:58 | 0:15:01 | |
With my former employer I was carpeted on more than one occasion | 0:15:01 | 0:15:05 | |
and told this is a fine art auction house, this is not theatre. | 0:15:05 | 0:15:11 | |
I don't mind admitting, ladies and gentlemen, I hate cats. I'm sorry. | 0:15:11 | 0:15:14 | |
No, no... | 0:15:14 | 0:15:17 | |
Oh, I know I've lost a few friends but it's all to do with where were you in '62 and in 1962 I was running | 0:15:17 | 0:15:24 | |
down my front street chasing a cat that had my guinea pig in its mouth. | 0:15:24 | 0:15:27 | |
So... You'll understand, won't you, the bias, sorry. | 0:15:27 | 0:15:32 | |
Anyway, any offer of 50 then bid me... Oh... | 0:15:32 | 0:15:35 | |
£50 is offered there on my right. | 0:15:35 | 0:15:37 | |
60, 70 if you like, sir. 70, 80 with me. And 90... | 0:15:37 | 0:15:42 | |
At £100, on the book at £100. | 0:15:42 | 0:15:44 | |
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, it may be a day out for you but it's a career for me. | 0:15:47 | 0:15:51 | |
Thank you so much indeed. Thank you very much, Rodney, it's all yours. | 0:15:51 | 0:15:55 | |
He'll go far that Eric Knowles. | 0:15:57 | 0:16:01 | |
Our final compilation of Roadshow moments marks some encounters which | 0:16:01 | 0:16:05 | |
have left a lasting impression on two of our veteran specialists, Paul Atterbury and Simon Bull. | 0:16:05 | 0:16:11 | |
They love finding precious pieces which take us directly back to important moments in history. | 0:16:11 | 0:16:17 | |
I think objects have a huge resonance. | 0:16:22 | 0:16:24 | |
They're inanimate, they're lumps of metal, whatever. | 0:16:24 | 0:16:27 | |
But an object which has been somewhere where something | 0:16:27 | 0:16:29 | |
important has happened, long after the people have gone, | 0:16:29 | 0:16:32 | |
that object carries that forward into the future. | 0:16:32 | 0:16:34 | |
What's the key? | 0:16:34 | 0:16:36 | |
The key to my heart. This is actually very interesting cos, going | 0:16:36 | 0:16:39 | |
back to where it started really, my fascination with Marie Antoinette. | 0:16:39 | 0:16:42 | |
This opens a corner cabinet on one of her barges, | 0:16:42 | 0:16:47 | |
which is nice cos she might well have touched it. | 0:16:47 | 0:16:50 | |
-This is the magic, I'm holding it, Marie Antoinette may have held it. -Yeah. | 0:16:50 | 0:16:54 | |
-It's like a relic really, isn't it? -It is, you cannot get closer to the event than that. | 0:16:54 | 0:16:58 | |
-Yeah. -'Objects are magic.' | 0:16:58 | 0:17:00 | |
When I hold something, which has had some famous connection, it's sort of vibrating through me. | 0:17:00 | 0:17:06 | |
You can feel all that history there in that object. | 0:17:06 | 0:17:10 | |
The key to a great moment in naval history was put before clocks expert, Simon Bull. | 0:17:14 | 0:17:20 | |
Sometimes an item comes in that really sends shivers down your spine, | 0:17:24 | 0:17:31 | |
for various reasons. In this case I remember a marine chronometer... | 0:17:31 | 0:17:36 | |
Do you know the history because usually they're just | 0:17:36 | 0:17:39 | |
spoils of war but nobody knows where they came from? | 0:17:39 | 0:17:44 | |
Yes, we know quite a lot about it's late history | 0:17:44 | 0:17:47 | |
which is that it was the chronometer of a U-boat, a U-110. | 0:17:47 | 0:17:52 | |
It was caught by three Royal Navy vessels under | 0:17:55 | 0:17:58 | |
the command of my grandfather and depth charged to the surface. | 0:17:58 | 0:18:03 | |
My grandfather sent a boarding party on board who retrieved as much | 0:18:05 | 0:18:09 | |
stuff as they could from the U-boat, | 0:18:09 | 0:18:12 | |
including an Enigma machine and all the code books that went with that. | 0:18:12 | 0:18:18 | |
I believe that was the first time that we actually | 0:18:18 | 0:18:21 | |
had in the Second World War the naval codes and the machine. | 0:18:21 | 0:18:24 | |
Fortunately, the Germans were unaware that we'd captured this U-boat and its contents, | 0:18:24 | 0:18:30 | |
so that was kept a very closely guarded secret. | 0:18:30 | 0:18:34 | |
