Henry Sandon

Speaker 10:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand and one, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

Mike Castaway this week is the world expert on Worcester porcelain. His love of his subject, he confesses to being a potaholic, dates from the day when, aged twenty nine, he dug up some Roman pots in his garden. Until then, music rather than porcelain had dominated his life. He was a lay clerk at Worcester Cathedral under Sir David Wilcox and a member of its choir for twenty five years.

Presenter0:52

Ten years after that garden discovery he became the curator of the museum at the Royal Worcester Factory, and a decade after that a familiar figure on radio and television as he shared his love of his subject with the audience of the Antiques Road Show. So in a career that's encompassed music, broadcasting and pottery, pottery wins hands down. I need a new pot every day to satisfy my craving, he says. He is Henry Sandon.

Speaker 11:16

Uh

Speaker 31:16

Uh

Presenter1:21

Very extravagant a potter day. Do you manage to keep that up?

Henry Sandon1:24

Oh, I do, yes, yes. Sometimes I have to get two for the next day, but sometimes I always manage a part.

Presenter1:29

But what is it? What is it that that turns you on about a pot?

Henry Sandon1:33

Difficult to say is it's like like a love affair, really. It's a tactile thing. It's it's a a heavenly produced thing. I mean, we're supposed to be made from the clay of the earth, aren't we, ourselves? And to dust and ashes we go at the end. And I always would like myself to be made into a really nice pot at the end of my life. Or Toby John. Or Toby John, okay?

Presenter1:51

They have been Toby Jugs always.

Henry Sandon1:53

Or yes, someone made a topy tube very embarrassing.

Presenter1:55

This again

Presenter1:57

But you call them pots. I mean, it's your non-pejorative term, I think, for China.

Henry Sandon1:59

Is it

Henry Sandon2:01

I think it's a beautiful total name for pottery and porcelain.

Presenter2:04

And would I understand the difference if I asked you the difference between china and pottery?

Henry Sandon2:09

Well, pottery is earthenware, it's it's uh non translucent, whereas um china or porcelain is a translucent and um perhaps more beautiful, but not so earthy or gutsy as pottery.

Presenter2:20

But tea tastes better out of burm china, doesn't it?

Henry Sandon2:22

Oh yeah, so it's i immeasurable.

Presenter2:25

But of course, you enjoy the privilege, as we see time and time again on the Antiques Road Show, of really having a a personal, if not a private, view inside people's attics. What's been the most exciting? When your heart has leapt because you've thought, my God, I never thought I'd see one of those. Well, I suppose.

Speaker 12:35

Uh

Henry Sandon2:35

Uh

Henry Sandon2:41

Well, I suppose it would have to be Ozzie the slipware owl that turned up in Northampton and this dear young lady had no idea what it was. To me it was heaven's scent. It was the the most marvellous thing I'd seen and uh it was wonderful. She thought it was a a vase to put flowers in, whereas it actually it was a drinking pot through but it had a head. It had a head, yes. She took the head off, you see, and put flowers in it. I thought, but and of course you pour booze from the body into the head of the owl and lap it up from there. Made three hundred or or so years ago and uh absolutely gorgeous.

Presenter2:58

But it had a head.

Presenter3:12

But she had no idea.

Henry Sandon3:13

Had no idea what it was or how valuable it was and how

Presenter3:16

How valuable was it?

Henry Sandon3:16

Well, I put I put twenty thousand pounds on the little chap and um she went into a state of shock. I th I thought we'd achieve the first death. You know, we're we're hoping to kill somebody on the programme one day. That will be marvelous, but but she fluttered back to life and uttered the immortal words. She said, I brought it in on a bus. So I said, We'll take it home by taxi She went home in a taxi accompanied by two policemen. It's lovely really.

Presenter3:39

I mean

Presenter3:41

Is that a record? Because he went for thirty thousand eventually, didn't he?

Henry Sandon3:43

He went for, yes, so he went for nearly that. It was bought by Stoke-on-Trent City Museum. So it's gone back to the home where it was first made.

Presenter3:45

Yeah.

Presenter3:50

And is that a record for the programme?

