Antiques Roadshow Coming To Liverpools Sefton Park Palmhouse.

 Sefton Park Palm House. Will host the Antiques Roadshow for a Valuation day on the 28^th June 2022.

The magnificent structure in its wonderful parkland setting will see over a thousand people bring their cherished items, and car boot finds along for appraisal.

I was so proud to be invited to become a member of the Antiques Roadshow team and to be hosting a Roadshow day in my home town, well it does not get better than that.

For decades every Sunday night I watched the programme. The programme that inspired me to become an antique specialist.

I said to my mate Eric Knowles, when I joined the team.

“I can remember sitting there in me short pants, watching you talk about Art Deco figurines”.

“Cheeky Monkey” he said in his Burnley accent “I'm not that old”

Sefton Park built by Liverpools forefathers to give gentle relaxation and greenery to both the gentry and the working classes. And an escape from the industrial grime. 

It is a place I have visited all my life. From a very early age. During school holidays, unable to afford a week away we would go on days out. On bus trips and spend the whole day walking around the park. Though we lived closer to Stanley park with its boating lake which too has a Palm House it was a special treat to visit the mini Kew Gardens with its gigantic plants and its Aviary with its exotic species. The colours of the birds a complete eye opening contrast to the soot covered monochrome world not far from the docks where we lived and my father worked. 

I would sit and draw birds for hours on end during primary school taking paper home to do voluntary homework. I trained a Kestrel.

Then we could meander over to the bandstand and visit the famous cafe, still thriving today.

And there we would see the Peter Pan statue which was a treat for childrens sore eyes. And of course the famous Eros statue that is just by the cafe.

As you walk today watch carefully and you may see a wild Parakeet flying overhead, that had escaped from the cages that held the birds.

Then as a teenager and member of an infamous Fishing club I would sometimes, weather permiiting, in the summertime, board our clapped out smiley faced Charabang after doing my paper round and wolfing down my tea. And then we would drive to the lake to set the tackle up and pitch a line and a float in hoping to catch a perch or a roach. 

There on the bank sitting still against a mirror like calm, occasionally broken by a swan or two and a gaggling group of Canada Geese landing. And those quacking ducks that gorged themselves on the loaves of bread they were fed by children with their parents or grandparents escaping the humdrum of everyday life.

Years later I laughed in sadness at that wonderful sketch in 'Boys From The Blackstuff' where Yozzer Hughes who had gone slowly mad after losing his wife and children and fed up trolling the boards asking all and sundry to “Giz a Job” wades in to the lake. Sefton Park Lake. To drown himself. 

He went to see the Priest pleading with him

 “I am desperate”  over and over again, pleading with him. 

“I am desperate" in a sadder pitch. 

The other side of the confessional screen and the Priest feeling his desperation says “Call me Dan”

“I'm Desperate Dan” he replies. He went mad.

There was nothing left to do. He had given up. He waded into the lake.

Only to get half way across and the water only came up to his knees.

Life was so bad for Yozzer he couldn't even end it all.

He just can't do anything right. When life goes against you. 

And it was like that in Liverpool at the time.

The decline of the docks. Industry had gone and unemployment was high.

This was the time that Sefton Park Palm house fell into dis-repair. It was a sorry state. There was no money, so it was claimed by the City Council. This was the Hatton era. 

And it started to get vandalised.

I recall stopping my car once and walking through the missing panes of glass and almost crying at the sad state of neglect and the sorry state of the place. The plants had all died. There were no avaries. 

I did not cry. I got angry and became a heritage campaigner fighting a corrupt council whose councillors and officials were lining their pockets, with the peoples hard earned rates.

The lake was left to choke up and all the fish died. They drained it and found loads of shards of pottery, some Herculaneum, that had been dumped there. 

Liverpool had escaped the Luftwaffe but it couldnt escape the dim wiited corrupt councillors who lined their pockets with greed.

