Original subtitles

Today, we're at the National Botanic Garden of Wales, in Carmarthenshire,

tranquil setting of woodland lakes,

and some spectacular plant life.

Centre stage is the Great Glasshouse -

home to rare plants from across the globe.

And surrounding it are many more unique gardens,

including a Japanese garden,

a walled garden,

and this medicinal garden.

Plants growing here have been prized for their healing properties

for hundreds of years.

Traditional remedies for everything from constipation to chicken pox,

vertigo to verrucas.

Later on, I'll be finding out how plants like these

made their way into bottles like this.

But for now, let's see what our visitors have brought along today.

It's the best history of an object I've heard in a long time.

No! You're joking!

I mean, it's folk art at its best.

The two of us, you know, by some weird coincidence, are probably

the people who know more about that man than anyone else in the world.

That's fantastic - oh, that's made me go a bit goosey, actually!

When did you first see it?

20 years ago.

In a shop? In a skip.

I mean, what would you do with the money?

Don't go there!

You have brought me the mother of all hen's teeth here.

Oh, my goodness. Oh!

Fabulous!

You've made my day now.

Well, here we are in the Botanic Gardens,

and what could be more suitable than Burne-Jones's famous Flower Book?

Tell me how it came to be in your family.

Well, Burne-Jones was a friend of my grandfather,

and he painted a few pictures of people in the family.

And my father left me that when he died.

Fantastic.

I mean, Burne-Jones, one of Britain's greatest artists.

In 1882, he started keeping a list of the names of plants

that he thought were particularly interesting,

and he was sort of assembling this list,

and as he was assembling the list, he was thinking, well,

"What can I dream up to illustrate these funny names?"

So, from 1882 to his death in the 1890s,

he gradually did these watercolours and things.

And then in 1905 they were published here,

in a limited edition, by his widow,

and it's an absolutely beautiful book.

I think that some of these flowers particularly appeal to you, don't they?

They do. It's because of a mixture of the name,

and what he's done with the name,

because everybody knows the Jacob's ladder flower,

and that's how he's illustrated it.

There's a very metaphorical aspect about them, isn't there? Yes.

Yes.

And then I think there's a Morning Glory.

Yes, those lovely blue flowers.

He's done angels... Kind of in a very morningy light as well.

Fiddling with clouds, sort of thing, in the morning. Exactly!

And this one? Meadowsweet,

which of course, is just a boringish white flower,

isn't it, normally?

And he's made this lovely illustration from Arthurian legend,

with the boat, and...

It is very Arthurian, isn't it? Yes.

Well, it's one of 300 copies. Yes.

And they're all numbered.

You also have the original box it came in, which is fantastic. Yes.

And it's in this beautiful original binding as well.

It's a book that's extremely sought after.

Burne-Jones is such a famous and valuable artist in his own right.

I think if you were to put it into auction -

and several have come through auction recently -

you'd expect it to make something like £5,000.

SHE GASPS

Gosh! Well, that is a surprise.

Thank you!

I'm shaking with anticipation and excitement.

This, I think, is an amazingly iconic collection of objects,

and an amazing story, too.

So what we have here is something that's pretty obvious.

JB 007, a car number plate,

doesn't need much explaining, does it, at the moment?

But we'll come back to that.

And what we have here is a bowler hat.

And it's the bowler hat from Goldfinger -

arguably, I think, one of the best James Bond films ever made -

that belonged to Oddjob,

Auric Goldfinger's henchman.

Now, that's pretty incredible. That's what I believe.

Well, let's discuss that.

Give me some provenance.

Well, my brother-in-law was the driver for Aston Martin,

that took the Aston Martin back and forward to Pinewood Studios.

Right.

And also was the person who picked up Sean Connery,

to take him, instead of him going on the bus,

back and forward to Pinewood Studios.

Really? So, what, so he went to his hotel and picked him up,

in the DB5?

Yeah, in that actual car.

That's him there. Yeah.

Peter Davis, and his wife, Shirley, my sister.

OK. Well, that's a pretty amazing story.

Do we know how Oddjob's hat came into his possession?

Well, I was a big Bond fan.

And my brother-in-law asked Pinewood Studio

if he could have one of the hats.

What happened was, they wouldn't allow it out of the studio

without taking the metal out of the top of the hat.

Because, of course, we all know the famous scene in the film,

in which Oddjob takes off his bowler,

he whacks it out, it spins off,

and he knocks the head off the statue.

So they left this, as far as I'm aware -

this is the story that I was told -

they left the steel in the bottom part. Yes.

So, as you can see, by the state on it,

as a young lad, everybody wanted to throw the Oddjob hat.

And if you look at it, everybody did throw the hat,

because it's absolutely in pieces,

because it didn't have the steel in it any more,

so therefore, whenever it landed...

Yeah. ..it damaged it.

Right, OK.

We can see that it's definitely a prop hat.

And, you know, it's an iconic part of Bond history.

It really, really is.

Now, the number plate.

No secret agent would have JB 007 on his number plate, would he,

because it would literally be a bit obvious?

We all know that, obviously - and there's the DB5 there...

With the correct number plate.

..yes, with the correct number plate.

And I believe that probably what Aston Martin would have done was,

when they were using the DB5 to promote the film,

they would screw this number plate on to the front of it.

Now, listen.

Many years ago, Oddjob's hat was sold in London.

It was, yes.

And there was a big kind of promotional thing

about it being the one and only Oddjob's hat. It was, yeah.

It made over £60,000.

Right. OK. OK?

