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CreativityTranscript
00:00the roadshow has made its way to Bedfordshire and the grounds of Shuttleworth house and as
00:08our visitors make their way to meet our experts I've got the opportunity to zip round the event
00:12in roadshow style on an antique bike that used to belong to Dorothy Shuttleworth former owner
00:19of this grand house this is the ladies safety cycle so-called because it's one of the first
00:26models that had two wheels the same size before this people are riding on penny farthings and I've
00:34ridden on one of those I know how precarious they are this it has to be said oh it's still quite a
00:40challenging ride and there are challenges aplenty in store for our experts as they examine the
00:46treasures our visitors have brought along today loved it I bought it a car boat two pounds I
00:52believe that there were two crafts used in the film is that correct one of them Sean Connery sat in keep
00:59your memories of it because whatever happens it will be sold absolutely brilliant and the
01:06expressions are similar to mine when you start bringing them out the bag welcome to the antics
01:13roadshow
01:35it's sort of a bit incongruous really so here we are in front of this wonderful mid-victorian mansion
01:42and then we've got this sort of incredible pair of fiberglass panels which are starkly modern geometric
01:49metallic I'm guessing your home must be a sort of palace to modern art therefore no I bought this
01:57because I just moved and I wanted to do up the kitchen and it just went perfectly in my kitchen
02:01so you bought it when I'm curious uh mid-1990s loved it um but I bought it at car boot two pounds I want
02:10to know where this car boot sale is that they've got stuff like this I want to be there okay so what
02:14I'm looking at in particular this RH monogram in there and when you're looking at sort of geometric
02:21panels like this and you find RH you might also find the name Ron Hitchens and that's who produced this
02:28so Ron Hitchens is a fascinating man and he's his work is something that's very close to my heart he's
02:34sort of the outsider in a way so he was born in 1926 and by this in the 1940s and the 1950s he was trying
02:42to basically make a success of himself so he started off actually making and selling clothing so
02:48fashionable clothing and then he sort of moved more into art and there's something very much about having
02:55things to do with his hands he was endlessly creative but perhaps his best known and most
03:00celebrated form are tiles now these are quite large what he's better known for a sort of small two inch
03:06by two inch terracotta tiles which he would hand carve with a knife and other tools and implement even
03:12using things like ballpoint pens to sort of put these holes and these apertures inside it and he
03:19produced thousands maybe even hundreds of thousands of these things these are much larger so where does
03:26it hang now it's on top of the wardrobe if I saw this at auction today you would look at around maybe
03:34eight hundred to a thousand pounds well it's a big improvement on two isn't it it's a massive
03:40improvement on two pounds still love it it just doesn't help anywhere right thank you very much thank you
03:46great thing about silver in order for it to remain and not to be cast aside or heaven forbid
04:00melted down is if it's useful now perhaps you'll be able to tell me have you ever used it no no never
04:08used but you know what it's for don't you yes I do how did you find out I was cleaning it as a child
04:13and I realized it was sort of hinged and then realized that the top came off and you've brought
04:20in what appears to be an urn but if we open it up and drop the front down we can see that in actual
04:27fact it's a pocket nutmeg grater and it was made in London in 1804 by the firm of Phipps and Robinson
04:35who made such small things and it's in remarkably good condition it's a pocket nutmeg grater because
04:41it was designed to go in your pocket you'd put your nutmeg you'd keep it in there and then grate it
04:49upside down on on your food in your drinks as a little couple of little details to point out
04:55the hinge here in the base yes has a pin in the middle which is made of brass and there's another
05:01brass pin in the hinge the lid brass is harder than silver and it was made like that they do have a
05:09very strong collectors following nutmeg graters normally they're not in as fine condition as this
05:14and so I think if it came up for sale I think on a good day you may well have to pay 600 pounds maybe
05:22even a little bit more for it yeah very nice isn't it yeah lovely thank you but I'm not selling it
05:28a collection or obsession I don't know I mean I'm a collector so I know what it's like but how did this
05:39start then when I was about five or six I remember distinctly my mother had this on the mantelpiece
05:46right and my father who's a smoker you showed me one day put a cigarette in here and smoke came out
05:54of the ears and I was absolutely amazed certainly for all of you stood around what you probably don't
05:59realize is these are what are called smoking heads of course these days we're all well aware of the
06:03dangers of smoking but it's from a time people used to smoke and this was what it was about
06:08what you've got here you've stuck to one factory that's right correct Schaefer and Walter Schaefer
06:13and Walter absolutely I mean you can see that characteristically by the manufacturer and what
06:18they're doing with these brilliant expressions and these brilliant faces the idea is everybody that you
06:23would put your cigarette in the mouths and it would all come out the head out the ears out the sides
06:29whatever I mean these are real fun things absolutely the breadth of their work is huge I mean you know
06:35the output but some of these are really really rare so where are you finding them I find them on the
06:41online their export volume was amazing absolutely incredible so America as well as Europe well America
06:48mostly and of course I see you've you know you've even extended the collecting into the figures as well
06:53but I mean look at him for character I mean it says tennis at the bottom and there he is with his pipe
06:58and his tennis racket ready for a good game but I mean just brilliant there's so much fun aren't
