Antiques Roadshow expert gives guest stern warning over 'secret' WWI photos
An Antiques Roadshow expert issued viewers and attendees at the show a warning over a special piece of World War I memorabilia.
Fiona Bruce hosted another instalment of the antiques programme, which saw the BBC team of experts travel to the Thiepval Memorial to the Missing of the Somme in France.
In the World War Special of the programme, one guest brought two photo albums from WWI, which left one of the experts staggered at their contents.
The guest also brought the diary kept by his grandfather, who was a sergeant in the war, and described his reluctance to discuss the contents of the photo albums.
The expert inspected one photo which showed the guest's grandfather and his brother Jim from the trenches.
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One guest brought two photo albums from WWI (BBC)The guest explained: “Before the war, Jim had emigrated to Australia and in Australia joined an Australian merchant, and then purely by chance they ended up in the same trench.
“The rather poignant thing from my point of view is that they both survived the war.
“The brother went back to Australia, my grandfather stayed in England. Those pictures are from their final meeting would you believe.”
Discussing why the guest's grandfather would have had to take the photos in secret, the expert shared: “In the early years of the war, it wasn't such a problem. As the war progressed, it was obvious that the war wasn't going to end by Christmas, then things started to change.
He noted the photographs would be in the region of £400 to £500 (BBC)“And the politicians realise that if Mr Smith was sitting over his breakfast table and reading the newspaper, and the headline said, 'Great ally push forward', and underneath was a photograph that was sent in from the front showing the opposite or showing dead bodies, for example, that could be politically very damaging.
“So the government decided that actually, it wasn't a good idea to have soldiers taking photographs.”
When it came to the valuation, the military expert issued a stark warning to the guest as he noted the photographs would be in the region of £400 to £500.
The guest said: “The monetary value is, of course, no consequence. It is nice being two albums so both my daughter and my son will have something passed down to them.”
“Oh no,” the expert interrupted as he issued a warning to the guest. “Don't split them up, whatever you do, never split them up.
“Once you split these two albums up, I guarantee they will never find their way together again. Find one custodian.”
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