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PERHAPS to escape from the deep depression
caused by living in present-day Britain, with its failing hospitals,
plunging pension values, pot-holed roads, traffic jams, spasmodic
trains, dilatory buses, fears of terrorism and increasing prospects of
union action that could drive the traditional coach and horses
clattering over the government’s cobbled-together wages policy, many
people are retreating into the cosy carapace of the past.
Apart from watching a ple-thora of TV history programmes showing
patri- matri- and fratricide among our royals, and the surge and thunder
of wars and rumours of wars, the nation is apparently busy searching its
homes, especially attics and cellars, for artefacts and objets d’art.
These may not only have intrinsic beauty or utility in themselves - some
more recent ones produced when trains ran on time and you could get a
plumber at weekends - but, if taken to the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow,
might also give pleasure to viewers and valuers, and bring a cash
cornucopia to owners.
Antiques could include anything from a jewelled,
clockwork-adjusting, pocket sundial by Fabergé (1913), with opal-rimmed
eyepiece through which daguerreotypes of Ras-putin blessing the Russian
royal family or lecturing on morals to gypsy women are glimpsed, to an
English William III clock, ingeniously constructed by Tompion (1701) for
the hands to run backwards, with a sepulchral tick and a nasty emphasis
on the tock, and with silver mounts depicting death and its scythe,
deference among the lower-classes to their betters, the evils of
alcoholic over-indulgence and the triumph of maidenly virtue over
importuners.
The programme is skilled at creating tension between antiques’
owners, some with minds like cash registers, and experts who drone on
about the history and construction of, say, a gilt and patinated bronze
lepre-chaun, armed with a light machine-gun and smoking a cigar-ette,
when the owners’ faces indicate, with barely concealed impatience, the
question, "How much?" An entertaining exercise in commercialism,
craftsmanship and cupidity, its success was emphasised when it had 8.4
million viewers compared with Paul Burrell’s first major interview with
Trevor McDonald on ITV - shown at the same time - which pulled in 4.4
million watchers.
While mainly inanimate objects are valued in such TV shows, human
antiques, many sadly under-appreciated, should, I believe, be given
equal TV prominence. Recently, I attended a Golden Wrinklies Fair at the
Mechanics Hall, Grimness, where an impressive collection of ancient
Britons, some looking as old as Methuselah’s uncle, but still in good
working trim and suitable for government preservation orders or
designation as areas of special scientific interest, were assessed by
experts in the living antiques game.
Among the creak of limbs and clang of Zimmers, the occasional
entanglements of drip-feeds, accidental deflation of haemorrhoidal
cushions and the staccato sniffing of ephedrine inhalers, I saw a
finely-sculptured, Hugh Scanlon-type, trade union leader (circa 1970),
still with full verbal control and able, when wound up, to display an
efficient strike movement and deliver pronunciamentos about the value of
secondary picketing in an implementatory context of relevant factors
appertaining at any given moment in time.
Highly collectable, especially among political enthusiasts, as
were ancient military relics, many bemedalled, some with sloping Lee
Enfield-type arms, others with steely-blue, drill-sergeant glares and
most still able to change step on the march when not in their
half-track, air-cooled bath chairs. Also on display, but with doubtful
provenance, was a furtive ancient claiming to be a veteran of the IRA
Dental Corps, complete with 1921 field-service, denture-polishing
equipment.
As I mingled with the hearty has-beens, a shrewd-looking valuer,
pointing at me, cried: "Marvellous. I thought there were none left - a
rare George V production of a standard citizen, the mould now sadly
broken. Notice the finely-tapered legs, the well-upholstered seat, hint
of bay window, well-fitted drawers, tungsten-laminated spectacles frame
and the elegantly-moulded cornice in the cloth cap. While the veneer has
been slightly distressed by age and Inland Revenue payments and needs
some restoration, this is, undoubtedly, a chef d’oeuvre, and, if fitted
with castors and laid down on its side, will continue to mature and be
an asset to any discerning home."
A fair assessment, and with my ceiling price assessed at "beyond
rubies", I raise a glass of my favourite, preservative tonic swamp water
to the valuer and say, "Frieze a jolly good fellow." Need I say more? |