A campaign was won, grant funding was found and like a Pheonix it raised itself from the ashes and became a venue.

I went to a wedding there. In the afternoon. A wedding in a greenhouse I thought “Now thats clever. It was very hot. The sun would eventually set and a good evening would then be had by all.

 I did a gig there. As a clarinettist.

Another one some months later outside the cafe on a Sunday afternoon. Part of the amazing Gerry Harrison's Jazz Workshop. Then progressing I did a gig on the bandstand with my little group. The Penny Lane Jazz Band. We were not that good at the time, but it was great experience. 

Experience to stand there in front of people and of course in order to live you have to die a thousand deaths.

So, I got a job. As a specialist on the Antiques Roadshow and when asked by our Executive Producer Robert, “Did I have an idea for a suitable venue”. I calmly said “Yes I do”. 

And in June 2022. Hopefully, if they let me, I will be there on national TV, a proud Liverpudlian alongside some of the best antique brains in the country.

With an accent exeedingly rare.

Dreaming about what I will find.

One thing is for sure.

I know I will find a welcome for all my colleages from the people of my home town and they will bring along, their humour, their stories and their warmth.

I cant wait to show the team the place, that has been a massive part of my life.

The Palm House Sefton Park Liverpool, in all its majesty.

Benin and Me.

I can't remember the exact year, but I know I was quite young and I was not allowed to stay up late. But on this occasion I had somehow slipped through the dragnet of home discipline and found myself watching TV late at night. Alone.

Though this seemed like a treat, this was the 70's and way before all night television had been sanctioned by the milk snatcher, Thatcher.

There was the testcard. That strange surreal image of a young girl with some form of a puppet in her hand. If you fell asleep there was a piercing sound that was suppose to wake you up.

 Or there was, late nights on BBC2, and as I swept the...dial around, to change channels, I found the Open University. Wow, exciting I thought.

It was not quite the contra band that I was looking for. The last time I had escaped the sleep shackles I had watched 'The Invisible Shrinking Man' in black and white. 

It had scared the life out of me. 

The giant spider hunting the slowly diminishing character left a particular impression.

I may as well go to bed I though as the novelty of being up late had worn off. 

Then a programme started.

 In black and white, but immediately I was captured by an image that may well have changed my life. 

It was a bronze head with striated lines incised into it, lines that rolled down the contours of the cheeks. 

It was a dark colour and had overall shape that was different. Made of metal. 

It was a Benin bronze bust. 

I was transfixed as the black and white screen seemed as if by magic to turn to technicolour as my imagination tripped in on what I was seeing.

Or what seemed to be seeing me. Staring back at me from the tiny monochrome screen.

The glare from the wonder with those scarifications woke me up. I was going nowhere. 

The filmaker had the camera pan around this wonderous object, while the narrator told the story in that typical colonial BBC plum in mouth language. Stating that “When they were 'found' it. It was thought that a ancient greek civilisation had been discovered”. 

Well what they were trying to say is that the people of Africa were not clever enough to make objects that scrap up to western art.

But I saw something more. I felt a power that was not like the ornementation around me. Those strange Capi demonte style porcelain things in peoples houses that I saw on sideboards.

I did not know why, at this early morning time. Nor did I understand how these images described, as if they were “lost castings by Donatello” the great Florentine Renaissance scupltor. But they hooked me in.

The admiratation through gritted teeth, was taken away by the overarching slur that at the time they were found, that no African was capable of producing, or understanding the lost wax process.

How the BBC loved to demean. David Attenborough just about got away with it.

In the bush, finding pygmies, to make himself look and sound clever with his BBC speak.

But I saw something else from the spot on the floor, in front of that box of images. That night, that changed my life. I did not understand then, just what it was that pulled me out of my armchair. Whether it was the story of the intrepid explorers who had “found” them. 

Or how they made a measured encroachment into my soul as if they were talking to me. 

