Before he sailed on titanic and he pressed them into his hand and said dont spend those until i see you again. And of course, he didnt see him again, because he didnt survive the titanic. My grandfather went on to become a playwright and an author, so he wrote a lot about how he felt about his fathers death and about getting these two pennies, which is how we know so much about his story. They must have meant so much to him. Well, yes, uhhuh. Thats you know, he kept them, he passed them on to my father who then passed them on to me, and, you know, although theyre of no value to anybody else, to our family theyre absolutely priceless. Of course, of course. The value of these to your family is enormous. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And he was on the titanic going to new york what, hoping to start a new life . It was indeed, yes. His wife had died about 3 months earlier so he had 2 little boys to look after and he thought well, how am i going to do this . He did actually work here in arlington well before he signed on with the White Star Line but he thought he would try and make a new life for himself. He would go to new york, get a bit of money behind him, and then send for the boys. But, of course he was never able to. No, that didnt happen. And they were left with relatives who really could have done without them, you know. Times were tough. Definitely, yes. Uhhuh. What does it mean to you having these two pennies . Well, its just such its a great thing to have this personal connection to the titanic. I mean, everybody here in belfast knows the story of titanic and were immensely proud of it as a feat of engineering, but just to have that little personal thing that connects you directly to it is lovely. Well, its a great setting to look at these. Thank you so much for bringing them. Its a pleasure. Where on earth do you keep it . She stays on the mantelpiece in my mothers front room and has been there forever. For for all my life. All your life . Yes. And before then . She was a gift from a friend of my great aunts, who lived in england. Let me just tell you right away, if this girl could speak to you shed speak to you in german. Mmhmm. But shes not german. Yes. Which, i have to say is because shes austrian. Uh, this is almost certainly a bronze that dates to around about 1900 to 1915. Yes. Uh, but lets have a look at her because she cut something of a fine figure. Is that fair to say . You could say that. I want to pan down these wonderful sort of diaphanous drapes. Looks like shes dancing the sort of dance of the 7 veils, doesnt she . Great sense of movement. A great sense of movement. And then down to this pedestal, and all this colored decoration all laid on on a base, and i always look at the bases, cause you can always tell the quality of a bronze by its base. Its very heavy. Yeah. And the two go well together. Yes. The term given to these is austrian coldpainted bronzes, okay. Now, ive looked high and low for a signature on this. Yes. And i cant find one. Now, theres a name im looking for. And i know its by him. I know its by him. Oh. And the name im looking for is actually bergman. And yet, its not. Im full of contradictions arent i . You are, yes. Because the name im looking for is actually namgreb, which is bergman backwards. Oh. Because mr. Bergman did a whole series of all different types of cold painted bronzes, including animals and birds. Yes. But hes bestknown for these sort of slightly risque bronzes which he signed his name backwards i think just in case his mother found him out. Oh, i see. Because you know and i know. Theres a surprise. That this girl reveals an awful lot more when you give a slight twist. Thats right. Shes not this is not the dance of the 7 veils. No. Its the dance of just about 1 veil. Yes. And i assume your mother actually displays it like so. Yes, yes. Especially when the vicar comes round for tea. Oh, absolutely. laughs well, this type of bronze, at the moment, is quite keenly contested. The russians are relatively new to this market and theyve been pushing the price of bronze and ivory figures, but also figures of very sort of leggy ladies for a start. Yes. And i dont doubt for one minute that your lady given the opportunity at auction would probably fetch between £1,500 and £2,000. My goodness. So, shes an expensive girl. Yes. I feel immensely proud to be standing here in the Planning Office of harland and wolff and, to some extent, bringing back some of the original plans that were made for titanic and all the other vessels that came from this historic yard. Are these the originals . Yes, they absolutely are original drawings, and the, uh, the drawing on top here wouldve actually been drawn in this very office. So, were back at the very birthplace of titanic. And the plan below whats that one . Thats the original design plan for titanic and her sister ship olympic. Its the very first conception drawing of these very famous ships. Titanic, of course the most famous ship in history. To give us an idea you kindly brought us along a list of some of the other vessels that were being built about the same sort of period. Yes, uh, this is a yard list. In the shipyard, every ship was given its own number starting from the very beginning number 1. Yeah. Weve got number 401 which is titanic. 