Now, I really believe,

and having had this conversation with you,

and seen all of this,

that there was definitely more than one Oddjob's hat.

Anyone knows that if you're making a movie,

you're going to probably have more than one

of this kind of prop.

So I'm going to talk about values.

Because this, of course, has never been used in a film or anything.

Definitely not. It's a great plate.

So I think, to a real James Bond fan,

that this is going to be worth £4,000 to £6,000.

Wow!

Glad I didn't lose it, then.

As for this - my gosh, you gave it a hard time.

You really did!

And...I wish it were in better condition. Me too.

I really do.

But, you know, boys will be boys!

£20,000 to £30,000.

GASPS OF SURPRISE

OK!

Right.

Thank you. It's all I can say!

To handle this item is an absolute honour for me,

so thank you very, very much.

Thank you. APPLAUSE

Well, obviously, what we have here is a rugby blazer and velvet cap.

Tell me, what do they mean to you?

Well, my father played for this club in 1911-14...

..and he was awarded - well, all the players then were awarded

the blazer, cap and the badge.

So this is Ammanford RFC... Ammanford.

..which is, what, 20 miles or so from here, is it?

It's quite close by. Ten miles?

And obviously their season,

or their three seasons, actually, 1912 to 1914,

they're known as probably the best team that the club has ever had

and they were known as the Invincibles. Invincibles.

Well, obviously, we think of these velvet caps, and they're beautiful,

with their silver and gold bullion that they have on them.

And generally speaking, we think of them, really, as being very much,

they're either for international games or county games. Yes.

But I think they're also presented for teams, really, that do something

very exceptional, don't they?

This is obviously why they were awarded these caps,

which wouldn't have been... Very special.

Very special, absolutely.

And I actually have quite an interest in rugby,

in that my father was actually a very well-known rugby player,

some time after this, obviously.

But he actually was the captain of Maesteg... Maesteg, yes.

..for the Invincibles season that they had in 1949-1950.

Well, thank you so much for bringing it in.

It's been a great pleasure to see it.

Obviously it's never going to be sold, it belongs in the club.

But I would think that, you know, the blazer and the cap,

you're probably looking at maybe £200, £300, £400,

something like that.

Well, the money is nothing.

Exactly. It deserves to be kept in the club.

It's in the club. This is in the club.

Thank you so much for bringing it in.

Kyffin Williams was, as you know,

one of the best loved Welsh artists of the 20th century.

But this isn't necessarily what you would expect in one of his pictures.

You might imagine a rugged Welsh landscape view, perhaps.

But this is a portrait.

So what's the story here?

Well, in the late '60s, my dad got a job in Bangor University.

We moved from Birmingham to Anglesey.

And I started to become interested in art, through my brother.

He started taking me to galleries, where I saw paintings

by Kyffin Williams.

This was the first painting I ever bought in my life.

And it was £200 to £250, somewhere between the two, I can't remember.

And that was in 19... Early 1970s.

In-between in '72 and '74, I think.

So this painting, we know, was painted in 1959,

as Kyffin Williams actually confirmed to you in a letter,

later on in life.

And we actually also know who the subject is,

and the subject is Ivor Roberts-Jones,

who was an English artist of Welsh descent,

but a very successful sculptor.

His best known work is the large bronze, this huge bronze,

in Parliament Square, of Churchill.

What a lot of people don't know about that bronze of Churchill

is that it wasn't, in fact, Churchill who modelled for it,

it was Kyffin Williams.

Kyffin Williams was the man who stood there,

in this great long coat,

as Ivor Roberts-Jones was busy there, making this plaster maquette,

which was, of course, later turned into the bronze.

So they were close friends, certainly, for that period.

He was such a good portraitist, I think. Sure.

I mean, he approached his subject

in the same way that he would a landscape.

I mean, all of the crevices of the face are painted out,

using that very thick texture,

using a palette knife and applied very, very heavily.

So actually, yeah, I really do rate him as a portrait painter.

So, value?

I think if this work were to come up at auction,

I would expect to see it sell for a figure

in the region of £10,000 to £15,000.

Yeah, that's amazing. Yeah.

Thank you for bringing it in, and thank you for sharing the story.

Yeah, cheers.

They say true love is meant to endure,

but I think it's fair to say that lots of the items and the pieces

produced to commemorate true love are meant to endure.

And here we have a marvellous Victorian Valentine's card.

So I take it you're a romantic person?

I am a romantic person, yeah. Yeah.

So did you buy this or...?

No, it was left to me by one of my aunties,

because I've always loved it.

And I just thought the poem in it is really beautiful,

and I read it every year on Valentine's Day.

You read it every year on every Valentine's Day? Yeah.

Just to honour their love, really.

I'm going to read it now, do you mind?

No, not at all.

Let's tip it out here, gently.

"My dearest Jeanie.

"I love the gentler sighing winds that murmur over the lea.

"I love the grandeur of the waves upon a stormy sea."

So sweet! It is, isn't it?

Valentine's cards like this really became popular in the 1800s.

There was, with a sort of mass production of paper,

hundreds of thousands of these things were being sent.

Oh, right.

So they're not uncommon.

If you go looking, you can find them.

But for me, it's the detail,

it's the condition - look at it.

It is as fresh as the day it was given and received with love.

It's the box, but it's that poem that really does it for me.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's really lovely, isn't it?

A token of love.

A token of £100 to £150.

Oh, lovely!

A little bit of love, here amongst the flowers.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Wander through the Botanic Gardens,

and there's something intriguing around every corner.