Henry Sandon3:51

No. In this last year my son John had a most incredible Turk's head in English software, which is over fifty thousand pounds in value.

Presenter4:01

Because he's followed in father's footsteps. He's now.

Henry Sandon4:03

He's not.

Presenter4:07

Okay. Tell me about the your first record for this desert island.

Henry Sandon4:10

The first record takes me right back to London, sung by Count John McCormack, who I actually did meet. I I want him singing a piece of Mozart. His his aria il Nio Tessoro is utterly fantastic in the breath control. I'd I'd sit on my desert island there and I'd try and fathom out how on earth he manages to do these long, long phrases in one breath. I can't do it.

Speaker 34:55

Ah, yeah.

Speaker 34:58

Ah

Speaker 35:00

D telec white arm

Speaker 35:05

Oh, and because

Presenter5:33

That was John McCormack's nineteen sixteen recording of Don Ottavio's famous aria, Il miotesoro in tanto, Speak for Me to My Lady from Act Two of Mozart's Don Giovanni. I see what you mean, he goes on forever, does he not aggress?

Henry Sandon5:44

It's unbelievable.

Presenter5:47

Very interesting, though, Henry, that you should have been attracted to China. We'll come back to music. Not a flicker of interest in your youth about it. You certainly didn't eat off Worcester Porcelain as a child, did you?

Henry Sandon5:58

No, no, no, no. We the family had no real interest in antiques in general. I was um sort of thinking more about the theatre and singing and antiques really had no interest for me.

Presenter6:09

I find that fascinating because it wasn't even as if you became a a part-time collector as people you became the world expert on Worcester Port. Where does it come from?

Henry Sandon6:18

come from? Well, I suppose it's being in the right place at the right time. I I just fell into it by nature like that.

Presenter6:24

But you began, as you say, on the streets of Soho. I mean, a bit of a I was going to say ragamuffin would probably be unfair, but you certainly sort of potted around the streets with your dog, did you?

Henry Sandon6:33

Yes, I was a little urchin really

Presenter6:34

But he went to the cinema

Henry Sandon6:36

Oh, I lived all my life in the cinema. I hardly ever went to school. They'd find me in the cinema. Sometimes the the the usherette would come round and shine a light on me and say, You're supposed to be at home or there was a sign come up on the screen, you know, one of the adverts would say, Would Henry Sand and go home But I I love those times.

Presenter6:55

But there was a a family involvement with the cinema, with films, wasn't there?

Henry Sandon6:59

My father trained dogs for the for the cinema. He he had some brilliant dogs who could act incredibly well.

Presenter7:05

He thought he had the Britain's answer to Rin Tin Tin as he is.

Henry Sandon7:08

Oh yes. One dog was called Britain's Rintin Tin and he he'd made dozens and dozens of movies. Do we know the titles? Oh yes, lots of them. There there's Scraggs, the tale of a dog, in which I play a little part. I'm I'm the urchin who gets kidnapped and the dog rescues me. We did a lot of lot of films together.

Presenter7:15

But we know the time

Presenter7:27

And did you

Henry Sandon7:27

Who helped train the dog? Uh no, not.

Presenter7:30

I thought you were good at scrubbing up lampposts.

Henry Sandon7:32

You all know the story about the lamppost? Good job, dear? Yes, I well the second dog was very good when the talkies came in and the studios asked my father to do a scene with Claude Holbert, the silly ass brother of Jack Holbert. Claude Holbert has to be hanging drunk on a lamppost and the dog has to wander by, lift his leg, and do what dogs do on lampposts, but all over Claude Holbert. My father said, Well, he's been trained not to do that. So they said, Well, try your best. So we went out that night round Soho and uh wherever Bob wanted to lift his leg, my father reckoned must be a jolly nice smell. So I had to wipe it up with a cloth and the next day we went off to Pinewood with this cloth in the box and my father wiped the lamppost down with this cloth and Claude Holbert is hanging drunk there and the dog wanders by, lifts his leg and all over Claude Holbert goes this fantastic thing and all the stage hands applauded because they thought it was fantastic trick and we never told them how we did it. But at the end of it the the the censor cut it out of the film because he thought it was disgusting. All that time wasted.