400, olympic. And the numbers run from 394 up to 410. Uh, so it gives a sense of the ships that were being built around the time that olympic and titanic were being built. And what date was the keel laid for titanic . That wouldve been march 1909. So, this year is going to be its centenary. Absolutely, yes. This is the centenary year of the laying of the keel of titanic. And then the launching was. . The launch was on the 31st of may, 1911. And so, with that was a very big and important day. The launch day is always important for a ship because thats the point where the transition is made from the land to the sea. It was a major event. Tickets were sold and there were people watching from all kinds of vantage points inside and outside the yard. She left belfast on the 2nd of april, 1912 went to South Hampton, and then sailed from South Hampton on her Maiden Voyage on the 10th of april, 1912. And heres a postcard. Yes. This is a very special postcard. It shows olympic and titanic, and, uh well, its a white star postcard but the really interesting thing shall i pass it to you . Yeah. The really interesting thing is the message on the back because this card was posted from titanic in queenstown in ireland by cobh. Right. And it just says dear bill. Just a line to let you know we are all right up till now, and are having a jolly time. I mean, how evocative is that . Yes, mr. Phillips uh was lost but his daughter alice to whom he refers in the card, did survive. Fantastic. And. They left ireland, headed across the atlantic and then that fateful night what sort of time . Oh, it was the sunday, 14th of april, 20 minutes to midnight the ship struck the iceberg. It sank about 2 hours and 20 minutes later. You have a copy of the marconigram. And, uh, maybe youd like to read this out, because i think again, its and the time of it. This was a message received on board olympic titanics sister ship, which was eastbound at the time titanic was westbound. And this is a message from titanic to olympic. 11 p. M. New york time titanic sending out signals of distress. Answered his calls. So, theyre making the point of record. Titanic replies and give me his position. 4146 north, 5014 west and says, we have struck an iceberg. our distance from titanic, 505 miles. Amazing. And thats been kept. Its been kept together with other marconigrams in the museum collections. Well, youve just mentioned the museum and i think that is the joyous thing that all these things have been preserved and are on exhibition at the ulster folk and transport museum so, uh, they are for everybody to see. But, i always think about prices, and these will never come up for sale. Theyre almost impossible to value. I mean, both these plans they are literally oneoffs. Youll never see another. No. Um, and irreplaceable. I mean, i wouldve thought if you ever saw them at auction youd be talking about £30,000 or £40,000 each, without a doubt. True titanic memorabilia fetches mega amounts of money. Uh, the list of the various ships you know, its just a page taken from the order book or whatever and probably in itself worth. Ooh. £8,000 to £10,000. Um, the postcards they do turn up. Um, and i think i remember this one, and at its time was probably one of the most expensive postcards in the world. Um, again, at auction were talking about £6,000 to £10,000. The invitation probably about £1,000 to £1,500. And. I dont know. The marconigram again, its a oneoff. Probably another £10,000 to £15,000. So, were talking about £100,000 worth of memorabilia. Its a joy to see it. I dont often wear the white gloves but with such historic documents its been a great privilege to talk to you about them, and actually have them here today. Thank you so much for bringing them in. Well, thank you. All i know about it is my husband brought it to me when i was 50 not that very long ago no, quite. laughs last month. Carry on. I did not like it, first off. Why not . Ruby is my birthstone, and i wouldve i just, at the time, wanted a big hunk of a ring, right . So, when i got that, i said, great, well if i keep that ill just chunk it into rings. What so, literally chop it up into Component Parts like a swiss roll . Make rings out of it. Into lumps. And then make something completely different out of it. Yeah. All right. When