I've just stepped away from the queues for a moment,

and come across this beautiful garden,

full of dahlias and snapdragons and sweet peas,

and the scent of the sweet peas, in particular, is just heavenly.

But plants aren't just to be celebrated for their beauty and smell.

For thousands of years, they've been used for medicinal purposes.

And this is the medicinal garden.

Marigold Calendula officinalis

is the herbalist's go-to first aid plant,

used to reduce soreness and inflammation.

And Echinacea is good for wounds and burns.

And I love this, it's called meadowsweet -

you probably recognise it.

You see it growing all over the UK, along the roadsides in Wales.

And it was used to create an early form of aspirin in the 1890s.

Right next door to the garden is the Apothecary's Hall,

an old Edwardian-style pharmacy...

..where plant-based potions were created

to the pharmacist's own formula.

And who better to tell me about them

than our very own glass specialist, Andy McConnell?

Shame there's no remedy for the rain!

Andy, come and have a look at this.

I want to show you this old Edwardian pharmacy

that's been recreated here at the Botanic Gardens.

And it's all the glass I want to show you, in particular,

all full of these traditional remedies.

As soon as glass became available, the traditional substance, ceramics,

was jettisoned in favour of this much more practical substance

that was see-through, transparent,

so you could actually see what was in it.

And then, as history developed,

we get a progression of types.

So the blue glass and the green glass,

they're particularly significant, aren't they?

Well, the coloured glass meant "Don't consume it."

So, 18th century, we're getting blue,

and then...but green was cheaper.

And then we have a development from 1900,

where we have the ribbed bottle,

so dispensing chemists knew that these were poisonous,

and the blind knew they were poisonous too.

You could pick up your bottle, as a blind person,

feel the ribbing...

Don't drink it!

So it's interesting to think that chemists were prescribing poisons

for their patients.

Well, I think the essence of it was not to take too much,

stay to the prescription, because otherwise

you could end up in the cemetery even earlier than you thought.

Let's roll back 90 years,

we've gone out to the theatre, had a wonderful evening. Yeah, yeah.

Our chauffeur's over there.

He's drawn up in the limo. Right.

We jump in the back, and we say, "James, home, please."

And he switches on the lights. Right.

And what happens? Not only the lights go on... Yeah.

..but the mascot lights up. Right.

Can you just imagine how brilliant that would have looked,

way back in the 1930s? Right.

I thought it was later than that, actually.

But I've always thought it was special.

My father had it because somebody couldn't pay for their petrol.

He was in the garage business, was he?

He ran a garage business.

They couldn't pay for the petrol,

and I believe this was left in lieu of the payment.

And nobody ever came back.

But then it sat in a drawer,

with all his tools, in a duster.

So it has survived quite a long time, yeah.

Well, I think what's so remarkable about it,

considering that it came off the front of a car,

you'd expect it to be chipped and scratched. Yeah.

But it's in pristine condition. Yeah.

After he died, I rescued it from the garage,

because it was in a tray of tools,

and that's when I wrapped it up and put it away. OK. Yeah.

Well, this is the English equivalent of the French make of Lalique.

Lalique did a wide range of glass mascots. Right.

Again, they were all illuminated,

but again, unusual to find

both the mascot and the illumination together. Oh, right.

I just unscrewed it, and there's still a light bulb in there.

Really? It's a pink one. So this is the pink lady.

So that probably would have been pink or red. Yeah.

And it's called the Speed Head.

Right.

Because there she is,

she's on the front of your radiator,

hair streaming behind. Yeah.

You know, what an attractive lady. Yeah.

Anyway, this one's made by a company called Red Ashay. Right.

And it says so on the base there.

So would it have been made for a particular car, or not?

No, it was... You could put it on whatever car you wanted to. Right.

During the 1920s, '30s, and way into the '40s,

there were mascots on all cars, virtually. Right.

Some were made specifically for that particular car.

Humber would have a particular one,

a Rolls-Royce had the Flying Lady.

But there was lots of other cars that didn't have mascots,

and you could just go to a retailer and buy either a glass one,

or brass or bronze.

Incredible. Right.

I wonder how much the debt was back then.

I don't know. Petrol was quite cheap, wasn't it? They might have

been running out of petrol coupons as well, I don't know.

Because petrol was rationed, as well, wasn't it?

During the war? Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely.

Well, I think it's a cracking piece.

I think, at auction, if you sold it today,

it would fetch between £3,500 and £4,500.

You're joking! You are... I don't joke, no!

I don't joke. Sorry!

£3,500 to £4,000. Really?

My goodness! I had no idea of that.

No idea whatsoever.

It's, to me, it's... I'm getting emotional now.

It's something that I remember my father by.

Yeah, well, that's charming.

Thank you very much indeed. My pleasure. Thank you.

I don't think he'd have believed it.

It was in a drawer, with his tools, wrapped in a duster.

And he used to really enthuse about the glass lady.

So we're over the moon.

Well, even this is glistening in the rain today. It is.

When did you first see it?

20 years ago.

In a shop? In a skip.

Yes, it was retrieved out of a skip for me,

because the person thought that I would like it.

And I do. I love it.

What do you know about it?

Well, I can see from the design that it's Arts and Crafts.

Well...

..Arts and Crafts,

or even a bit earlier than that,

Art Nouveau. Oh, right.

So Art Nouveau, from the sort of 1880s, through to sort of 1910.

So this very sinuous, sort of organic line of the honesty growing

round here, really makes it Art Nouveau more than Arts and Crafts.