Presenter8:33

What?

Presenter8:35

But your father obviously was quite a an original fellow.

Henry Sandon8:39

Came over from from Italy after the First World War when he was a soldier and became a naturalized Englishman and married my mother and uh and that was that was that.

Presenter8:47

So she was English and she liked the wrestling, I understand.

Henry Sandon8:49

Punch.

Henry Sandon8:50

Oh, she she was a mad keen lover of wrestling. She used to go to these baths where they put on these wrestling shows and and scream at the tear his arm off or kick him or something. She was a very gentle woman, really, but um but this horrible streak came out in her when she went to wrestling. Terrible.

Presenter9:06

But it was from her you inherited the musical gene, I understand.

Henry Sandon9:09

Um, yes. Her family were um were musicians. My grandpa ran a a theatre orchestra and most of my aunts and uncles were were involved in music. They used to play on the piano in the silent cinema. I suppose I was brought up in that atmosphere really.

Presenter9:25

But none of them threw pods.

Henry Sandon9:26

I told Sloane.

Presenter9:27

Well, they might have thrown pots, but they're not on not onto the wheel.

Henry Sandon9:30

Back up to you.

Henry Sandon9:32

Uh

Presenter9:32

Record number two.

Henry Sandon9:33

Well, this reminds me of my early days in London, the training to be a singer. I was influenced enormously by Alfred Deller, the great countertenor, and I'd love to hear him singing from from one of Purcell's great works, Strike the Viol.

Speaker 39:57

God is God's fate.

Speaker 310:16

Process plus

Speaker 310:20

See you on the

Speaker 310:22

And the Jesus please sin, sing sin, sing God and true.

Presenter10:45

Alfred Della singing Strike the Vile from Purcell's Come Ye Sons of Art with the Oriana Concert Orchestra. You say, Henry Sandon, that you you sang with Alfred Della in St. Paul's Choir, and indeed you you trained at the Guildhall School of Music and so on. Lofty Heights I mean, how did this little boy from Soho with Bob the Dog

Presenter11:03

Get to do all of that.

Henry Sandon11:04

Well, I suppose it developed through my army service. I I joined the South East Command concert party and I was the resident baritone uh and that led me to apply for a scholarship at the Sutton and Chee Music Festival there. And I won this prestigious scholarship to the Guildhall School of Music for a year.

Presenter11:20

But you obviously also liked performing. I mean, at school you'd gone to school, I think. You were evacuated, weren't you, to Chelfront, to the home county, to Chelfront St. Peter.

Henry Sandon11:26

Yeah.

Presenter11:28

And you'd won a scholarship there. Obviously, very bright, but you liked performing. You liked being on the stage. You acted. Oh, yeah.

Henry Sandon11:33

I suppose there's a bit of a clown in me really. I played girls' parts and things like that, which was quite embarrassing, but um but but you know, I I suppose it it sorta s showed this little inherent love of um of wanting to perform really.

Presenter11:47

Which of course is is is part of what you what you need for the antiques roadshow, because i i in a sense you have to have that conversation with a member of the public.

Henry Sandon11:52

Yeah.

Presenter11:57

It has to appear personal. In fact, it's desperately public. You need to act.

Henry Sandon12:00

Hmm, yes.

Henry Sandon12:02

Yes, you've got to be a performer in a way, haven't you, really? You've got to s sort of show off a little bit.

Presenter12:06

Sell them a bit, yes. You've also, I think, got to be a bit of a journalist, haven't you?'Cause you're always after the story, you're after the Aussie. Yes, you're looking for well, not necessarily the big fine, you're looking for an interesting story, aren't you?

Henry Sandon12:18

Conjuring

Presenter12:18

But tell me about uh spotting the story on the road show, because you can't have a camera on you. There are so many of you and you're the various experts and the various tables. You can't have a camera turning all of the time. So you spot the story, do you? And you think, oh, this is one. What do you do?