I was looking at the image of a past being who wanted to engage my stare.

The Oba, of whose face this was a lifelike cast.

This ancient ruler of Ife would have no idea that I would be peering through the medium of the 20^th century. 

Through that box in the living room, that transported you to places in the past. 

To distant lands.

And at this point in my life I hardly ever saw a black person. My mind was full of stereotypical juxtapositions. Of Black and White Minstrels. Of natives in grass skirts, Micheal Caine and Stanley Baker taking on the Zulus.

This would be decades before I discovered the genius of Louis Armstrong and The Duke of Ellington.

But those images stayed with me as I sometimes caught sight of them again. 

Over the years they became familiar to me.

I would eventually see some of them in the British museum. Where I would not be impressed with all. But several of the busts would help me understand that art is emotion and most of the icons of the 20^th century were directly or maybe indirectly inspired by 'primitive work' such as these bronzes. More than I had first thought.

Greek art, above Roman would be created, to attempt to capture the spirit of a being, rather than just the likeness.

Felix von Luschan, a curator at the Berlin Ethnographic Museum, explained to an audience more familiar with European art, famously comparing them to the work of celebrated Italian Renaissance sculptor, stating, ‘Benvenuto Cellini could not have made a better cast himself, and no one has before or since, even to the present day. These bronzes stand even at the summit of what can be technically achieved.’ he added.

Well there you go!

We say bronzes but more accuratly they were cast from brass, copper and sometimes bronze. 

The tradition began in Benin before the 13th century, and large-scale artworks were first commissioned under Oba Ewuare I (1440-70s). Commemorative heads made for royal altars date back to the 16th century, maybe earlier. From the 18th century onwards, artists carved scenes into the ivory tusks that had always surmounted the bronze heads, providing even greater visual reference to the memory of the life’s work of the honoured Oba. 

Craftsmen also cast sculptures of messengers, vanquished foe, and foreign allies to celebrate the lives of past kings through tableaux for the altar.

In the Edo language, the verb sa-e-y-ama means ‘to remember’, but its literal translation is ‘to cast a motif in bronze’. 

At the courts of Benin, art in bronze perpetuates memory; and the first commissions of every Benin king were, and are sculptures, in bronze and ivory, for his father’s altar. To remember him.

Benin bronzes went into some of the most prestigous European collections. 

After the British occupation of Benin City in 1897, during the reign of Oba Ovonramwen (1888–97). By August 1898, most of the ivory and bronze artworks seized by the British from the royal treasury had been sold in large public auctions.

This was the age when colonials thought they could go round looting the heritage of ancient civilisations.

By the early 1900's, nearly all of the bronzes were in public and private collections in the United Kingdom, Germany and Austria. The Obas of Benin have been asking for their return for decades.

National Museum of Nigeria and Lagos houses the collection of Ife art.

Ile Ife as it is known was a city in Nigeria and was ruled by The Oba.

Yoruba, the ethnic group in the region describe Ife as their spiritual capital. The current inhabitants have decided that it is where the civilisation came from. 

And all will return for re-incarnation.

Ife sculptures have a unparalled realism. 

Crowns of glass beads encrusted the sculptures.

Usually you would not see the face of the Oni and there are holes that hold beads which cover the face. They may have been worn.

Yoruba polyrythyms would mix with Portuguese as early as the 16th century and become european music. 

Fandango's and the like, played in some of the most prestigious courts. Syncopated by african drums.

Several more sculptures were found in 1938 when builders were remodelling a house.

Leo Frobenius a German archeologist took pictures of them and the villages from where they came.

 He contacted the New York Times and declared that they came from the lost city of Atlantis. 

Claiming he had found a lost colony of Greeks.

It would be during the search for modern art that this looted 'tribal art' from ancient worlds would shape the 20^th century. 

Picasso and others would help it along.

I know how it shaped my understanding of art and I will never forget my introduction into the captured majesty of those ancient Oba sculptures that now mean more to me than the slush of Victoriana I see in most collections.