With a nice, authentic

late 19th-century piece of mirrored plate in it, too,

and the silvering's gone.

Yeah.

But how could anybody put it in a skip?

God knows, but I'm so glad that it was retrieved for me.

I don't think it's by any particular maker. OK.

It's worth £300.

Wow! Very nice.

Now, it's true to say, isn't it, that the minute you brought

this to my desk, I said, that's by Harry van der Weyden.

Yes, and you even added "My hero."

Well, he is a bit my hero.

And what's he to you?

Well, he's my great-grandfather,

and he's my granddaughter's great-great-great-grandfather.

Well, there you are.

The two of us, you know, by some weird coincidence,

are probably the people who know more about that man

than anyone else in the world.

And I'm hoping you can tell me even more, please.

Oh, well, I don't know. We'll see.

The first thing, though, is to admire this beautiful watercolour.

Isn't it stunning?

It's lovely.

It was hanging in my great-aunt's home all my life,

and when she passed on, I was fortunate enough to inherit it.

I love it.

Dated 1923.

I actually used to own another version of this very same picture,

so I know it's Rye,

and the mudflats, at low tide.

What's really clever about it, I always think,

is the way the moon is not displayed.

The most you see of it is reflection

in the ripple in the foreshore.

But it's not shown in the sky at all.

All you see is just the glow of it and the track

of it across the mud.

And I believe that his early work,

he was described as something called a Tonalist.

Yes, a Tonalist was a sort of small school of American watercolourists,

and what they were particularly interested in was Japanese prints.

And you see their very blocky colours coming out,

and also their quite close tonal range coming out

in their watercolours.

But he was a very young man then,

and he completed his education by coming to France.

You probably know most of this!

Well, some of it, because I have other paintings by him

of other family members in France.

Ah, I see.

The First World War comes.

He joins up as the camouflage officer for the Royal Artillery.

Did you know that? No.

Well, you know, lots of artists were drummed into, you know,

providing for the war effort by using their skills,

and this meant disguising tanks as bits of tree and stuff.

And he was very good at that.

And then he had a studio, I think, on the Cote d'Azur later. Yes.

So obviously he stayed in France,

and he was painting down there.

And I always imagined that he was extremely wealthy.

No. Not the case?

No, not the case.

You'd have to be, to live there now!

Well, the family joke was that he used to sell his paintings

by the square yard,

because they tended to be rather large and quite heavy oils.

Yes, but this very light, beautiful watercolour.

I suppose you've never valued it, or anything like that? No, never.

I think it's probably fair to say that yours is worth

£3,000 to £4,000.

Wonderful. Thank you very much.

I think it will stay in the family.

Oh, well, I do hope so.

Well, you know the expression "rare as hen's teeth", don't you? Yes.

You have brought me the mother of all hen's teeth here. Really?

This is an extremely rare expression of jewellery.

But tell me about it, with your kinsmanship, your family.

Well, we've inherited it down through the years.

But it's because our kinsman was Pugin

and Hardman Powell.

Augustus Welby Pugin. Yes.

Who is, of course, the designer of the interior

of the Palace of Westminster,

the most venerable palace in the United Kingdom.

It's for his family,

but actually, it's not necessarily by him,

because it was made after his death - he died in 1852.

But everything in his life was taken over by his son-in-law,

John Hardman Powell,

who had married Anne Pugin, his daughter.

So we see all the sort of ghostly input from this great artistic

architectural genius, rendered down,

absolutely distilled into this ring,

almost posthumously as well.

But I wondered if you'd thought at all about the significance

of these little bead works on the side?

No, just assumed it was decoration.

Well, and I think it is decorative, of course,

but the Pugin family and the Hardman family

were so entrenched in the Anglo-Catholic tradition

that they clearly adopted a very ancient theme here.

And this ring is called a decade, and it's called a decade

because there are ten of these little pellets here,

and each one of them is rather like a rosary, a signal to the wearer

to say "Ave Maria",

and then, working round ten Ave Marias,

to reach the top and touch it.

And so this is a very ancient, medieval tradition.

And we can see inside, the hallmarks appear for Birmingham.

22 carat gold, it's almost pure gold,

set with a cabochon garnet.

It's very enviable.

There are collectors of rings, specialist collectors,

and this is exactly what they want.

They want context and excitement and indisputable provenance,

and something so rare that they can never have it again.

So, without a shadow of doubt,

it's worth £8,000.

Oh, my God!

How fantastic!

Oh, that dear little ring. Dear little ring.

So it's all about this, sort of, you know, really luminous

Anglo-Catholic excitement from an architect, designer

and absolutely somebody central to the national identity

of the United Kingdom.

So, apart from that, it's of no interest, really!

LAUGHTER

To hear that story, of how much this tiny ring really means,

how it condensed a whole big story like that,

how lucky are we to own it?

That's fantastic.

This is such a surreal collection of photographs.

There's two kids balancing on a bicycle here.

Some miners underground.

This kind of weird, clown-like guy with a big nose,

and then a red box here, that says in German,

the Young German Miners of the German Democratic Republic.

What's the story here? How did you come to have these?

They belonged to my father,

and in 1957, he went to Russia with the South Wales Colliery.

He went for a few months,

and he was given all these to bring back,

and a collection of photographs.

Well, it's a very interesting and unusual group of photographs.

They're all black and white photographs,

a big stack of them mounted on these cards,

and on the back of them, there are captions in English,

French, German and Russian.

These are all about an organisation of the youth miners

of Germany, East Germany, which was part of the Eastern Bloc,

part of the Communist world at that time.