Henry Sandon12:31

Yeah. Well well you ask the owner's permission to have it recorded, then you ask the producer if he'll put it on his schedule for recording during the day. If if that's all agreed, the the owner is whipped away in seclusion, fed coffee and sandwiches for, you know, an hour to five hours.

Presenter12:46

So they're locked locked up, are they?

Henry Sandon12:47

Or they're locked away, yes, or allowed to go home and uh have a breather. But uh I mean, some ladies go and have their hair dulled, you know, that's what they if they think they're going to be on T V.

Presenter12:48

What

Presenter12:56

But what about the Aussie factory? What about the piece itself? Is that then locked away?

Henry Sandon12:57

Okay.

Henry Sandon13:01

Well the piece is kept in security.

Presenter13:03

But they would know then that they got something there, wouldn't they?

Henry Sandon13:06

They suspect it, but they're not sure. You know, they're they're on their edge. Is he going to say it's a fake? Is he going to say it's genuine? How much is it going to be worth? You know, th there's the tension building up in them, which is wonderful. I mean, they mustn't know what you're going to say till the moment of truth. And if there's a a bot up, if if a light goes wrong or something goes wrong and you've told them the facts, you can't record it over again because then the surprise wouldn't be there.

Presenter13:31

Tell me about record number three.

Henry Sandon13:32

Record number three uh takes me straight back to my student days in London when I I sang with the Alexandra Choir in a wonderful performance of George Dyson's Canterbury Pilgrims. And the the Wife of Bath is just one of those rumbustrious English characters who you can s see her on her palfrey riding along in with a great hat on her head. She's a magnificent character. All the music just drives me mad.

Speaker 313:59

The deed such a rock was she, That she was of all the charity.

Speaker 314:16

A carved cheaps full of fine one of grond I durst swear they weighed twin pond, That on a Sunday were upon her.

Speaker 314:29

Who's unworthy of a fine scarlet red?

Speaker 314:36

Pull straightly tide and sh

Speaker 314:41

Both were soft and mute.

Presenter14:49

Yvonne Kenny, singing The Wife of Bath, from George Dyson's The Canterbury Pilgrims, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Richard Hickox. You were, Henry Santon, a bit of a jack of all trades. I think you were in insurance for a bit, and got bored out of your mind, I think. And you were a special constable directing traffic. Were you any good at it?

Henry Sandon15:02

Yeah.

Henry Sandon15:07

Not very good. No, I I was absolutely disastrous as a special constable really, but um I caused uh the worst traffic jam ever in Worcester once by my holding up the traffic and they all came at me at once at the cross and there were there were four lines of traffic coming at me and I was in the middle and I thought, God, what do I do? I d I I ducked out and went round into New Street into a little cafe and had a cup of tea. When I came back all the traffic had gone.

Presenter15:30

This is

Henry Sandon15:30

Wow.

Presenter15:31

Oh yeah.

Henry Sandon15:32

Oh yeah.

Presenter15:35

So Insurance Board, you you were special constable in London and I think in Worcester. But why Worcester I mean, is that why you applied to Worcester Cathedral be because of the singing, because you wanted this job as the lay clerk?

Henry Sandon15:46

Yes, I wanted to sing in cathedrals and a a vacancy occurred at Worcester and I applied for it and went down and had a lovely interview with David Wilcox. He offered me the job and also a post at the Royal Graham School teaching music there. So

Henry Sandon16:01

There I go to Mustard

Presenter16:01

But it was about then, uh in the fifties, I think, that you decided to go into archaeology and you started, as I said in the introduction, to dig up your back garden. You were twenty-nine and you got hooked on pots. More of that in a moment. Some more music.

Henry Sandon16:15

I'd love to have a piece of Elgar. I got I got fascinated by Elgar when I went to Worcester. Of course, everything breathes Elgar in the air there in Worcester and on the Morvern Hills. He's everywhere. And I thought about taking as my record of Elgar the cello concerto with Dupre and Barbaroli, but I'm sure that record is on the desert island still. You see, someone must have left it there. Just a few people. What happens to all the records? That's what I wonder.

Speaker 116:37

Uh

Presenter16:37

Yeah.