was it made . Well, its screaming art deco. Absolute art deco. Yeah. And the geometric design which is extraordinary really its like a 3d effect. Right. Now, whats it made of . Rubies, youre right. And diamonds. The mounting of it see, is bicolor. Youve got white and yellow. I think this is yellow gold and probably platinum. Very good. The strap is called a brazilian pattern strap. Would that have been the original strap . Good question. Good question. Im not sure and on the back of the tongue here, on this part the clasp, its got 14k. Oh. Which is an american stamp. Right. And im not entirely sure whether this is the original bracelet or whether another one may have been put on. Its difficult. Its difficult to tell. Now, when you get rubies and sapphires, for that matter in the 1930s sometimes they used to use gems that were manmade. Now, they are rubies but sometimes they were using synthetic rubies. You would need to look at each one individually to establish precisely which ones were and which ones werent but there are several here. The diamonds are real, then . Diamonds are real. The diamonds are pucker. Theyre 100 correct. I think that if you were selling this today it would probably achieve in auction £1,500 to £2,000. What did i tell you . laughs if you were to replace it and buy it in a shop a retail price for insurance purposes well, even though some of the rubies are synthetic, youre looking at the best part of £3,500, £4,000. Right. Do you know what your husband paid for it, then . Yeah, he paid about £2,000. Right, so if he paid £2,000, he paid a very fair too much . Not at all. He paid a very fair price for it. I think your husband did very well. I think he bought you something in great taste with great aplomb, if you dont mind me saying so. chuckles congratulations. Thank you very very much. Thank you. So, what can you tell me about this fire screen . Um, it was my great uncles. It was in his attic. Whenever he died we just took everything out of the house and, um, this is one of the pieces that i found in the house. Um. And how did he get hold of it . He was a rag and bone man, so oh, was he . He was, yeah. So, he wouldve been driving along in his horse and cart shouting out any old iron or, rag and bones and somebody wouldve probably thrown this at him and said, you can take that old thing away. Yeah. And, presumably, he got it for next to nothing. Yeah. Well, the age is interesting because if we start at the base. Mmhmm. We can see that its made of rosewood, and its beautifully carved. Youve got the floral and leaf decoration. Yeah. On the short cabriole legs going down to the claw feet, so its a very wellcarved piece of english rosewood, dating, i would suspect, from about 1850, 1860. Oh, wow. So, the middle of the 19th century. Mmhmm. And very nice quality. Fire screens had come into fashion before that, and originally their purpose was to protect people, particularly ladies, from the fire, because they wore a lot of makeup in those days and they didnt want their makeup to run, so the fire screen was a good way of protecting them. Later on, they became more decorative items to have in the drawing room and this was i suspect, one of those. I see. Um, but if we look at the actual screen itself its very interesting, because its got 4 armoriers. And i think they are much earlier than the base. I think the armoriers date from probably the late 17th century. Oh, wow, so, about 1680. So, you got the combination of the two the mid to late 19thcentury rosewood base, and the 17thcentury armorier on top. Oh, wow. But it works very well together. As far as the values go, fire screens are sought after. Theyre not desperately collected, but people do like to have them in their drawing rooms as decorative pieces. What i think makes this one interesting is the juxtapositioning of the 19thcentury base and the 17thcentury top. So, if this came up at auction, i would expect it to fetch in the region of £500 to £700. Wow. Yeah. So, not bad for a rag and bone man. Yeah, yeah. laughs now, i suppose a silly question thats been said many, many times is do you believe in fairies . But of course, if we go back a long time in history people did believe in fairies, they felt that there was a. Another type of life out there. And i have always been familiar with a very famous group of fairy photographs taken in the 19 in 1920. Uhhuh. Called the cottingley fairies. And when i saw that youd brought these in i was fascinated because anybody whos interested in, you know the history of our times knows these images. Ive seen that picture reproduced so many times. Ive seen that one reproduced. You know, each one i look at and i think, gosh, you know . Yes, i know these. Theyre extraordinary visions of how we believed in fairies at a certain time. But. How do