I sincerely hope, that I now can begin to understand the imagery of Polynesian art and some of the beautiful First Nation American work.

The often overlooked art that my good friend and fellow specialist Ronnie Archer Morgan has brought into the living rooms of those watching the Antiques Roadshow on a Sunday evening.

I so admire how he has slowly introduced art lovers to the history of modern art through cultures past. I love how he explains the figurative meanings within, simple art that has a complicated past.

I hope I may now understand a little more about those geometric patterns associated with modernity that were often looted from kingdoms past, in Africa. And in ancient Egypt.

When Tutenkhamun was discovered the world went crazy for those geometric hieroglyphs and these images that were sewn into society along with ancient rythmic syncopations from deep dark and distant worlds that originated not far from the River Niger. From the Yoruba. Jazz was created in Congo square, and is the biggest cultural contribution that America has contributed to the world.

But it came from Africa. Where the Oba ruled. Ife. In the delta that shaped the world. 

That took Vodun across a ocean. 

From Dahomey.

Though its only recently that we paid it due, to acknowledge the debt in an honest and constructive manner.

I studied for my pottery sculpture.

I decided decades later, without thinking and subconsiously that I would burnish hand thrown pots with the tone of 'skin'. And I would decorate them with markings from where I did not know.  http://www.classicartdeco.co.uk/my-own-work.php

I do now.

Modern art, for me, started when the Oba stared back at me one dark night when my eyes met his ancient face. 

When I was young.

I have never forgotten that face.

Manchester United v Liverpool-The Good Friday Match Fixing Scandal.

 Old Trafford 2nd April 1915.  The Day The Beautiful Game Turned Ugly.

I was recently  asked to look over a very old FA cup runners up medal awarded to a Liverpool player.  Tommy Miller.

Growing up a stones throw from Anfield. I just had to take a closer look. It was a simple gold medal in a presentation box....but there seemed a bit more to this than first met the eye.

Tommy Miller had a habit of borrowing money he couldn’t pay back, so when his brother asked for Tommy to pay a debt, Tommy gave him his gold medal instead. The medal was made by VAUGHTON AND SONS and is hallmarked gold.

This passed down the family and eventually it turned up at a Antiques Roadshow valuation day at Culzean Castle, Scotland.

Tommy Miller was born in Motherwell. 

He played for Larkhill Hearts, Glenivan and Lanark Utd. Then Third Lanark and Hamilton Academicals (I always think they sound more like a University Challenge team than a football team) before moving on to Liverpool in the 1911-12 season. He had two brothers that also played the game.

He was the top scorer for Liverpool  in 1913-14 with 16 goals. He was 5 ft 9 inches, eleven and a half stone and described as a handy player. Tom Miller made 127 appearances scoring 52 goals. 

He played 19 FA cup games scoring 6 goals. He won a Scottish cap while playing for Liverpool.

This is a runners up medal for the FA cup for the season 1913-14. That match was won by Burnley 2-0.

This medal was awarded by King George V. The match was played pre Wembley at CRYSTAL PALACE. 

Ed Mosscrop playing for Burnley received a winners medal and this medal is in the Football Hall of Fame. Should this medal of Tommy Millers be in the Football Hall of Shame.

A man once said that some people think football is a matter of life and death. I can assure you that it is much more serious than that. And during the war.....it was.  If you were playing in the league you were not in the trenches, in France. In 1914 The Christmas truce was called and a football match was played in no mans land. Read More Here Football had become a universal game.

The FA Cup Final of 1915 year was named The Khaki Final as the whole crowd seemed to be in uniform.

While the war was on the top players were encouraged to take a pay cut in a spirit of brotherhood. Those on the maximum wage of £5 took a cut of 15% those earning £3 took a 5% cut.