07:03they they've certainly are giving me a lot of enjoyment 40 years ago these were 20 pounds 25 pounds
07:09they're not today no how many of these have you got in total around about 50 I'm going to take a mean
07:15average I think you've got somewhere between five and six thousand pounds worth yeah yeah to see so
07:22many Schaefer and Walter all in one place love them absolutely brilliant and the expressions nearly
07:28as similar to mine when you start bringing them out the bag
07:31I'm looking at a rather interesting piece of paper with some cutouts in it and a sun in the middle
07:52of it before I'd go into exactly what it might be what I want to know is what your connection is with
07:58it this is I suppose a family heirloom yeah I inherited it from my grandmother who died in 1974
08:06and I've sort of hung on to it never really knowing anything about it so I'm desperate to learn
08:13it's a perpetual calendar it's such a lovely object and the more you look at it the more you see in
08:20there you have got sunrise and sunset times you've got the signs of the zodiac you've got the dates
08:30you've got the moon phases and you've got year dates in here and the whole thing just looks 18th century to
08:41me the maker's name here such is made in Norwich but I do not know a maker called such is in Norwich but
08:52the conundrum is that in this little window at the top it says 1824 and that doesn't look as if it's the
09:00right date and I know that these paper discs which is what it's made of where they run over and above
09:09each other can be changed and I just wonder whether that has been changed at some point because everything
09:16to me screams George III so that's 1760 through to 1820 but I think it's in the early bit I think this
09:24is an 18th century piece rather than a 19th century does that affect anything to do with your history
09:30now well I think that does tie in quite nicely with the fact that a predecessor James Oakes the banker of
09:38Berries and Edmonds he was born in 1742 and died in 1827 and this is the sort of thing that he would
09:46have had to be honest it would have been absolutely he would have been exactly a gentleman scientist which
09:52is what this would have appealed to at that stage in the in the 1760s you had a phenomenon emerging in
09:59British society called the gentleman scientist or the natural philosopher as they were called and it
10:05would have been something for somebody who was a hobby scientist somebody who was interested in the
10:13weather in the seasons in natural phenomena I am now going to turn it around because actually we do
10:21want to see the back of it because this is wonderful so this is how you would revolve the decorated face
10:29on the front but that is the one that moves most easily and that is because I think that that's a
10:35replacement I think that it should have an 18th century series of dates in there not a 19th century
10:42series so it should be 17 something not 18 something okay have you translated the Latin whatever you do or say
10:49do it prudently speak it carefully and speak it well the end do you love it I sent a note through to my
11:00daughter because she couldn't remember what I'd brought so I sent her a photograph of it and I
11:04said a note at the end you know keep your memories of it because whatever happens it will be sold
11:09all right well if it's going to be sold I'll give you an auction value I would put it at between 800
11:18and 1200 pounds great so thank you for bringing it in thank you so much well having heard what Hillary
11:26had to say about it and talking it through I think it's something which you know we'll probably hang on
11:31to now I only said that to my daughter in in jest it's more the background and what it was used for
11:37and the fact that it probably would have been actually handled by my five greats grandfather
11:52you've brought in a very stylish collection of mid-century lighting I have to say I love them I think you like
12:00them as well I do tell me more well just things I've seen and just had to pick up really I appreciate
12:08the design of them they're all lamps to have a purpose and yet they're different solutions and
12:14different styles to the same thing really well they all make a real statement don't they're all
12:19very stylish and rather handily we've got one from the 50s one from the 60s and one from the 70s
12:26and it's not basic better best for a change so we'll start on the end here with this very elegant
12:31standard lamp from the 1950s metal shade there and a teak column and base and then with this sort of
12:39anodized metal cap and mount to the base as well it was made by a company called Merchant Adventurers
12:48an English company who were very active in the 1950s mostly and they're moving on to the 60s and
12:54then I have to say I love this this is designed by someone called Peter Nelson the cylinder is a real
13:02mid-60s shape it really is and here it's used in the shade in the column also in the in the column
13:09there along with the the cube of the the lighting box so you control it from there and then you've got
13:14the disc base like that so it's a really architectural piece of lighting and in fact the company was called
13:20architectural lighting and then we're moving away from Britain to Spain okay and the 70s and just
13:28look at this just after the moon landings and we've got something which could be based on an astronaut's helmet
13:34made by a company called Tramo and Tramo were an interesting firm by the 70s they're really getting
13:40involved in design and they're working with big-name designers and this is a really good piece of that
13:47design and just the kind of thing that people like at the moment it's very I suppose the word would be
13:51funky it's a statement it really is so where are you getting these here and there to be honest okay
13:57and what sort of prices are we talking about 30 or so pounds I think it was is a little while ago
14:02um that was tenner and two pound fifty from the car two pound fifty wow this kind of thing is very
14:09much bang on trend at the moment and people like lighting and I think for a combined auction price
14:16we're looking at the best part of a thousand pounds lovely so that's not a bad return at all yeah
14:22they will continue to light up your life thank you thank you for bringing them thanks very much