Presenter16:41

They're buried for you to dig up.

Henry Sandon16:43

I'll excavate them there. But I I I want to take uh a piece sung by the Worcester Cleadle Choir, conducted by Christopher Robinson. It's got my two boys who sang, one didn't sing, but the two boys who sang are choristers and I'm a Bastley clerk singing on it, and it's uh one of the earliest Elgar pieces, Opus Two, number one, written for St George's Church in Worcester.

Speaker 317:17

The story of Hill

Speaker 317:24

Every pause for me or not.

Speaker 317:39

And on the court was the art room.

Speaker 317:44

And slowly all the

Speaker 317:53

God's whole God.

Presenter18:05

Elgar's Ave Verum, sung by the choir of Worcester Cathedral, conducted by Christopher Robinson, with my castaway Henry Sandon, and his two young sons, Peter and David, as trebles, in that choir.

Presenter18:17

So thirteen years, Henry, after your arrival in the City, at the age of thirty eight, you become curator at the Royal Worcester Factory Museum. A major change of career. You must have done an enormous amount of studying in the interim, even to be considered for the post.

Henry Sandon18:30

Yeah.

Henry Sandon18:31

Well, I learned as much as I could. I I inspired by finding pots in the ground. I I had to become a potter. I had to become a potterholic. And I learned all I could. I studied everywhere and did a lot of archaeological work in Worcester and found all these great pots in the ground. And that inspired me. But it was I I was really self taught.

Presenter18:50

But was it was it like coming home, as it were? Did you suddenly think this is what I you know, I was put on earth to find out about?

Henry Sandon18:57

Yes, I think it was a blinding flash of light. You know, it's about like St Paul, isn't he, on the road to Damascus, you know? Bash this this um I the the fi the finding of my my very first important pot in the ground really set me off. It was a a Roman storage jar, uh, broken into bits, but uh I I found it had been riveted in Roman days, you know, some poor Roman had dropped his pot and smashed it and riveted it together with lead rivets. And I thought, you know, nineteen hundred years ago someone loved his pot so much that he had to do that. And I this this guy once it gets into your bloodstream, I mean, clay is just impossible to get out.

Presenter19:24

The bad

Presenter19:30

So you became curator. Tell me about the factory then. What was it like? About about the craftsmen who worked there? Well, it was very ancient, all the steps.

Henry Sandon19:37

Establishment there. Could been going for two hundred or more years, and um some of the chaps had been there right from the beginning. There were there were people in their eighties, nineties, one was a hundred, um and uh I I studied with them and I learned about their crafts and their trades. Those that would let me into it because some of them were very secretive. They got their skills uh and and nobody must know how they did it. If someone came round the factory, even the boss into one of the departments, they'd put their brushes or their their knives down and stop and waited till he went out, so they wouldn't let anybody see what they did.

Speaker 119:54

Yeah. Oh no, they

Presenter20:10

The whole family.

Henry Sandon20:11

Great families, great traditions, three, four, five generations of them. They were craftsmen. They they weren't artists, you know, they'd they'd run away if you called them an artist and uh but they were craftsmen of an incredible fine quality and I I've known all the great ones there and loved them all very much.

Presenter20:12

Great families

Presenter20:18

But

Speaker 320:18

Uh

Presenter20:28

What about Harry Davis?'Cause he was uh the one that you idolized most. I think you'd you'd you'd admired his work. He was a painter, wasn't he?

Henry Sandon20:32

Yeah.

Henry Sandon20:34

He was the greatest painter, I think, of all time, and I've actually got his very first piece that he actually did, an apprentice piece. It it it's w it's a mesmerizing thing, at the age of fourteen, to be able to create this wonderful scene of Venice across the lagoon.

Presenter20:34

Yeah.

Presenter20:50

But he did turn out, I think, to have, when you first met him, as it were, to coin a phrase, feet of clay. Oh, yes, I remember.