It meant that we could decode... | 0:18:34 | 0:18:37 | |
-Decode them. -That's right. | 0:18:37 | 0:18:39 | |
So from then on in those codes could be broken and, you think, this | 0:18:39 | 0:18:46 | |
instrument is a turning point | 0:18:46 | 0:18:49 | |
in a world war. You get the feeling that here is history. Real history. | 0:18:49 | 0:18:54 | |
A fantastic feeling, that is. | 0:18:54 | 0:18:56 | |
Sometimes we're lucky enough to see one small item that has had far reaching consequences for mankind. | 0:18:57 | 0:19:04 | |
The story of penicillin, a real story that actually changed the 20th century. | 0:19:04 | 0:19:10 | |
My father went to work, directly from school, at the tender age of 14 | 0:19:10 | 0:19:16 | |
in the inoculation department of St Mary's Hospital where Fleming | 0:19:16 | 0:19:22 | |
was working as a bacteriological researcher. | 0:19:22 | 0:19:26 | |
-Fleming was a very untidy man. -Yes. | 0:19:26 | 0:19:28 | |
And he used to experiment on what we call petri dishes | 0:19:28 | 0:19:32 | |
and he went off on holiday one day leaving a large quantity of these lying around unwashed and when he | 0:19:32 | 0:19:36 | |
came back he happened to look at them and he found that several of them, the bacteria had been cleared. | 0:19:36 | 0:19:42 | |
-So it was pure chance? -Pure chance. | 0:19:42 | 0:19:45 | |
I do have an original mould here. | 0:19:45 | 0:19:49 | |
Hang on a minute, so this is the culture. | 0:19:49 | 0:19:52 | |
That is what the mould looks like. | 0:19:52 | 0:19:54 | |
Somehow it made me understand the story so much better, | 0:19:54 | 0:19:57 | |
but the thought that only an accident made all that happen. | 0:19:57 | 0:20:03 | |
The mould that produced penicillin, Alexander Fleming 1951. | 0:20:03 | 0:20:06 | |
So this must be a very rare thing. | 0:20:06 | 0:20:08 | |
-One was sold at auction for £20,000. -I think all we can say is this is a very valuable, very rare item. -Yes. | 0:20:08 | 0:20:16 | |
If you were concerned with medical history | 0:20:16 | 0:20:18 | |
-a piece of the original culture, endorsed by Fleming, it must be the gold bar. -Definitely. | 0:20:18 | 0:20:23 | |
There is nothing like it. | 0:20:23 | 0:20:26 | |
Thinking, "I'm actually holding this piece of history" was very, very important. | 0:20:26 | 0:20:30 | |
And some items are reminders of the darker chapters in our history. | 0:20:33 | 0:20:37 | |
-NEWSREEL: -The Palace of Justice in Nuremberg, Germany... | 0:20:37 | 0:20:40 | |
once the holy city of Nazism, becomes the setting of an epic event. | 0:20:40 | 0:20:44 | |
The 20 most important surviving members of the Hitler gang go on trial. | 0:20:44 | 0:20:48 | |
We all know you as Lord Oaksey, | 0:20:51 | 0:20:52 | |
but what is your connection with this material? | 0:20:52 | 0:20:55 | |
My connection is through my father. | 0:20:55 | 0:20:57 | |
He was one of the two British judges on the International Military Tribunal | 0:20:57 | 0:21:03 | |
which was set up to try the Nazi war criminals. | 0:21:03 | 0:21:09 | |
-The Nuremberg trials. -Exactly. -Right. | 0:21:09 | 0:21:12 | |
So here we've got your father on duty, as you might say, and these | 0:21:12 | 0:21:15 | |
are the various passes issued that he wore, IMT and he was number one, | 0:21:15 | 0:21:20 | |
so he was top of the list, wasn't he? | 0:21:20 | 0:21:23 | |
To suddenly see these images and these documents, and talk to somebody who WAS there, | 0:21:23 | 0:21:30 | |
you really are drawn into that experience. | 0:21:30 | 0:21:33 | |
The Nuremberg trials, that was the trial that established the precedent | 0:21:33 | 0:21:36 | |
that when you say as a defence, "I was only following orders" | 0:21:36 | 0:21:40 | |
that doesn't hold water. Is that right? | 0:21:40 | 0:21:42 | |
-That's absolutely right. -Yes. | 0:21:42 | 0:21:44 | |
-NEWSREEL: -Britain's Lord Justice Lawrence addresses the defendant. | 0:21:44 | 0:21:48 | |
The defendant is to plead guilty or not guilty to the charges against him. | 0:21:48 | 0:21:52 | |
Nein! | 0:21:52 | 0:21:55 | |