14:32while our visitors enjoy the historic vehicles on display here outside the house i've come to
14:38another part of the estate to look into shuttleworth's connection with the early days of flying
14:45the collection house here at the shuttleworth aerodrome was started by richard shuttleworth in
14:49the early 20th century and it has all sorts of flying treasures dating back to the dawn of aviation
14:55from 1917 is the se-5 fighter plane designed to be stable and relatively easy to fly it proved to be
15:04one of the most successful fighter planes of the war and this one is believed to be the only original
15:10first world war aircraft still flying today that successfully destroyed an enemy aircraft
15:17and then there's this one probably my favorite the racy de haviland comet built to compete in the
15:23london to melbourne air race in 1934 and it won just over 11 000 miles in 71 hours really impressive for
15:31the time and no collection would be complete without probably the most iconic of british planes the spitfire
15:42and the best thing about this collection is that these aren't just stationary museum pieces
15:47they take to the skies still flown by skilled pilots
15:53and to keep them airworthy needs a team of dedicated specialists like head of engineering john munn
16:00the remarkable thing about all these planes john is you fly them all don't you yes we maintain and
16:05they're all kept air worthy and i'm privileged to fly all these aeroplanes as well i mean some of
16:10them i'd be a bit happier to fly than others i'm thinking about this one this is the blerio this is
16:15the blerio yes the world's oldest flyable airplane so what does that date from 1909 yeah right at the
16:21birth of flight especially in europe and we have five edwardian machines so pre first world machines
16:27we fly here so when did you last go up in a couple of weeks ago really yes yes yeah we managed to have
16:33a very calm training week to get our pilots all up to speed and uh yeah just luck would have it had
16:39perfectly calm weather and it's an extraordinary collection isn't it it is and there there isn't a
16:44collection like this anywhere uh in terms of its breadth and certainly with all the cars motorbikes
16:49and traction engines steam engines there's nowhere like it in the world and what about replacement
16:55parts for these how do you how do you find them we have quite a bit in stores we trade with other
17:00museums and other places and collectors and but we also make a lot of spare parts ourselves now and then
17:07we go out to industry for some more specialist parts formula one industry we use a lot you use formula
17:13one for planes like these that's because they're used to very high quality and small batches which
17:19of course we need yeah and we're very lucky of course there's a lot of that kind of engineering done in
17:24the uk um which is something we should be more proud of really well thank you for telling me about
17:29the collection and good luck flying that thing rather you than me thank you
17:43this is a really extraordinary portrait the sitter is literally staring out at us with the most
18:03unflinching gaze i mean he really draws you in now it's signed jacques detaille and i'm wondering how
18:13this incredibly powerful portrait came to be yours i was a gentleman he's my uncle
18:20leon jacques detaille he was a self-taught painter when he died i was informed there was nothing in the flat
18:28but i said i don't think so i think there's quite a few paintings there so i flew out to geneva across
18:33the border to and see where i lived and the the flat was chock-a-block with paintings on racks
18:40because it was in an inheritance everything had to be sold at auction because i have a sister
18:48so to be able to share it money-wise that's the only way to do it so i went back for the auctions
18:54and i bought some paintings and drawings of his and this is one of them do we know who the sitter is
19:03it's himself it's himself it's a self-portrait what was it about this one that jumped out at you
19:09because it's it's leon it's him and he was young and because you've seen so much of his work
19:18do you know roughly when this might have been painted i think it was quite young now i think it
19:24might be 1949 or 1950. this is one of the most powerful self-portraits i've ever seen i'm totally
19:34drawn into it and to me it kind of encapsulates that period after second world war where you have
19:40a generation of people of artists of writers of musicians of everyone who've grown up through the
19:47second world war who've experienced devastation trauma and to my mind this portrait really
19:53encapsulates that he was born in the 20s so he's he's in his late 20s here he's used a mixture of
20:03very clear definition to bring out the features of his face and those piercing eyes but then he's mixed
20:12that with the way his hair is done see the strokes here it's almost like he's taken the back of the
20:16paintbrush and scraped away just to highlight that pattern in his hair and then i think actually that
20:25the palette is so powerful because he's wearing this quite grey jacket it kind of feels like it
20:33represents his mindset and then you've got this very atmospheric background but then look at that light
20:39and then picking up sort of the detail the veins on his forehead but as i say everything comes back
20:45to these incredibly piercing eyes i think it's a masterful portrait and the fact that it's a self
20:52portrait is even more powerful i think were this to come to auction i would put an estimate on this
21:00in the region of 800 to 1200 pounds i like it not everybody does i mean it's powerful you're sort of
21:07drawn into his eyes it's really extraordinary so there are certain watches that come along at the
21:21roadshow and i must admit i do have a bit of a soft spot for amiga seamasters it was one of the first
21:28watches i ever bought when i started dealing so they've always had quite a connection with me and my
21:35life and i've carried that through but what's the connection of this particular seamaster with you
21:40well this watch belonged to my mother she was uh german she lived in oldenburg just after the war
21:49obviously there were occupying forces in germany during that period of time and an american airman
21:55bestowed this watch to her on the promise that he would come and claim it at a later date and obviously