The FA had written to the war office to ask for official sanction to continue playing the matches, but be prepared to stop at any time. Recruitment for the army was stepped up on match days. People were seen giving out white feathers to those who did not show their patriotic duty and go and fight. For King and Country. Cricket had been cancelled.

Public attacks in the national press especially from Dr Thomas Fry of Lincoln suggested that it was nothing more than financial greed that kept the season going.

He wanted restrictions in place preventing anyone under the age of 40 from entering a football ground.

He even sent a telegram which suggested that the monarch withdraw his patronage of the game.

It was thought that the war would suspend matches, thus ending the career of many players. Many thought this could be the last game they played, before going off to war.

2^nd April 1915 The teams met at Old Trafford. THE GOOD FRIDAY GAME

18,000 people attended Old Trafford. The drop in receipts due to the war had put some clubs in financial peril.

An emergency meeting in Manchester by the football league on 9^th October declared that an extra 2.5% of gross match receipts be made to the war effort.

The Good Friday game, it was said, was played in a uncertain manner and several chances were muddled.

“A more one sided first half would be hard to witness” One local reporter said.

The aptly named Thomas Fairfoul missed a penalty.

At 48 minutes a penalty was conceded against Liverpool after Bob Purcell handled it. 

Patrick O'Connell missed the goal completely. It was more like three points to Wigan as a Rugby kick was sky-ed into the stands. He walked back from the spot laughing to his colleagues.

At one time one Liverpool player, Fred Pagnam hit the crossbar with a shot and was and was chastised by his fellow players.

He was seen running around to get the ball and players from his own side wouldn't give it to him. 

The Manchester Daily Dispatch said “The second half was crammed with lifeless football. United were two up with 22 minutes to play and seemed content with their lead that they apparently never tried to increase it. Liverpool scarcely ever gave the impression that they were going to score.

George Anderson scored both goals for the Manchester United.

When the match ended players were seen to be waving betting slips around as the match finished. Others were seen arguing. The referee ordered an investigation into the match.

Four players were Scottish.

Liverpool had nothing on that season as they could neither win the league, nor be relegated. They were safe in 13^th position in the league.

Bookmakers had laid odds of 8-1 against a 2-0 victory for United and a suspiciously large amount of bets had been placed that the odds shortened to 4-1. Something was wrong. The match was said to be SQUARED.

The bookie known as “The Football King promised a substantial reward for information that would lead to punishment of “the instigators of this reprehensible conspiracy”

The FA interviewed players one by one. The Good Friday commission was set up. The honesty and integrity of the game must be upheld.

It was said that several players held back the truth. It was found that several players had colluded to throw the match.

John McKenna the chairman of Liverpool was also the Chairman of the football league and later admitted he had been in an awkward position. He said "There can only be one decision for those who had been so callous as to bring the game into disrepute". 

He regretted the guilty decision had not come earlier. They had to be ousted from the game of football.

They concluded it had been a conspiracy by the players alone and that no match officials were involved. Neither club were fined or had points dropped.

Billy Merideth denied any knowledge of match fixing but stated that he became suspicious when none of his team mates would pass to him. 

Jackie Sheldon an ex United player was said to be the go between and Man Utd. 

Fred Pagnam said he had been offered £3 on route to the match in a Taxi.

It was Pagnam who threatened to score in the game despite threats from the ringleaders.

The FA said they sympathized with the clubs but they had substantial evidence that a betting scandal had taken place.

left to right.Thomas Fairfoul, Tom Miller, RR Purcell and Jackie Sheldon, of Liverpool

Sandy Turnbull, A Whalley and Enoch J (Knocker) West of Man Utd and L. Cook of Chester where implicated.

In total seven players were charged.

All were permanently suspended from taking part in football or football management, and should not be allowed to enter any football ground in the future. The report stated “There was grave suspicions that others were also involved but we have restricted our findings to those whose offence is beyond reasonable doubt”.

In...apparent patriotic gesture. They left the controversy behind.

