From our hotel in Bloomsbury we walked to Kings Cross and picked up our hire car at Avis. I had booked the car and so I was designated driver. To add Cath as an additional driver was going to be another £13 a day. In Australia it’s free. To change Cath to the only driver meant cancelling my booking and making a new booking in her name. So I kept my booking as sole driver. Perhaps not the wisest move since I’m not a great fan of driving and Cath is geographically and mathematically challenged so she is not a great fan of navigation. A recipe for disaster. Maybe.

Drive to Devon was uneventful. Cath mastered the GPS. Abbey Inn was lovely and a short walk to Buckfastleigh Abbey. It is a Benedictine abbey. The abbey celebrated its millennium this year. The original abbey was built in 1018. It was destroyed during the dissolution of the religious orders by HenryVIII, and was eventually rebuilt in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Next morning we walked to the Abbey for the Antiques Roadshow, and arrived at 9:15am. I queued and Cath wandered around. It was a glorious day; partly cloudy with a cool breeze. It took me about an hour to get to reception where you are allocated an expert depending upon your item.

While I was queuing Cath got on TV as part of the audience for a an original Micky Mouse pocket watch with Hilary Kay the enthusiastic expert in toys. There were takes and retakes and different camera angles over a 20-30 minute period to get enough good footage to edit into the final production. It really is a professional TV production of smoke and mirrors, but I’m glad Lovely Cath got filmed.

I had brought a military style cap from the Cuban revolution. My father was a journalist and went to Cuba in 1960 to see how the revolution had affected the common folk particularly those in the Presbyterian Church. He brought back the cap with four revolutionary pins on the front. Although I didn’t think it was worth much I did think it was an unusual object, which proved correct. When the woman at reception saw the cap and heard the story she went to the expert Elaine Binning in the Miscellaneous section and asked her to come over to assess the item for possible inclusion on TV. Elaine usually wears a striking Chinese silk coat. I told Elaine the story and that there were three versions about how my father got the cap in a bar in Havana.1. It way given to him. 2. He took it. 3. He bought it. I wanted to believe the first one. Number was possible, but three was the most plausible. She agreed. It didn’t look worn enough to have been given to him, and the pins weren’t military style but looked like souvenir pins. However, despite these signs Elaine was hoping there was a story of my father meeting Castro or Che and maybe a photo of them together. Alas, that was not the case as far as I know. Elaine was honest with me and said the producers would want some connection to the revolutionary leaders to get on TV. She noted that the cap was an object of personal importance to me from an important historical period and worth about £150. She then told me a story about her own father, who was a farmer, and who admired Castro and always wanted to go to Cuba. He finally took a cruise to Cuba but Castro died before her father arrived so Cuba was in mourning and very somber while he was there.

So, close but no cigar. I could’ve made up a story because no one would’ve known the difference, but it would not have been faithful to my father’s life and I didn’t want to do that. Elaine was charming, gracious and honest. She was trying hard to find an angle to get the cap on TV, but she respected my story of my father, and thanked me for sharing the cap and its story with her.

The other items I had were a couple of small humorous sketches by the late Australian sculptor and artist John Dowie from Adelaide. So, I queued in the painting and pictures for another forty-five minutes and showed them to Lawrence Hendra a young expert in art. He seemed genuinely curious about the items and thought they were quite funny. He said they were worth about £50 pounds and thanked me for sharing them with him. He noted he’ll remember these when next he sees some of John’s work.

It was about 12:30pm and we had a picnic lunch under a tree overlooking the lawn where the Antiques Roadshow experts each had their own sun shade umbrella, table, chairs and queue of people waiting. After lunch we walked around the inside of the abbey church, amongst the expert tables, particularly Andy McConnell, the very funny and entertaining ceramics & glass expert. We also watched Fiona Bruce, the host, film a segment.

By 3:30pm we’d had enough and walked back to the inn. A great day at the Antiques Roadshow.