22:01claim her heart as well that never happened my father was then posted to germany where he met my
22:08mother working in the naffy he got very jealous of the watch because it was kind of marked my mum's
22:15sort of first infatuation effectively the american service personnel looking like david niven and he hid
22:22it and he hid it for most of their married life we've never really had it sort of you know confirm that
22:27the story is true will be nice to know whether it actually you know date wise tallies with uh with
22:34with what actually went on amiga made the seamaster line as a rugged waterproof watch it had this lovely
22:41robust case and you can see it in this particular watch it's got these lovely heavy lugs this really
22:49robust case a screw down back a waterproof crown and this lovely really thick glass and it was really well
22:56protected the beautiful movement inside the movements are quite fine inside they're highly
23:01finished and that's sort of what drew me into these particular watches amiga produced them from about
23:08i think the seamasters were 1948s they first started the line so this is an early version it's got the
23:16calendar on it as well the date it's automatic so it will wind itself up as well we tend to see these
23:22exchange hands you know auction six to nine hundred pounds that sort of area but i would always
23:29recommend people would wear their watch do you think you'll wear it and bring it back into use i would
23:35like to put a leather strap on it and get it serviced and then my wife can wear it but as long as she
23:41doesn't run off with someone who looks like david niven so fantastic
23:56our experts are always on the lookout for antiques which combine beauty function and a deeper
24:01significance sometimes political in the 19th century the temperance movement was a moral and religious
24:08crusade rallying against the evils of alcohol eventually leading to prohibition in the us
24:15here at shuttleworth ceramics expert sirhat ahmet has spotted a sobering reminder of the movement
24:23now this isn't any old mug is it there's more to it than meets the eye so tell me your story about it
24:30well my understanding is that in 1842 my great great grandfather james oldham was working at the
24:37wedgewood factory after which opened the pottery whether he made it or not i don't know you may be
24:43able to give me more information these are known as loving cups and the idea was that you would share
24:49this with a loved one so this mug is all about temperance and so what was that it was about social
24:54reform social reformers felt that uh the use and sale of alcohol was about degradation of society
25:03and morals and they were mainly aimed at the working class trying to suggest to them that they should
25:10drink less be at home with the family more and work harder yeah why would we have something that was
25:17used for ceremonial purposes a loving cup which would have been filled with alcohol yeah with all these
25:24motifs of temperance and what i love about this and this is what i mean by there's more to it than meets
25:30the eye is if we look inside there's a little frog so if we have a look at the cup quickly we've got these
25:39panels showing here in two sections you know someone who hasn't taken the pledge and the downfall of
25:48family and society and and about values falling apart and then if you take the pledge it says that
25:57your life will be improved that was what it was all about and here's a lovely on the bottom of it a
26:02lovely emblem of of temperance industry and plenty so was this made by your grandfather we don't know
26:11we can't be sure yeah so if this was to come up at auction i think it would fetch around two to three
26:19hundred pounds okay but i think the social history the story that this piece tells about the potteries
26:25and the potters of that time is far more significant than the value thank you very much for bringing it in
26:31today thank you you've brought in this rather lovely quarterstone oak carved panel um what does it mean
26:47to you i'm a woodcarver by trade and i i purchased this from the town of andal in a antique shop paid
26:56the princely sum of about 90 pounds for it that was in the 1980s about 88 you then did a lot of
27:03research on it and it sort of went a little bit of a journey of discovery yes yeah i found that it
27:08had actually come from the grocer's guild hall in london and it had survived a bombing in 1944 i think
27:17grocer's hall it's obviously one of the main major guilds in the city of london and originally when they
27:21were set up in the early 15th century you know they were they were responsible for all the spice
27:26trade all the spice coming into the city of london and you know they've been on the same site since
27:31then but it's gone through many many incarnations it was burnt down completely in the great fire of
27:36london 1666 and rebuilt it was demolished and rebuilt again several times but i think the the fourth hall
27:45was built in the 1890s which is probably when this dates from was that rebuild of the 1890s i would
27:51think so it's very sort of elizabethan sort of 16th 17th century in style and it's this what we call
27:57sort of romaine style carving which is very renaissance influenced so we've got these husks
28:03and sort of typically this grotesque masks and the scrolls so being a wood carver yourself obviously
28:09you can appreciate the skill that goes into creating something like this just reeks of quality you
28:15know it's it's nice and deeply carved and they could afford to waste if you like that amount
28:21of wood just to get these various elements standing proud yes because obviously it's beautifully chamfered
28:27on the back as well so you know a huge amount of skill has gone into making this and if we just looked
28:31at this as a late 19th century carved oak panel i would guess it was something like you know one to
28:35two hundred pounds how much extra can we put on that because of the association with you know with
28:41grocers hall and one of the largest guilds in the city of london you know it could be perhaps three
28:45or four hundred i won't be getting rid of this one anytime soon i've had it all this time and it's
28:52a joy to look at it so yes indeed yeah
28:58our venue today shuttleworth is renowned for its collection of vintage aircraft so it's little
