Antiques show that shows no sign of ageing

IT is just short of its 40th birthday but shows no sign of ageing. Hundreds of people were queuing before the opening of the grounds of Burton Constable Hall, near Hull, for the filming of the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow.

Explaining its popularity, antiques expert Paul Atterbury, who has been 26 years with the 39-year-old show, told The Yorkshire Post it was all about the stories behind the objects: “I think that’s why people keep watching it, we are all nosy about other peoples’ lives and it is a wonderful insight into what people have in their homes and where it has come from - I don’t think we will ever get tired of that.”

And yesterday the stories came from just round the corner. Collector Carol Wright, who lives nearby, has 95 prams. Yesterday she was showing off two of the oldest, including an 1870 twin-handled pram - handy for turning in narrow alleyways. “I couldn’t resist coming,” she said, “I wanted to know a little more about it.”

Also lined up for the cameras was Pat McKenzie from Withernsea who bought along medals - including a bronze Polar medal -and letters from her great grandfather Arthur Casement who was on the ship Morning, with 15 other men from Hull, which went to the rescue of Captain Scott from the Antarctic ice in 1902. The rescue took two years.

Some objects - like the two punchbowls with glasses, made from iridescent carnival glass, which fetched huge sums back in the 1970s and 1980s, owned by Deb Burns from Skirlaugh, are now hardly worth anything.

Expert Andy McConnell told Mrs Burns demand had “evaporated”. But she was undeterred. “It would be a bonus if it was worth money, but I just like it,” she said. “I shall be using it for our ruby wedding.”

*The show will go out, in two episodes, one this year and the other in 2017, to coincide with City of Culture in Hull.

The show’s star Fiona Bruce will be filming in key sites in Hull to introduce the 2017 episode.