Miller along with many of the players involved joined up to fight in the war.

Jackie Sheldon sent a letter to the press published in The Athletic News 10^th April 1916 saying he was fighting in France. He claimed innocence and asked anyone with information about him placing a bet to come forward. Sandy Turnbull was killed.

In September 1916 Sheldon who had been wounded in France whist serving came home on leave. He wanted to go to Anfield to watch Liverpool play Burnley and even though he was banned was granted admittance, as a wounded soldier. He was told to, "stay away from the dressing rooms".

He later confessed his roll. 

Enoch West vociferously denied his innocence and sued the FA for libel in 1917. He lost his case and the ban stood but by this time matches had been stopped for the war.

AFTER THE WAR

2^nd June 1919 the Liverpool players were pardoned. after they apologised. 

Because of the FA's “high appreciation of the great sacrifices and services of its members during the war and the deep gratitude for the success which had been achieved.

All except Enoch “Knocker” West were allowed to return to Football. West was the only player not allowed to return to playing maintaining his innocence and was punished further...... for being innocent.

He had to wait until 1945 for his ban to be lifted and a pardon.  By then he was 59 nearly 60.

That year Manchester Utd were saved from relegation and Chelsea went down.

Tom Millers career continued. He scored 13 goals in 25 starts in the 1919-20 season.

 In 1921 he started the season scoring 3 goals. Then he left the club......and in 1921 he went to play for......... Manchester Utd

There he won two further caps for Scotland.

Chelsea and Tottenham Hotspur who both had been relegated were returned to the 1^st Division.............along with Arsenal who were 5^th when the season finished.

It was agreed to expand the league by two teams....meaning no complaints from Chelsea. 

This also helped to merge the North and South divisions.

At the time of the scandal the Secretary of Manchester United and responsible for moving the team from Clayton to Old Trafford was JJ Bentley who had been a previous President of the football league. I recently came across his personalised season ticket. United had almost gone  bankrupt as he took over.  He retired in 1916. He died in 1918 aged 58. He left the club in a good financial position. He had been a founder of the Football League and once called the most influential man in football. In 1886, he left his Bolton accountant's office to work in Manchester as Assistant Editor, and later Editor, of  "The Athletic News". the publication that published the Jackie Sheldon letter that proclaimed his innocence. I wonder how much influence he had. 

THE GOOD FRIDAY MATCH SCANDAL. THE DAY THE BEAUTIFUL GAME TURNED UGLY.

Tom Millers Medal the one he gave away. Was it burning a hole in his hand? 

Did he feel guilty? We may never know.

Antiques Roadshow 2021 Venue Dates.

 This year its the same format as last year because of potential restrictions. These may be eased at some time. There is a mixed bag of venues including The Ulster Folk Museum near Belfast.

If you feel like coming along please contact Antiques Roadshow. 

Antiques Roadshow venues for 2021

At this moment in time, we are only taking online submissions for items that you wish to show to our team of experts. We will review all submissions and select a number for filming at one of our events this summer. These events will be invitation only in order to comply with Health & Safety regulations but we are continually monitoring the latest government advice around public events. If your item is shortlisted for filming, a member of our team will contact you to discuss potential filming dates.

Follow the links below to let us know about the items you want to show us.

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  Aston Hall

  Birmingham

  View Aston Hall
• 

  Dyffryn Gardens

  Near Cardiff

  View Dyffryn Gardens
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  Ham House

  Richmond-upon-Thames, London

  View Ham House
• 

  Portchester Castle

  Fareham, Hampshire

  View Portchester Castle
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  Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

  Edinburgh

  View Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh
• 

  The Bishop's Palace

  Wells, Somerset

  View The Bishop's Palace
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  Ulster Folk Museum

  Cultra, near Belfast

  View Ulster Folk Museum
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  Woodhorn Mining Museum

  Ashington, Northumberland

  View Woodhorn Mining Museum