29:04wonder that our experts have seen plenty of aviation items and this next one is particularly
29:10special in the early 1960s former raf officer and aviation innovator ken wallace designed and piloted
29:19a compact highly maneuverable gyrocopter little nelly became known for its unique role in aviation and
29:27cinematic history movie memorabilia expert stephen lane was thrilled to see it up close
29:32so when you think about james bond you think about the guns the gadgets and the vehicles and what a
29:39vehicle this is you only live twice 1967 starring sean connery as james bond this custom gyrocopter that
29:49features so heavily in the film so i know that this is an auto gyro but what exactly is an auto gyro
29:55well an auto gyro is essentially it fits sort of in between an airplane and a helicopter it's an
30:03airplane you have fixed wings and a helicopter you've got driven rotors with an auto gyro the actual
30:09rotor blades aren't driven in any form so essentially it's powered by this engine which pushes you forward
30:14through the air and then the lifts created by the rotor spinning in the air tell us more about it how
30:19how does it come to be in your possession well my father designed and partly built back 1962
30:27did a trial at pinewood and the next thing is they were rewriting the script and my father was
30:33filming in rio actually and for another film and went straight from there to japan all in all about 45
30:41hours of flying for the seven and a half minutes of film 45 and a half hours flying just for seven and
30:47a half minutes yeah i believe that there were two crafts built for the film or used in the film is
30:51that correct yes one of them sean connery sat in and it was known as the blue screen the blue screen
30:57yeah right so that that would be where he's getting into the cockpit yeah we're getting the close-ups of
31:01him and so it was your father then who flew the vehicle yes yeah you know all the footage of flying
31:09into the film he also filmed the view from little nelly of the volcano and of the helicopters you
31:18know the fight for all the film sequences well i think it's a beautiful vehicle it's a wonderful thing
31:24i know that we're not valuing it today because it's part of a collection a charity collection i think
31:29it's an amazing thing that should be treasured should remain on display as much as possible as
31:33well for the general public to see together with little nelly today you've bought in some cases
31:38haven't you so we've got four cases dotted around us today this is what she supposedly arrived as in
31:45the film so what we're actually seeing here in these cases is the components so if i remember rightly
31:51bond calls for little nelly to come in with q they turn up and q has four of his technicians come into
31:57the room carrying these cases so it's these actual cases that come into into shop for that isn't it
32:02yeah i love one of the details on it actually you've got the universal exports label that just sits there
32:07within the cases and is attached to some of the other cases of course that was the cover business
32:11wasn't it the mi6 used to be able to move things around for bond as well yeah but i think if you were
32:16to bring the four cases together at auction i would certainly not hesitate and put an estimate of
32:21somewhere in the region of 50 to 100 000 pounds for them so really really valuable really exciting and
32:26very significant i've been really excited to see these here today and i just want to thank you for
32:31the effort that you must have gone to to bring these into the show today they're absolutely fantastic
32:36pleasure thank you thank you
32:46thank you so much for bringing this mug to the road show today i have to say i was so excited to
33:00see it because i'm american and this is american why did you decide to bring it today well my dad was a
33:07bricklayer and we lived in south oxfordshire we don't know for definite where he got it from but it either came
33:14from a house that he was knocking down and it was in there and they found it the other option is that
33:22they may have dug it up that's all i really know about it so what you have here is a sterling silver
33:30mug it is of a really nice design i particularly like that they've gone into so much detail with the
33:39coopering so they've even decided to pick out where the nails would have held the straps together
33:46and of course the really lovely detail here with the wood grain on the sides i think it's really
33:53lovely the marks on the bottom tell us that it is by tiffany and co hence american that it is sterling
34:01standard and they also give us some information about the year that it was made tiffany silver
34:08usually has ranges of dates unlike english silver so english silver you've got one date letter for one
34:14year this old english m was used after 1851 so i think the name tiffany and co the date the design
34:24the quality all are a testament to its value at auction today i would suggest an estimate of 700
34:31pounds to a thousand pounds lovely thank you
34:44people of my generation will remember raymond briggs mostly because the snowman it was that amazing
34:48animated film with the really iconic music but actually he was an incredibly prolific illustrator
34:53and author there's a fantastic collection of his books here how did it come to be in your possession
34:59my father's best friend ended up marrying raymond briggs his cousin and we stayed in contact with
35:07doreen who was the cousin all through her life and when they passed this was bequeathed to me and my three
35:14sisters fantastic but how did dorian get the collection together i mean well dorian was a huge
35:20fan of raymond they were like almost like brother and sister as opposed to just cousins and she just
35:26followed his career all through his life every newspaper clipping every magazine clipping that she
35:32could get hold of she would collect which are with the collection as well and so she just sort of
35:38followed his career and he let her follow the career with him so it was a really really sweet
35:44thing they did together yeah it's a really extraordinary collection incredibly comprehensive
35:49of raymond briggs's works from the really well-known ones like the snowman and father christmas to some