And all of the captions talk about what a wonderful life

these young miners have.

Isn't it great they're so well educated?

They're doing all of these fun sports.

And, you know, these guys are learning how to coal mine.

They put on these sort of entertainments

in the evenings for them.

My theory on this is that this is all propaganda.

This is the Soviet Union saying life can be great under Communism.

Yes. Yeah? Yeah.

And I think they were trying to appeal to hard-working people

here in South Wales,

and try and get them on board with Communism as well. Yeah.

Do you think your father was convinced?

No, not really. No?

No! He came home and went drinking, I think.

Really?

He didn't become a hardcore Communist? No.

I think it's a really, really fascinating group of photographs.

And I think they would really appeal to collectors of photography.

I think if you put these together as a group,

I think you'd expect them to make between £600 and £1,000.

Serious?

Oh, my goodness!

Oh!

Oh, I didn't think it had...

Oh, fabulous. You've made my day now!

You've made my day!

Well, you made my day by bringing them.

My grandfather was a model engineer, and when I was growing up,

I was absolutely mesmerised by some of the things he made -

miniature steam engines, stationary locomotives.

So the moment I saw this, I absolutely fell in love with it,

because what we have here is the most exquisite

little stationary steam engine.

Tell me a little bit about it.

OK. Well, this is a steam engine that's been made from a door knob

by my four-times great-uncle.

It's come down through the family,

and has passed to me since my father passed away in February.

Right. I think what I most love about this

is the fact that it's made out of a door knob.

The boiler is a door knob.

Do we know anything about him, or his profession?

We do. It turns out he was a clockmaker. Ah!

That answers a lot of questions, because if we look at how

exquisitely and finely made this little object is,

it certainly has the hand of a watch or clockmaker in it.

And I think we only need to look at some of the kind of the mechanism -

they actually look like watch and clock cogs, don't they?

I can see also that there's a number.

It says 1280 something or another here.

It's a very old ink number.

Do you know what the significance of that is?

I do. So this says 1,280 hours,

and that's the time that he's spent making this.

Oh, my gosh, so...

..crumbs, try and work that out.

If we do the maths quickly, that's about 50-odd days,

and that's 24-hour days.

If we break that down, that's about 100...

That's about half a year of working time,

for an average day's work,

to produce this little item.

That's quite incredible, isn't it?. It's amazing.

And I can kind of see why.

If I touch my finger on this...

..it still is operating smoothly.

And I suspect people are asking the question,

why aren't we running it?

I think that's too risky for an object of this type.

Have you ever known it to run, or has it run in your lifetime?

I know it's run in my father's lifetime.

He's seen it running.

I've never seen it running.

It was the kind of thing that only ever came out once or twice

in my childhood.

Right. And that was a no-touch situation.

Yeah, I'm not surprised.

I mean, I could imagine it was such a precious item,

that obviously it's not a toy,

and, you know, within the family, it wasn't regarded as a toy.

It sits under a glass dome.

This is not the original dome, but it's quite a good fit.

It's an old outside light.

Glass, actually.

But obviously, it does its job, doesn't it? Yes.

My father spent many an hour toiling garage sales trying to find it.

Oh, really? One that fitted it.

You could have a handmade one made for it,

and, do you know, it may be worth that investment at some time,

aesthetically, to have that done for it,

because it will have that waviness, that kind of old look,

that should really go with this.

But let's talk about value on this.

I know it's very precious to you, isn't it? Indeed, yes.

I honestly think that there are many people out there who would give

their eye teeth for this beautiful little item.

So I'm not going to bandy my words about this,

I'm going to give this a value of between £2,000 to £3,000.

Wow!

OK.

I think it's an absolutely exquisite little thing.

You are so lucky to have this.

Thank you, it's just gorgeous. You're most welcome.

When this came out of your bag,

I could see that this was a tour de force of chip carving

on a mahogany walking stick cane,

and I could see that the top of it here was covered in a profusion

of geometric designs,

and then we've got all sorts of symbols going down here,

and it says "Egypt",

and it's got the compass and square, the symbols of masonry. Mm-hm.

So what do you know about that?

Well, it belonged to my dad. Yeah. He died last September,

and I was clearing out the house,

and he was a collector of lots of different things,

and he was also a Freemason... Ah. ..for over 55 years.

And we had an umbrella stand,

with various walking sticks and umbrellas and different things...

And this is where it lived?

..and I pulled it out, and I thought, wow, look at this.

This is just amazing.

I'd never seen anything like it,

and I looked at it, and I looked at the date, and I saw "Egypt",

but I wasn't even sure if it was from Egypt, or 1826.

I don't think it's ever been near Egypt.

It's where Freemasonry's origins came from... Yeah.

..was Egypt, and that's why it's there,

and there's loads of references to Egypt,

and you've got, erm, a pyramid down here, with references to Egypt,

and a sphinx, with this funny-looking, funny-looking crest,

and the Sphinx's breast there, and its body coming back here,

and it's also dated 1826.

Do you know what that ref...? No, no.

I don't either.

It could be something in the Freemasons' calendar

that I'm not aware of.

You've got a snake spiralling round the stick here.

I mean, it's just incredible how you can get so much information

on the surface.

He really was a genius, the person that carv...

I mean, it's folk art at its best.

Have you ever thought about a value for a thing like this?

I've got no idea how much it's worth.

A stick like this, I think,

would make between £1,500 and £2,000.

Wow.

Thank you.

So on the table, we've got some photographs... Yeah.

..a map, and some bits of paper.

