MADAM – This week I listened in utter disbelief as actress and wildlife campaigner Virginia McKenna spoke on Radio 4’s Today programme calling for the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow to no longer show any items which contain ivory elements.
Though I may gently poke fun at today’s Roadshow, as a schoolboy 30 years ago growing up on a Birmingham council estate I had no access to or knowledge of the historic treasures this country so proudly holds.
Nothing was taught in schools and my family’s oldest possessions were a 1970s lamp shade and a well-worn silver pocket watch. Antiques were a separate and unknown world to me and it may have remained so except for a Sunday tradition of watching the Antiques Roadshow.