35:54of his earliest works we start here in 1961 and we go right up to the 2000s they're basically all first
36:00editions they're not only signed by raymond briggs but there's often a long inscription to his cousin
36:06doreen and her husband this work ethel and earnest is raymond briggs's memoir of his parents basically
36:13which he produced later on in his life and tucked into it is an original wedding photograph of his
36:18parents and then there's his illustration which is based on this photograph so you really get a sense
36:25of raymond briggs at work and and what his medium was and what his technique was for me the snowman is
36:31particularly evocative but do you have a favorite book in the collection my favorite is the snowman as
36:36well um it's just sums up christmas for me and family i mean it does have some value to it i think
36:44for a collection as a whole we'd be looking for something north of 2 000 pounds okay yes that's good
36:53our venue shuttleworth might be surrounded by sun-dappled countryside
36:58but just a few miles away there lurks a museum devoted to a more shadowy pursuit
37:04and i've been joined by justin steadman to find out more we love seeing gadgets on the antiques
37:09ratio and justin you are the curator at the nearby military intelligence museum you've brought along
37:14some fascinating items and these are all connected with spy craft essentially which goes back to time
37:20immemorial it does yeah espionage spying if you want to call it that um and you've got subversion and
37:26sabotage as sort of uh like uh kin skills it really took off though when technology really came along
37:33and we're talking about the second world war then when there was an explosion of technology
37:37what about this one let's start with that this is actually a piece of exploding coal
37:41invented by the americans during their civil war in the 1860s this is a piece from uh from the second
37:47world war so you put this into a pile of coal which then gets fed into anything that burns coal
37:53and it will go off and blow the rivets at least so it's a sabotage tool so inside your piece of coal
38:00you have a little igniter with its fuse that's the igniter surrounded by explosive material
38:06and uh there you go what what's this thing here this is a limpet mine it's designed to go underneath
38:13the water line of a ship and the force of the water would concentrate the blast and make a hole in
38:18the side of the ship it was actually invented by a chap who lived in bedford um he tested it in
38:22bedford municipal swimming pool and uh using his the griddle off his wife's uh oven as a pretend side
38:30of a ship just to make sure that the magnets on the back would actually stick if it was moving through
38:35water but the the real problem was designing a fuse that would actually not go off the moment you set it
38:41going and for that they worked out that aniseed ball sweets took a certain length of time to dissolve
38:47in water so that became part of the fuse and to test all these things they bought up all of the aniseed
38:54balls in all the sweet shops in bedford in order to carry out the testing aniseed balls who knew
38:59and then talking of things underwater what about these the miniature submarine was called the well man
39:05it was developed actually in welling garden city just down the road from where we are here
39:09it's a single person submarine this is essentially just a a submersible canoe you'd sail that underneath
39:15the target ship plant your explosives underneath the waterline and hopefully be able to get away
39:20it's only about 20 foot long now something like this we have seen before so it looks like an ordinary
39:24suitcase until you open it out yes so this is a suitcase radio um used behind the enemy lines agents would
39:32take these overseas in order to pass information backwards and forwards because in espionage spying if you
39:38want to call it that sabotage subversion you need communications and you need to disguise what
39:43it is you're using to communicate with this weighs 34 pounds about 17 kilos
39:49yes as you carried it along extremely heavy wow and you need to make it look as if it was light
39:53obviously you would do absolutely and then this is the little morse code tapper here presumably is
39:57it that's the morse key there and your headphones there and all the other gubbins to to make it work
40:02with your various uh power units and uh antennas how fascinating i mean necessity is the mother of
40:09invention and when you see items like this at a time of national crisis like world war ii
40:14you see what the human mind what ingenuity can come up with yes absolutely fascinating justin thank
40:19you so much you're very welcome thank you
40:39so when i unpacked this today it absolutely filled me with delight and i can think of nothing nicer right
40:45now than having a cup of tea and a piece of cake served on this service absolutely what's your
40:50connection it actually um belongs to a friend of mine and it was given to his parents on their wedding
40:56day in 1933 well it just shouts out art deco from the 1930s doesn't it yes it does it's made by paragon
41:04who made fine bone china and the factory was based in longton in staffordshire so the pattern is icelandic
41:11poppy which came in various colorways that the lady of the house could have chosen according to
41:15her own preference with wonderful yellow colorways here and the decoration is transfer printed with
41:22some enamel details added in by hand and there's just a wonderful fusion of stylistic influences going
41:29on here when you look at this tea service i mean if we lift up the sugar bowl here if you take the
41:35floral decoration out of the equation um this engine turned effect is very much like designs by keith
41:41murray who was working for wedgewood at a similar period so they're looking to other designers and
41:47other influences at the same time and of course the wonderful bright vibrant color palette brings
41:53immediately claris cliff to mind also a very prominent staffordshire designer looking a wee bit closer
42:00again what's very special about this service is these flower molded handles similar handles
42:05were seen in ainsley tea services of the same time which also have had butterfly molded handles
42:11so it's just nice to see all of these design elements come together here so what do you think