That will be entered as a plea of "not guilty." | 0:21:55 | 0:21:58 | |
So you have direct memories of the trial and all that it represented? | 0:21:58 | 0:22:02 | |
-Oh, rather. -So you saw all these people? | 0:22:02 | 0:22:04 | |
-Absolutely, with my headsets on. -And you saw their responses? | 0:22:04 | 0:22:08 | |
Very much so. | 0:22:08 | 0:22:10 | |
Here we have the dock and there's Goering. | 0:22:10 | 0:22:12 | |
-Gosh, doesn't he look thin. -Well, that's the amazing thing. | 0:22:12 | 0:22:16 | |
He had lost four stone in weight and had come off main line heroin and so | 0:22:16 | 0:22:22 | |
it was an incredible achievement that he became the outstanding figure in the dock. | 0:22:22 | 0:22:28 | |
He was the one who defended himself and his colleagues. | 0:22:28 | 0:22:32 | |
-Never said, "sorry" at all. -Exactly. | 0:22:32 | 0:22:34 | |
To me this is just an incredible vision into this... | 0:22:34 | 0:22:39 | |
vital moment in our history. | 0:22:39 | 0:22:41 | |
It was a very important item to me because I thought | 0:22:41 | 0:22:44 | |
this is from the eyes and voice of someone who was there. | 0:22:44 | 0:22:47 | |
He could talk about it in a very direct sense and it was about making history live. | 0:22:47 | 0:22:52 | |
It's looking at pieces like that which remind me | 0:22:56 | 0:22:59 | |
just what a privilege it is to work on the Roadshow when such special objects are brought in for scrutiny. | 0:22:59 | 0:23:05 | |
If you think you've a piece you'd like our experts to look at | 0:23:05 | 0:23:08 | |
we'd love to see you as the programme continues | 0:23:08 | 0:23:11 | |
recording for our next series. | 0:23:11 | 0:23:12 | |
That's just about it from this look back through the archives. | 0:23:12 | 0:23:16 | |
I hope you agree it's been stacked with priceless moments. | 0:23:16 | 0:23:19 | |
My thanks to our team of experts for bringing back such great memories and we've one final question. | 0:23:19 | 0:23:24 | |
After getting on for 500 Roadshows what is it they love about the show? | 0:23:24 | 0:23:29 | |
And, keeps you all watching. | 0:23:29 | 0:23:31 | |
Bye-bye. | 0:23:31 | 0:23:33 | |
I think one of the great things about the Roadshow is that, despite the fact that's it's been | 0:23:37 | 0:23:42 | |
on the air for over 30 years, broadly speaking it has been | 0:23:42 | 0:23:45 | |
unchanging in the sense that the format has remained exactly the same. | 0:23:45 | 0:23:50 | |
But it retains its freshness because every single programme is different, | 0:23:50 | 0:23:55 | |
I mean the people you meet, the things they bring with them, the places you go to. | 0:23:55 | 0:24:00 | |
Every week when you turn on the Antiques Roadshow you have no idea, | 0:24:00 | 0:24:05 | |
as the experts didn't on the recording day, you have no idea what you are going to see. | 0:24:05 | 0:24:10 | |
THEME TUNE PLAYS | 0:24:10 | 0:24:13 | |
It kind of was a weekly occurrence that you looked forward to. | 0:24:15 | 0:24:18 | |
That music heralded the start of an adventure, a sense of discovery. | 0:24:18 | 0:24:24 | |
It's a very special passport to experiencing very special things. | 0:24:24 | 0:24:30 | |
To experience it with some of the people on the Roadshow is just beyond description. | 0:24:30 | 0:24:36 | |
I think most of us would agree the best moment of the Roadshow day is 9.25am. | 0:24:40 | 0:24:47 | |
There's huge queues, there's people clutching | 0:24:47 | 0:24:50 | |
ill-defined parcels and packets and you simply don't know what's going to happen. | 0:24:50 | 0:24:55 | |
One is incredibly lucky because the Antiques Roadshow acts as a magnet and things that you really | 0:24:57 | 0:25:03 | |
wouldn't believe existed just come out of the woodwork to the programme, it's amazing. | 0:25:03 | 0:25:08 | |
There's a slight feeling of Christmas every day, | 0:25:08 | 0:25:11 | |
because there are funny little parcels and boxes | 0:25:11 | 0:25:13 | |
and open them up and sometimes | 0:25:13 | 0:25:15 | |
the Christmas present isn't quite as magnetic and fascinating as you want it to be, | 0:25:15 | 0:25:19 | |