Now, I'm going to be honest with you, apart from the map,

the only bit of paper I recognise

is this one here, for something called the Caterpillar Club. Yeah.

That means that someone had to use a parachute from a doomed aircraft.

Yes, that's right.

Who was the owner of this certificate?

Yeah, this is my father, Flying Officer Derek Maling,

and he was an RAF navigator,

flying back from a bombing mission in Vienna.

A shell hit their aircraft, and, before it exploded,

he remembers just putting on his parachute,

and the next thing he realises is

he comes to, in a field, in Yugoslavia.

From what I've read in this account that he wrote... Yeah.

..no-one survives from his aircraft, just him.

Not only was he the only survivor of that aircraft,

but out of the whole of the squadron that went out,

probably ten aircraft that night,

he was the only person to make it back.

Wow.

It's amazing. So he's SO lucky.

Yeah. What happened to him when he landed?

So he comes to in a field, and it turns out that he's injured,

and so he approaches a farm.

This is enemy-occupied territory. Yeah.

Fortunately for him, they were partisan sympathisers,

and they brought a doctor, who stitched up his wounds,

and they looked after him.

So he's come down in Yugoslavia?

Yeah, just inside Slovenia.

OK. And then he quickly crosses the border into what's now Croatia.

What is this piece of paper?

This is the document that he was given by the partisans.

This was his travel document,

for them to have an account of who he was,

and why he was travelling with the partisans.

Oh, that's incredible. It is.

And what's this little book here?

This is a really interesting book. He met a doctor.

She had quite good English, and he was saying,

"I'm having difficulty communicating with the partisans,"

and so she gave him this book, which is like an English textbook,

and inside we've got her name, "Jelka Vesenjak".

And what does this bit say?

I've only just translated this, and this is in my dad's writing,

and it says, "Dear love of my heart." Oh!

So... So, intrigue, as well as partisans, and trying to escape?

Exactly.

He makes it to where? Across to this place here, called Vocin,

about 200 miles to the east of where he started from. Wow.

The partisans were supplied by the allies,

and they used to fly in to this airstrip.

The pilot of the plane didn't cut the engines,

he turned round, and they took off straight away.

I think it's an incredible story of a part of the war, Yugoslavia,

which, actually, we really don't hear about.

It is the Antiques Roadshow.

I do have to put some sort of a value on this... Yes, yes.

..and I think that's easily £500...

Yes. ..which is not really enough money for that story.

Yeah, yeah. But I think that's, that's probably where we are.

Incredible. Yeah. Well done, Dad.

Was he a nice man? He was brilliant.

He was the BEST dad ever. Perfect.

Well, best dad ever, he did a fantastic job that day.

Thanks very much for bringing that in. It's brilliant.

So you've brought along a cheeky monkey, a ceramic monkey,

porcelain, erm, with two fingers that have come adrift.

That's right, yeah. So what is the story behind this character?

Well, I've had him about 30 years,

and he belonged to a very close friend of my grandfather's.

This lady who owned it, she passed away when she was 93.

When her estate was wound up, this monkey ended up with me,

because my father didn't like it,

and he was actually destined to go to house clearance.

And he spent the first sort of like six years of our relationship

he spent in my bedroom, on a stand,

so I had him in there for quite a while.

You shared your bedroom with a monkey? A monkey, yes. OK.

That's OK. That's a claim to fame, isn't it?

Yes. Shall we have a look at him? Yes, absolutely, yes. OK, erm,

because he's, he's quite an unusual item,

insofar as, what on Earth is he doing?

Cos he's got... Well, I wondered that. ..he's got something,

he should have something in there. Yeah.

If he could continue, he'd stick it up his nostril.

He would be taking snuff. Ah...

So he's often referred to as the snuff taker,

and he's based on a figure

that was modelled in around about 1730, 1735,

at a place called Meissen, which is just up the river Elbe from Dresden.

OK, so German.

And there is a series of large white glaze animals and birds

that were modelled at that time,

but I'd love this to be 1735.

I'd really love to see a little blue cross swords on,

on the underside, which is the mark of Meissen.

I've looked underneath here,

and, erm, and I'm not seeing any marks whatsoever,

so it's not Meissen, alas.

I'm mindful that this one,

he's got some age, probably around about 1880.

But just where he was made...

I'd like to think that he was made in the Dresden area.

So, value? Hmm.

I'll stick my neck out, despite the fact that it's got lots of damage,

it is a good decorator's piece. Yes.

And so I'll say around about £500.

OK. OK.

Now, what about the 1735 price?

Well, believe it or not, erm, apparently,

I'm told there are only three examples from that period

that are known, so, erm,

£800,000.

Really? Had it been of the earlier period. Wow.

That's amazing. Yeah. But, no, delighted anyway.

No, and just think of the liability of owning something worth £800,000.

I know! I mean, what would you do with the money? I don't know.

Don't go there.

Well, it's been quite a grey and wet day today,

so it's delightful to see this colourful and vibrant screen.

How long have you known it?

I've known it since I was six,

and we used to sit in front of it, or hide behind it,

while the grown-ups were talking, and, and listen in.

And so what do you remember from it, aged six?

What was your impression?

The parrots.

The parrots fascinated me, and the general colour.

It was exciting.

And so who did it belong to?

It belonged to my great-step-aunt, my grandfather's half-sister,

and when she died, it went to my aunt,

and I actually asked my aunt, in her old age,

if she would consider leaving it to me when she went.

That's quite a bold thing to ask!

It was quite bold, but she was always easy to talk to.