42:17of this service yourself oh i think it's beautiful i can't imagine that i would particularly use it as
42:22a daily piece but it's certainly a showpiece and i would like to think that it's very tactile to
42:28drink from as well with the the handle although i'd be terrified about dropping it i think
42:32a lot of people would so the market is not particularly strong for tea sets in general
42:39but this would be an exception and i think the market here in the uk would be good but what
42:44we're finding is services of this type are being bought by japanese buyers because the fine bone china
42:51and the delicate decoration really appeal strongly to that market so this is a small sample of a service
42:57for about eight people i believe yes so i think if this came to auction i can see it comfortably
43:03making in the region of one thousand pounds and possibly more wow well i think you'll be very happy
43:09with that well not many tea sets make that these days so absolutely so it's lovely to see it here
43:15today thank you for bringing it thank you katherine
43:24so this is a letter and the first thing that we can see is it's signed christabel bankhurst yep with
43:32this brilliant headed notepaper the women's social and political union votes for women wspu and we know
43:41they're the suffragettes aren't they so her mother was emeline pankhurst who was the founder of the wspu
43:49and they were deeds not words they were the militant suffragettes where did you get this from
43:58so when i was a teenager i knew a wonderful woman um called dolly and she used to teach table tennis and
44:05i used to go along to her classes she rang me up one day and said i've got a letter would you like
44:10to come and see i think you might be interested in it i didn't know what she was talking about
44:14she showed me the letter and of course i knew all about the suffragettes and she said would you like
44:19to buy it yes and uh i paid five pounds for it you know suffragette items have become so valuable they
44:25are regularly faked right we know this isn't a fake and there are numerous things that we can look at
44:32so headed notepaper the signatures rights and also there are these distinctive watermarks in the
44:40paper that when you hold them up to the light you can see that it's actually the women's social and
44:45political union motto and also i don't know whether you've noticed the wonderful votes for women
44:51watermark in there as well oh no i didn't and here in the letter in the middle of the letter it talks
44:58about the conciliation bill do you know what that was no so there were actually three bills 1910 1911
45:08and 1912 and it was really to try and get the votes for women and unfortunately all three bills
45:16didn't go through and it ends here i hope that you're coming along to this demonstration do you
45:23know much about the demonstration yeah so i looked it up and it was called the coronation procession
45:27and it was a week later 40 000 women processed through london yeah it was the largest yeah suffrage
45:36procession yeah in britain at the time and it showed a real cross-section of factions of the suffrage
45:43movements they're not unique she was quite a prolific letter writer so they're not particularly
45:49unusual but the content is great even so you're five pounds 600 to 800 pounds wow gosh
45:57and it's only going to keep going up yeah yeah such huge interest
46:09we've brought my great-granddad's skis they're his
46:13old ones from when probably about 1930s i'm guessing so yeah they're quite old yeah trying to find a little
46:20bit more about them we know they come from somewhere in geneva i mean how skis have changed over the years
46:26you know the bindings on this are just extraordinary aren't they you could see them in a cafe halfway
46:32up the um the ski slopes yeah exactly you know they're great bits of decoration value-wise 150 pounds
46:40thank you well done look these are lovely some 1930s are they family pieces they're my grandmothers um i i thought
46:51they were handmade i think you said this one might be this this one's handmade this one is handmade
46:55it's got a lovely hand hand stitching on it um some of the others you haven't aren't they are
47:01commercially made but they are silk you know there's no scene that's straight on this it's all completely
47:05scallop around her and totally cut on the bias as well so they drape absolutely beautifully yeah but
47:11you know there is a market for these 30 40 pounds perhaps i wouldn't give them away for that they're
47:16they're so so the other bits would be a little bit more but you just have to show me all of them so
47:20we can appreciate how lovely they actually are super so there we are thank you very much
47:41so we couldn't be anywhere else but in ireland here don't you think yeah yeah no it's it's the atmosphere
47:48what part of ireland was it done do you suppose i think probably northern ireland but i don't know
47:53for certain well that's because this is a landscape by percy french who was an irish author songwriter
47:59and painter and your family knew persis yes yes he used to drop in uninvited and get fed and looked
48:06after and then he'd head back off to do his usual work in musicals and then of course these lovely
48:13watercolors which is just so effective this one about 1910 the technique he used was just wonderful
48:19i think very very wet paint and it is a very very wet day there's always a lot of rain around in the
48:24percy french but the light peeking through those dark lowering clouds such an irish light to it they
48:31are really nice and uh also this um this broken effect that he gets which i think you can get when
48:38you use the watercolor very wet itself so it's all about being wet the paper is actually disturbed
48:45slightly by being so wet and it hasn't dried exactly flat it's slightly crinkled um and then
48:51i suspect it's been scumbled a little he works the paper and it gives a texture and an effect
48:57in the paper and a little bit of body color which is the white here to make the the sky go
49:03dipping and bring the water out in the brook and the effect is complete what do you think it's worth
49:08i have absolutely no idea anything from i know 100 pounds to a thousand pounds i don't know oh i
49:14think a bit more than a thousand i think uh up to two thousand for that one it's just enough
