ANTIQUES Roadshow expert Hilary Fay was forced to issue a strict warning to a BBC guest when they brought in a rare object.
The artefact was thought to be an important piece of Titanic history – but it was missing something important.
During a repeat episode of Antiques Roadshow 42nd series, the experts visited Salisbury Park to see what treasured items they could find.
One guest brought with him a piece of metal cut out of one of the bulkheads on the Titanic in order to extinguish a fire on board as it made its way to Southampton. The disk had been passed down through his family.
Expert Hilary said she could feel the hair on the back of her neck rising when she saw such a rare find.
“Now, you only have to say that word, that word ‘Titanic’, and I could see everybody here having a sharp intake of breath,” Hilary said.
“And actually as you said that word and as I’m looking at this and as I’m going to pick it up, I can feel the hair on the back of my neck rising and the hair on my arms,” she added.
Enquiring about the objects’ history, she asked: “She was launched in April 1912, and on her maiden voyage, she hit an iceberg and she sank on the 15th of April, 1912 with the loss of about 1,500 lives… but of course, she set off from Southampton, so tell me what you know about this story?”
The guest told her his great-grandfather was the foreman of the “Black Gang”, a team employed by Harland and Wolff at the docks in Southampton.
He explained: “There was a fire on-board the ship that needed to be tackled. I think the fire broke out on its way to Southampton from Belfast, where it was manufactured.
“So his team had to tackle the fire and to do so, they had to cut a hole in the bulkhead to pass the hoses through. Once they’d successfully tackled the fire, they patched the hole up, and she was ready to sail. And that was the hole that was cut out.”
Hilary noted that fires on a steam liner like the Titanic weren’t uncommon, so this story was totally plausible.
However, after careful examination, the Antiques Roadshow star was forced to issue a stern warning to the owner as she couldn’t verify its validity.
She asked: “Who is going to be able to tell you for certain that [it] is from the Titanic? Harland and Wolff will know the thickness of the steel that was used to construct the bulkheads. That would be an easy win, wouldn’t it?
“[But] what have you got in terms of evidence here, say paperwork, photographs…?”
But the guest revealed he had nothing to prove the heirloom’s authenticity.
“So, here’s the thing, my great-grandfather lived in Southampton. All I can say is this story was said to his granddaughter, who was my grandmother, and she informed my father, who passed it on to me,” the owner admitted.
This led the BBC expert to offer him some serious advice as she warned him the artefact couldn’t be valued.
“Okay. What you need to do from your father is get that affidavit properly written up. A word of mouth, a scribble, or a handwritten note is one thing. To have a sworn statement in front of a solicitor is something else,” she said.
Only after it was proven to be from the Titanic could she assess the worth of the disk – and unfortunately, despite its historical significant, she wasn’t expecting much.
Hilary said: “What’s a piece of the Titanic worth if it can be proved? I have to say, I don’t think it’s going to be a life-changing sum, not the way some of those letters or some of those artefacts have been.
“But it’s got to be worth a thousand or two (pounds). But I think from the point of the history of the Titanic, it is a fabulous object,” the expert concluded.