Yes, and you must have just loved it so much, I mean...

I did, it was...

There are two parrots on it, aren't there? Yes, there are.

There's one up here... And one there.

..and I've just noticed there's one down here... One down there.

..so, aged six, it was at eye-level for a six-year-old. It was, it was.

I agree, I think, everywhere you look,

there are flowers that you recognise.

Parrot tulips, roses,

auriculas, hollyhocks.

Yes. It's just one of those things.

It's not very often you describe furniture as being really pretty,

but it is. It's just SO beautiful. Yes.

Well, let me tell you, it's definitely not English.

I think it's continental, and almost certainly French.

It's oil paint on leather,

and the back is quite plain, as most screens are.

So it dates from around 1910, early 20th century,

just over 100 years old.

So not as old as all of those rather dark Victorian screens you see,

but I think it's better,

and I think it's worth

£2,000.

You're... No!

You're joking!

Oh, my goodness!

I absolutely love it.

It's the prettiest piece of furniture I've seen for years.

Really? Well, I love it, too.

A little beaker like that can only be made in France.

I could see across the room that that little beaker

has come from France.

Now, you've brought it here to South Wales. Yeah.

What does it mean to you? Why have you brought it?

So, my great-grandfather brought it back after the First World War,

and he was based out in Ypres, and it was found in the trenches.

This is your great-grandfather?

That's my great-grandfather, Henry Morris.

In his uniform from the Great War.

Yeah. OK.

And he found it in a trench.

In the mud? In the mud, so it was all black and horrible.

He used it while he was in the war, as his shaving mug.

When he came home,

my grandmother said, "What's this?"

And he said, "Oh, I don't know, you can throw it away,

"I've been using it as a shaving mug."

And then she said, "I think it's silver," so she cleaned it up,

and then when my mother was born, in 1942,

it was given to her as a christening present.

So that's how we... And then it's come down.

I mean, my mother still has it in her China cabinet at home.

Does she? Yeah, yeah. And he dug it out of the mud in Ypres? Yeah.

So, presumably, it belonged to a Frenchman?

It was a French trench, was it? I'm guessing.

I don't really know all the details, but I'm guessing so.

And so he recycled it and used it as a... Shaving mug.

..shaving mug, and then it's been recycled again,

back to what it was originally, actually,

which was a christening mug. Oh, is that what it was?

Yeah. Oh, wow!

Probably. I mean, almost certainly.

Oh, right, cos we've always said it was a stirrup cup.

No, no... Right. Quite often, they're given in France

as christening presents,

and on the front, it's engraved with a chap's name,

which may well have been the soldier of the Great War who lost it.

Oh, wow. So it's come full circle, in a way.

That's fantastic. Oh, that's made me go a bit goosey, actually.

That's really nice. And it's been through the war.

Yeah.

Oh, my mum will be really chuffed with that.

What's enchanted me about this little mug is that story.

I'll tell the truth, honestly, it's not a valuable thing.

It's not silver, in fact, it's electroplated,

it's silver plate.

But this is a fantastic example

of an antique, or an old object,

that doesn't have to be worth much

to be enormously valuable.

It's great.

It's the best history of an object I've heard in a long time. Yeah.

So that's just great. It's really, it's really quite moving.

Fantastic. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Where did you get these from?

They've been passed down from my family, my parents.

Erm, both of them were bought by my father.

This one, specifically, he bought for my mother,

and it was passed down to me when they passed away.

Well, your parents treated it as a love token,

and that's just what it is,

and I think you know that it's called a stay busk... Yes, yes.

..and they were worn in a little pocket,

and were pushed down to tighten the corset, or corsage,

so that your stomach was flat

and you could achieve that wasp-waisted look.

But it's made of mahogany, I think. Sometimes they make...

I didn't know the wood.

And of course, when it wasn't in use, it has a little ring,

and these were made as love tokens.

The symbolism is highly important.

Now, we have, I think, an A and a G,

so they were the initials of the couple

who obviously were betrothed,

and then we have flowers in the lower lozenges.

But it's the symbolism, the heart, for love,

and have they ever noticed this at the bottom?

It's a tulip.

And if you corrupt the word "tulip" - "two lips".

So it's this idea of an eternal kiss.

That's interesting, yes.

So... And this is just simply chip-carved, in a folk tradition.

The Welsh made these.

But I think this is an English one, from the sort of north.

It's a really good example.

Now, you brought this along as well.

What's that?

I have no idea, and that's why I brought it.

It's like a miniature truncheon, isn't it?

That's what I've always described it as.

Yeah, but you wouldn't do a lot of damage with that, would you? No.

Well, it IS a miniature truncheon,

and it's actually called a tipstave,

and it was a symbol of authority... OK. ..before the police.

So if you were a local warden,

or a locally appointed constable -

this is before the police of 1829 -

this was your symbol of authority.

Another date, 1816, beneath a royal crown and the initials of George III

and that's Georgius Rex

on the reverse, with a little three.

They're not that rare, funnily enough, but this is a good one,

in good condition.

£150, £200.

But when you come to the stay busk, much more desirable,

super condition, that's worth

between £500 and £800 at auction.

So, together, they're worth between £650 and £1,000.

Thank you.

You know, I never understand how koumpounophobics survive in life.

It must be terribly difficult.

Do you know what a koumpounophobic is?

No. It's somebody who's scared of these little critters. Buttons.

You're clearly not one, with this many!

What's going on?

The story told is that my grandmother bought it in the '60s,

from the company, I believe, called Firmin's,

who were closing their London office,

and we've had it ever since.