49:19okay thank you
49:21do you know i've been doing the program now for nearly 20 odd years and this is one of the things
49:36i've always wanted to see a piece of code stone so how's it come to you well it's been on the farm for
49:45about 45 years and it came from a demolition site somewhere in cambridge my husband used to do work
49:52for cambridge county council he took on the demolition contracts and because we've got a farm
49:59all the spoils came to the farm and this was one of the elena code in the 18th century she really
50:09developed this process for making a stone which it actually isn't stone it's a ceramic because all
50:15of the architects of that period were really trying to find a product that could emulate stone but was
50:23much cheaper more durable and you could get so much more detail and she basically cracked that process
50:29the recipes for how she produced this type of ceramic or stone whatever you want to call it
50:35were kept secret for years i would say that she was one of the biggest influence of 18th century
50:42architecture i mean it was even used on a buckingham palace before code stone you would be
50:50chiseling away for hours and it's really difficult to get that detail where this is poured into a
50:56mold and then sculpted you can end up getting this amazing detail you can't get that with stone plus
51:03it's impervious to the weather the elements it's just it's genius there's no other way of saying
51:09it down here you've got the date george iii 1791 code and then lambeth london you say it was your
51:17husband your father yes do did you work with your dad i did i i he used to take me to some of the
51:24demolition sites he worked on there was all manner of ephemera around some of it he would bring back to
51:30the farm and some of it he would burn and i think in those days didn't really see value in some of the
51:37things he obviously saw this and saw that it was of quality have you thought about values i haven't
51:44thought about values i've thought of it as being interesting rather than valuable because it does
51:50have a value i think at auction sort of seven to ten thousand pounds wow wow that's that's amazing to
52:01think i've just left it in the on the patio for years
52:05three years ago when kovid came i decided to look in much more detail at my father-in-law's
52:21medals and log books and try and establish what he actually did in the war
52:34a set of medals here that covers an awful lot of flying and the bit that i want to bring out about
52:41this particular group is that this man flew with a royal air force squadron numbered 161 squadron
52:48which flew out of raf tempsford not too far away from here and their job was to deliver members
52:56and supplies for the special operations executive soe so this is the clandestine bit of world war ii
53:04where we are parachuting in or landing agents who are going to go off in civilian clothing infiltrate
53:13occupied europe and the certain knowledge that if they get caught they're going to be executed
53:19and it was these aircraft that took them on those missions so on this occasion 8th of february 1944
53:27he's in a big aircraft two engines what happened on this particular occasion well 13 secret agents left
53:34thamesford thamesford or in the hudson destined for leon down in the south of france they landed safely
53:43and they all left and joined the resistance coming back was different they started to load the
53:50passengers 13 passengers and there was a very important resistance worker whom the gestapo had
53:57caught that the resistance workers had freed and london wanted that resistance worker back
54:02so the plane went to leave uh the airfield and got stuck in the mud no but the people in the village
54:12nearby there were 60 people got out of their beds at 2 30 in the morning and went to the field along
54:20with four oxen and they pulled the aircraft out and the aircraft got off safely and landed back at
54:27thamesford nine and a half hours late wow who was this man who did this it was my father-in-law what
54:34was his name john affleck how many operations did he do for the soe flights his focus mainly was on
54:41hudsons the hudsons did 44 sorties uh throughout the period that they were based at thamesford and he
54:48he would have flown 15 of those so the medals that we have here that he was awarded the distinguished
54:53service order distinguished flying cross air force medal don't see that one too often do you know
54:59what he did yes i do what he did was uh he was flying in a whitby bomber um he was on a nighttime
55:07flying training foot with full bomb load he went out and one of the engines failed now now the rule
55:13book said if an engine fails then you you bail out basically so he bailed the crew out turned the
55:20aircraft down towards the sea got out of his seat himself and as he did so he saw a navigator sitting
55:27there and the navigator said to him i'm sorry sir i've pulled my ripcord on my parachute it won't work
55:35so i can't imagine what he said to that person but he got back into the cockpit and he landed that
55:41aircraft safely back at the airfield but he was court-martialed for that because he had broken
55:49the rules of the raf but saved a life absolutely amazing a wartime career 39 45 star aircrew europe
55:58france and germany clasp defense war quadriga avec palme and the dutch flying cross as well
56:07there is a very keen market to collect medals for soe pilots and aircrew
56:16i think there there are collectors out there that would would pay somewhere in the region of 50 000
56:24pounds for this and i think it's worth every penny and i think that is a fantastic story thank you and
56:31if only we could say thank you to all those french people who came out and poured it out the mud that
56:37they that would be so cool thank you
56:55do you remember we saw this gyrocopter earlier in the program affectionately known as little nelly
57:01did you wonder why it was called little nelly because i did it turns out that the designer ken
57:05wallace flew in a lancaster bomber in the second world war and in the second world war if you had
57:09the surname wallace you were usually nicknamed nelly after the actress and singer nelly wallace hence
57:17little nelly so now you know from the antiques roadshow here at shuttleworth bye-bye
57:35my
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