Henry Sandon20:56

Yes, I remember I I went into his room. He worked up a little a little flight of stairs, a kind of an attic room, and I said, Well, nice to see him, Mr. Davis. You know, I'd seen his work and I knew him, and he was very scared, very nervous. I said, Well, what's the next piece going to be? Oh, he said, I've been thinking about that. And he opened up a cupboard and rummaged through masses of pieces of paper and books and things. I thought, My God, I'm going to see the original works. And he he hauled out a the top of a biscuit box with a scene of of a coaching scene, you know, with with coaches and horses, things. He said, Wouldn't that make a wonderful plaque? I said, Yes, you know. But he did it in the most incredible way that I'll forgive him.

Henry Sandon21:38

More music. I'd like to have James Johnston singing Hughes's Song of the Road from Act One of Vaughn Williams Hugh the Drover. This this takes me straight back to my wedding night because I got married at Worcester Cathedral to Barbara and we spent our wedding night in Birmingham singing with the BBC Midland singers in the performance of Foreign Williams Hugh the Drover. But I shall never forget that night with confetti running down my trouser legs, singing with this fantastic Irish teller who you know his singing of Hughes's Song of the Road is just fantastic.

Speaker 322:13

Campfires, campfires, now the west is glowing. Send a ruddy smoke up to create the brightening moon. Not a roof to shield your head from free winds blowing. Not a wall to deaden a water's lulling tone. Coking round the campfires, busy sounds and cheering. Meet a drink for belly and the clinging turf for sight. To stretch your legs when your back and bones are weary, Dewey sleep on closing eyes from hand or headwind.

Speaker 122:48

Yeah.

Speaker 322:56

Campires, campires, buried in the dome, to they coyo in the twilight from your stifling roar.

Presenter23:12

James Johnston as Hugh singing Song of the Road from Act One of Vaughan Williams' Hugh the Drover. Did you meet Vaughan Williams in James? Yes.

Henry Sandon23:18

Yes, I I I did a few concerts under him. Dear old chap he was not a very good conductor, so he he became almost totally stone deaf. He couldn't hear what anybody was saying. He used to say, Don't look at me, he said, Just sing it yourself and said But he was a wonderful old character.

Presenter23:35

Now, your job as curator at Lord Worcester also won you entry, I think, to the China Pantry at Buckingham Palace, where there's masses and I mean it must be huge.

Henry Sandon23:41

Yeah.

Henry Sandon23:43

Oh, it's this huge. It's about the length of Oxford Street, you know. It's fantastic with case after case after case. But does it get used? Oh, yes, they all get used in their turn. Uh, the Queen has them out for special occasions. Each one has its own particular purpose, or whatever it is.

Presenter23:58

But the idea of someone scraping their knife across that fine painting must make your heart bleed.

Henry Sandon24:03

Well no, not really. That's what they were for. I mean, they're they I love to see things used and used with love. They they are looked after incredibly well. I mean I we were there when when the service was being taken upstairs and the keeper of the pantry just issues them out two at a time and up go the waiters and come back for more and uh at the end of it they have to bring them back and they're written off in the book and he washes them up by hand in a great big plastic bowl. It's it it's a joy.

Presenter24:27

You can't bash them on the side of the scene.

Henry Sandon24:28

Oh, help, hope, help, hope it's a joy to see things you with love.

Presenter24:31

What with

Presenter24:32

Of course the Sanden Dream job, this curator's job, also meant you could indulge those archaeological aspirations, didn't it? And as a result of of getting lost down holes, I think you changed, you managed to change the history of Worcesterpool.

Henry Sandon24:44

Yes, I suppose I did. I did the excavation on the original Worcester factory site, which had never been excavated before. And over a period of um fourteen years, with the help of my son John and others, uh we excavated a large portion of the factory and um found things that well at one time weren't thought to be Worcester but were undoubtedly Worcester because we found the evidence of it in the ground. Experts' thoughts on

Presenter25:08

Ahead.

Henry Sandon25:08

Oh yes, yes. People wouldn't agree, one wouldn't accept it. I discovered that what was always thought to be Lund's Bristol, a Bristol factory, which preceded Worcester, most of it was actually Worcester and I went down and gave a talk in Bristol and I was mooed off the stage. You can't come and say that but uh we learned a lot about it.

