378 Antiques Roadshow

First  viewed : February  1979

This  Sunday  teatime  perennial  was  my  Mum's  favourite  show  though  I  never  really  understood  why.  With  one  grandfather  declared  bankrupt  and  the  other  redundant  before  his  time  and  forced  to  downsize, Christ  knows  we  had  nothing  of  the  sort  ourselves. What's  more,  while  glued  to  this, my  Mum  unceasingly  complained  about   Dad  filling  up  all  her  cupboard  space  with  old  books  and  regularly badgered  my  sister  and  I  to  yield  up  old  toys  for  her  playgroup's  jumble  sales. It's  therefore  hard  to  figure  out  why  someone  with  no  understanding  of  the  collector's  mentality  found  this  programme  so  engrossing.

This  show  replaced  the  earlier  antiques  show  Going  For  A  Song  which  finished  in  1977  and  had  more  of  a  quiz  show  format.  It  transplanted  the  elderly  antiques  expert  Arthur  Negus  from  the  earlier  show  but  this  time  had  members  of  the  public  bringing  in  their  treasures  in  the  hope  of  being  told  they  were  sitting  ( sometimes  literally )  on  a  goldmine  whatever  they  might  say  to  the  contrary. I  guess  part  of  the  appeal  is  watching  the  squirming  impatience  of  the  avaricious  philistines  as  the  expert  gives  an  unhurried  rumination  on  the  piece's  history    and  keeps  them  waiting  for  that  all-important  valuation.

Angela  Rippon  briefly  fronted  the  programme  then  left  Negus  to  helm  the  show  on  his  own  for  a  year. Seeing  this  was  something  of  a  struggle  for  a  guy  pushing  80 , they  brought  in  Nationwide  reporter  and  a  longstanding  antique  collector  himself  , Hugh  Scully  to  help  him  in  1981. Negus  retired  from  the  show  when  he  turned  80  in  1983  (  he  died  two  years  later  ) leaving  the  remarkably  square-headed  Scully   in  sole  charge  until  2000  when  he  quit  to  work  for  an  online  auction  company. He  died  six  months  ago, an  event  that  passed  me  by  I'm  afraid. He  was  replaced  by  Michael  Aspel  who  at  67  was  close  to  being  an  antique  himself. He  held  the  fort  until  2008  when  the  current  presenter  Fiona  Bruce  took  over.

I  can  honestly  say  I've  never  turned  the  TV  on  to  catch  this  but  over  the  years  I  watched  quite  a  lot  of  it  due  to  its  timeslot, just  as  I  was  coming  in  from   a  walk  and  wanting  to  throw  myself  on   the  sofa .