Apparently, it was done for the Great Exhibition in 1851.

That's it. That is literally it.

You've mentioned two fantastic names there.

Firstly, Firmin and Sons.

So Firmin were founded in 1655, as button makers,

and they produced buttons for all manner of sort of liveries,

military companies, aristocrats,

all sorts of dress and uniform buttons.

They've held the royal warrant, which you see here in the middle,

and they're still in production today.

So a great, prestigious name,

probably one of the top names in button making in Britain.

And of course the Great Exhibition.

The Great Exhibition, that fantastic showcase of industry of all nations.

So this is a surviving part of the Great Exhibition.

There's a huge selection of different buttons here,

and button collecting is still a relatively healthy area,

partly because it's so affordable.

So you can have buttons here

that were produced in quite large quantities.

So they're much more common,

so values tend to be a little bit lower.

And then, of course, we have these very sparkly ones here,

which are made out of cut steel,

and then just here, we have these very colourful enamelled ones,

and these are produced primarily in pressed brass.

Is it the sort of thing you would sell, or is it too sentimental?

I don't think I would sell it. No.

OK.

So we're not talking a great deal of money

for many of the individual buttons here,

especially the more common ones

that were produced for, say, larger regiments.

However, these buttons here are slightly more interesting.

But who wants this type of thing? Where can this be displayed?

You've got to be a pretty hardcore button collector

to want to have this hanging above the mantelpiece in the living room.

Yeah. So values can come down a little bit,

because of the way it's displayed,

and it would be terrible, I'm sure you would agree, to split it all up.

Oh, absolutely.

I think if you were to put it into auction, the size is an issue.

But I would imagine a collector would pay somewhere between

£2,000 and 3,000.

Wow.

Pleased, you know. Absolutely.

That's good.

Half the people watching this will hate these grotesque faces,

and the other half absolutely love them.

I happen to be a lover, but I guess you know what they are.

Well, I've had them all my life.

My father and grandfather had them before me.

You know who made them? Yes.

Martin brothers. The Martin brothers.

Four brothers.

Yeah. But that's all I know.

Well, three of them were the most active,

and, yes, the Martin brothers were, they were a pottery in Southall,

in London, at the end of the Victorian era,

end of the 19th century, beginning of the 20th century,

and they were these...

Have you ever seen a picture of them? Well, no.

I haven't seen the picture of the brothers. Of the brothers?

Amazing.

They've got these ridiculous beards that come out about here,

like ZZ Top, and wild, wild hair.

Yeah. And they just looked like crazed men in this studio,

with all these ridiculous monstrosities

happening all over the place.

I'm a great Martin brothers fan.

The thing I like about them,

compared with so many other potteries of the same period,

is they are all individual creations.

We've got a mask jug here,

we've got a bird box and cover here -

the head comes off - and a jug here,

and no two pieces are identical. No.

They have been individually modelled.

These two were modelled by Robert Wallace Martin.

But this is also quite unusual,

but the decoration on the side of this one's

by one of the other brothers, this is by Edwin Martin.

They're not difficult things to date,

because I think each one of these has got a date on the bottom,

and if we look at this one, it'll say somewhere here,

is that 11 or 10? 10, 1895.

I think it is.

This one,

it's actually round the back on this one, it's there, it's 1901.

This one...

Can't really see it. I'm not sure. I think it might be 1896.

But that's that one there. But they all have an owl, well,

these two have got, have got...

Are these owls?

Well, it doesn't look much like an owl, to me. Well, what are they?

Well, I don't know. What do you think that is? A stork?

Yeah, some sort of crazy stork, or crane, or something.

It's a fabulous, monstrous... Yeah. ..er...

I mean, the eyes of this one are beautiful, lovely little eyes.

It's, it's absolutely ghoulish. Yeah.

It's out of Lord Of The Rings really, isn't it? Yes.

I think they are fantastic things.

I love them. Yes, keep, keep your fingers away from them!

What else you want to know about these?

Well, what are they worth?

Well, erm, yeah, they're worth a bit,

or some of them are worth a bit.

This jug here,

at auction, it should be about

£5,000 or £6,000. Ooh!

Ooh!

I'm glad I brought them along!

Funnily enough, this one, which doesn't look as interesting,

it's quite rare to have these figures with the thin legs,

in this piece by Edwin,

and it's also worth about £5,000 or £6,000. Ooh, right.

This one, I understand is a smaller one than a lot of them.

There are others that look similar to this.

Yeah, you do get them this big,

and you do get models that are actually caricatures of people.

There is a Gladstone and Disraeli model of the birds. Is there?

But this, so, it is only a little one,

so it's really only, what,

£25,000. Ooh!

Yes. Ooh!

I shouldn't have brought them along today!

My wife will see this!

Get rid of the telly. Well, that's it, yes.

They are filled with so much character.

They're the best of Victorian, really. They're fabulous.

Fantastic, quirky, weird, and they're unique, as well,

and I think that's really important,

because no-one else has got one the same.

It'll go back in the cupboard for the time being.

It'll turn into an old motorcar or something,

because I love my vintage and veteran cars,

so it'll no doubt turn into one of those!

Well, the National Botanic Garden of Wales,

in the middle of the Welsh countryside,

is the last place I think any of us would expect to see

Oddjob's hat from Goldfinger.

Who'd have thought it?

I'm tempted to put it on, but today, frankly,

I could've done with a sou'wester.

From Carmarthenshire, from all of us here,

until next time, bye-bye.