Presenter25:31

These are the bits they threw away.

Henry Sandon25:32

Yes, the wasters, the things uh uh unfinished or broken or or thrown away.

Presenter25:34

But they

Presenter25:37

But certainly people before I think you started going down these hills thought that when you put a light bulb inside a Worcester Cup, if it shone green, a greenish hue as it were, it it was Worcester. Yes, that wasn't.

Henry Sandon25:47

Yes, that was a

Henry Sandon25:49

The guaranteed proof, really, but um I the stuff I was finding on the factory site, especially in in a certain level of seventeen eighties to nineties, was an orange hue when you held it up to the light, which should have been the Carfley factory in Shropshire, but of course was was actually Worcester and it it it shook everybody rigid. Record number six. The next thing I suppose really ought to introduce the the antique throat show, because the original musical introduction of the antique throat show was Bach's Brandenberg concerto number three, the first movement, and um they've switched it now as a much more modern, up-to-date piece. But um I I've loved Bach's music and I I'd love to have the Brandenberg concerto number three.

Presenter27:28

The opening of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. three in G major, played by the Kama Orchestra conducted by Peter Schreier, and the original theme music for the antiques roadshow, because I can't remember how the present one goes now.

Henry Sandon27:40

Yeah.

Presenter27:40

Pump pump pump pump pump

Henry Sandon27:42

Bum ba ba bum.

Presenter27:43

Exactly. Exactly.

Henry Sandon27:46

The Hockey Freebook

Presenter27:46

What the f

Presenter27:48

But that began the Antiques Radio in 1977. You weren't on the very first one. It was, of course, presented by Arthur Neegus, who was the first really antique expert broadcaster, wasn't he?

Henry Sandon27:55

Guy.

Henry Sandon27:58

Well yes, he he popularised the whole thought about antiques. You know, up to then I suppose antiques were, you know, a s a dreadful subject, but but he made it come alive, you know, where people had this impression of this dear old chap sort of running his hand over a piece of furniture and um you could feel you could feel it. Came through the television set.

Presenter28:13

Real, you could feel it.

Presenter28:16

Your home. Anyway, you did the road chip. You've been a natural for it ever since. Have you ever broken anything?

Henry Sandon28:22

Only one of the commandments. You know, the the one about coveting. I I mean, I don't want my neighbour's ox or his ass, but it it's his pot I want and they they show it to you and then they take it away or I I want it on

Presenter28:35

And and do people ever contradict you, I wonder?

Henry Sandon28:37

Oh yes, yes. They always think it's earlier than you say it is. You s they say it belonged to grandma, must be three hundred years old, and you you patiently explain it's got England on it, on the mark, so it can't be earlier than eighteen ninety one for the the McKinley Tariff Act. One dear old soul had a p a cup and saucer which was dated under the bottom, she said ten sixty six, made in the year of the Norman conquest. I said I said, Well, I'm afraid it isn't there. Oh yes it is, it's of course it comes back right through the family and I said, Well, I you try and help them, you see, you don't don't you don't want to send them away upset. I I said, Well, dear I said, Look at the bottom I said, It's got dishwasher proof on it She said, I know, but it's very old She said, That's what you can't get anywhere with

Presenter29:19

There's one criticism currently made about the show, and I have to say, I mean, it's super tot utterly benign entertainment. Why should anybody criticise it? But I suppose the purists say it used to be just a love of antiques, and now it is actually very materialistic, it's about money, it's that build-up to the big moment you were mentioning earlier, the valuation. Do you think that's wrong?

Henry Sandon29:37

Uh

Henry Sandon29:39

Well, I suppose people are are entitled to know how much a thing is worth. I mean, they may be sitting there with a with a terribly valuable item, and if it's not insured, they they should be told. And also they should be told.

Presenter29:49

Should we see them being told is the point? Is that tight close?

Henry Sandon29:51

It's not a good idea.