but then the next one or the one after that contains the Faberge brooch | 0:25:19 | 0:25:23 | |
or the Charles II memorial ring or something absolutely pulse making. | 0:25:23 | 0:25:27 | |
That's when the heart starts fluttering. | 0:25:27 | 0:25:30 | |
That's when the excitement comes. | 0:25:30 | 0:25:32 | |
-That's when the adrenalin starts to flow. -It's a dream come true. | 0:25:32 | 0:25:35 | |
It doesn't happen very often, but when it does, that's what we look forward to. | 0:25:35 | 0:25:40 | |
That's what I look forward to. | 0:25:40 | 0:25:43 | |
The other thing which I really get a kick out of is the characters as well. | 0:25:43 | 0:25:48 | |
Certain people they... | 0:25:48 | 0:25:52 | |
are extensions of what they're bringing in and the whole thing then becomes a | 0:25:52 | 0:25:57 | |
wonderful journey. | 0:25:57 | 0:25:59 | |
-Thank you very much. -Thank you. | 0:25:59 | 0:26:02 | |
One thing that always amazes me, | 0:26:02 | 0:26:04 | |
I think it sums up the British character | 0:26:04 | 0:26:07 | |
is how nice and how pleasant people are when they've queued for five hours. | 0:26:07 | 0:26:11 | |
I'd be an homicidal lunatic standing there for that time. | 0:26:11 | 0:26:14 | |
It is the remarkable thing about the Roadshow is that it brings out | 0:26:14 | 0:26:18 | |
the very best in people in all sorts of ways. It never ceases to amaze me. | 0:26:18 | 0:26:23 | |
We can go from the top of the country to the bottom of the country. | 0:26:23 | 0:26:26 | |
We can go to America, Australia, whatever, and we can find the most remarkable things. | 0:26:26 | 0:26:34 | |
One of the things that has always been key to the programme is, | 0:26:34 | 0:26:37 | |
in a sense, the "Oh, my gosh" shock effect. | 0:26:37 | 0:26:40 | |
-What? -Really? | 0:26:40 | 0:26:42 | |
Here you are, bought for £2, worth £5,000 and bizarrely, this happens all the time. | 0:26:42 | 0:26:48 | |
Every show there is one of those sort of discoveries. | 0:26:48 | 0:26:51 | |
-This piece of furniture would be in excess of £100,000. -Gosh. | 0:26:51 | 0:26:56 | |
That's what we want, it's an entertainment programme | 0:26:56 | 0:26:59 | |
so when you get a really good reaction it makes the programme. | 0:26:59 | 0:27:02 | |
Fantastic, I had no idea. | 0:27:02 | 0:27:06 | |
The Roadshow, to me, represents a chunk of my life which was almost entirely pleasure and excitement and | 0:27:06 | 0:27:11 | |
to have started something so late in my career | 0:27:11 | 0:27:14 | |
it was an extraordinary bit of luck because I'd met such amazing | 0:27:14 | 0:27:20 | |
people and seen such astonishing things, travelled to lovely places and they've actually paid me as well. | 0:27:20 | 0:27:27 | |
It's been a great bonus. | 0:27:27 | 0:27:29 | |
We had no idea when we did the first series of the Antiques Roadshow | 0:27:31 | 0:27:36 | |
that it would ever run more than the first eight | 0:27:36 | 0:27:40 | |
and when the second one came along we were amazed. | 0:27:40 | 0:27:45 | |
Then a third, and I'm still amazed, frankly. | 0:27:45 | 0:27:49 | |
The Times said some years ago, I remember, "there are two programmes that could potentially go on forever. | 0:27:51 | 0:27:57 | |
"One is Desert Island Discs and the other is the Antiques Roadshow." | 0:27:57 | 0:28:02 | |
Well, if we live as long as Desert Island Disc we'll be doing very well. | 0:28:02 | 0:28:06 | |
Would I have been surprised the programme was going still 30-odd years later? | 0:28:08 | 0:28:13 | |
I think all of us would be. | 0:28:13 | 0:28:15 | |
Not just me, but it was a nice, comfortable, happy, nice little programme | 0:28:15 | 0:28:20 | |
that no-one envisaged would go on forever, almost like The Archers, I mean, it's quite incredible. | 0:28:20 | 0:28:25 | |
Here it is, still after all these years, still surviving. | 0:28:25 | 0:28:29 | |
We're shocked. | 0:28:29 | 0:28:31 | |
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd | 0:28:50 | 0:28:53 | |
E-mail [email protected] | 0:28:53 | 0:28:56 |