Henry Sandon29:53

Well, I think it's nice, isn't it? And the owners never object. I mean, we we get people come back to the roadshow time and time again. The dear old Nora from uh Liverpool, she had a wonderful punch pot and uh it was sold at auction, she bought a council house with it. Now she comes back every week and uh sees us, gives us a kiss and a bag of sweets and she's our oldest groupie. Record number seven. Well, this is uh a piece of Benjamin Britton. I I've loved Benjamin Britton's work and I've also admired uh the the singing of Peter Piers and the hornplaying of Dennis Brain and all three of them come together in this magical way, which is three great craftsmen at work.

Speaker 330:50

Light shapes across the lake, And the wild path of athletes in glory.

Henry Sandon30:55

Yeah.

Speaker 130:56

Ha ha

Speaker 331:02

Blow, bugle, blow, let the wild echoes fly.

Speaker 331:14

Conservato

Speaker 331:19

Dari, darling, darling, daughter, daughter.

Presenter31:33

Part of the third movement of Benjamin Britton's Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, with Peter Peirce and Dennis Brain and the Boyd Neal String Orchestra conducted by the composer, and apparently that was Britton's uh recording debut as a conductor. It was recorded in nineteen forty four.

Presenter31:46

The family is obviously hugely important to you, Henry. Um you and Barbara have been married how long?

Presenter31:52

Uh

Henry Sandon31:53

I think it's about forty four years, something like that.

Presenter31:56

So how are you going to cope on the desert island? You're going to be a a lonely old soul.

Henry Sandon32:00

Why should I should be very happy? I I'm very happy on my own. I should just sit there and contemplate under the warm sun. It's going to be it's going to be a a lovely warm desert island, is it? If you'd like it to be, that's it. Oh, that's that's going to be wonderful. I should be very happy.

Presenter32:11

That's creative.

Presenter32:15

So you'll sweat as you d

Henry Sandon32:15

Uh Yes, yes. I'd probably do an excavation. I shall dig in the sand and find some fantastic treasures.

Presenter32:23

Tell me about this last one.

Henry Sandon32:24

It's a work by Gerald Finzy, whose work I've I've always admired, and this is Wilfrid Brown singing a section of Die's Natalis, which is a a newborn baby's look at the world, and Browne singing is is is most incredible. I think he was the finest singer of English words that I've ever known.

Speaker 332:45

These little limbs, these eyes and hands, which here I find This panting heart, wherewith my life begins Where have ye been behind? What curtain were ye from me hid so long? Where was in what abys?

Speaker 333:17

As my new magazine

Speaker 333:34

When a silent eyes

Presenter33:41

Wilfrid Brown singing part of the salutation from Gerald Finzay's Dies Natalis with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by his son, Christopher Finzay.

Presenter33:50

If you could only take one of those eight records, Henry, which one would you take?

Henry Sandon33:54

Oh, it'd be the last one, the uh Wolfray Brown singing The Finzy. It's um it it it would get me to heaven.

Presenter34:00

It's very beautiful, isn't it? And what about your book? You get the Bible and you get the complete works of Shakespeare.

Henry Sandon34:06

Well, I love poetry, and I I particularly love Hausmann, A. Houseman, and A Shropshire Ladd. It's a very slim volume. I can slip it into my pocket, can't I? of of The Shropshire Lad would take me instantly back towards you.

Presenter34:18

You completely adopted that part of the world, haven't you? The Cockney Boy

Henry Sandon34:22

I'm for a company boy. I'm I'm I'm happy in Worcestershire.

Presenter34:26

And what about your luxury?

Henry Sandon34:27

Actually, well, I I'm a teapotaholic as well as being a potterholic. I'd need gallons of tea a day to keep me going, and um I'd have to take a great supply, a huge supply of a really good Indian tea. Is that all right? And of course I'd I would need uh oh a Worcester teapot, an eighteenth-century Worcester teapot, to make it in, the most perfect shaped Worcester teapot, with a scene painted on it of an Indian fisherman on a desert island. And uh there's a wonderful scene of that, and uh I would take that one with a little tea bowl to drink the tea from. Can I have the three things? Of course.

Presenter34:59

Henry Sandon, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert islanders. Thank you enormously.

Speaker 135:11

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.