you have these . The little girl that took the last she took one of the first series of photographs in 1917 was my mother. And she took so, hang on a minute. So, your mother was what . Frances. Griffiths. Frances griffiths, yes. So, these the story is that these two children, one age 16, one age 10 believed there were fairies in the bottom of their garden. And, in order to convince their father they took a camera and they took photographs. Thats right. And that was in july and august 1917. And those two photographs, as i understand it were those two. Is that right . Thats right, yes. So, which is your mother . This is my mother here. Thats your mother. So, elsie was what her cousin, or. . Her first cousin yes. Their mothers were sisters. Okay, so, they came back with the camera and said we can prove there are fairies. And these were accepted at the time werent they . So, when the first photographs were taken in 1917, they were really only shown to the family, werent they . They were only intended for family consumption. Just to get frances out of trouble cause she was always falling on her back and getting wet. Yeah, so it was about saying there really are fairies thatve delayed me in my walks in the garden. But then they were included in lectures in theosophical societies, they began to be published conan doyle became involved, and by 1920, it had become a big story hadnt it . The world had actually woken up to the fact that there were fairies, and more important there were fairy photographs. And is that why he conan doyle gave the girls a camera . Yes, thats right. He heard from Edward Gardner who was in a Theosophical Society about the photographs about the first two photographs and then Sir Arthur Conan Doyle gave one camera to elsie and one camera to frances. And sent them off to do it again, in effect. Yes, with lots of plates. Actually, we thought that was missing until about 10 years ago. We thought itd been thrown out, or my grandmother had thrown it out. And i was going through the safe about 10 years ago and i found an old brown envelope and i looked inside the envelope and i saw that and i brought the camera to my mom and asked was that grannys camera . So so, its survival is pure chance. It is, really, yeah. It was obviously meant to be. And did the photographs reappear at the same time . It was just the last couple of years we discovered them. In fact, two we only discovered two days ago before the antiques roadshow. Really . Yes, cause we were looking for stuff cause, i mean these are the most important pieces because these have come directly from that camera. Today, looking at these, its very hard to believe why anybody believed it. You grew up with your mother frances. Did she ever talk about it . No, she was very ashamed of it. She was ashamed of the deception. So, they through her life she knew this had happened but she said nothing. No. Until the 1980s. The 1980s, yes. She discovered then that elsie had told her son when they lived in india that they were that she had faked the photographs. Right. And so, when i told my mother that when i told frances that then that she felt free, then, to be able to talk about it. So, did you grow up knowing the story . I did, yes and i believed that the photographs were real at that stage. You did. Until it was revealed until she actually said they werent real. Yes, there in the 80s. Okay. But she never spoke to me about it. I think weve got to look at why people believed, because, in those days, the camera couldnt lie. The camera was a scientific instrument, and so if you produced a photograph of a fairy it had to be right because it was a photograph. We are now much more cynical. We expect to be deceived. Our minds are open to the possibilities of deceit. And so things have changed completely and by the 1980s when she was talking about it the world was ready to accept that this was a fake. Whereas, until that point many people still believed that because it was a photograph it had to be real. And this was in a place called cottingley, in yorkshire, wasnt it . In bradford. Yes, just outside bradford. Is that it . That that photograph was taken about 5 years ago by myself. You took that. Yes. So, did you go to look for fairies in the dell . I did. Did you see any . No. I wish. all laugh so, you tried hard to repeat the experiment. I did. I mean, it shows. It looks, actually a Perfect Place for fairies, doesnt it . It does. Its very peaceful. Its lovely. What the photographs actually were doesnt really matter. What do you think . Were they cutouts or. . Those were cutouts, yes, but this wasnt. This last one frances said thats genuine. So, to her death she said that was a genuine she said genuine cause what happened was elsie cut out the others and they put hat pins in them and stuck them on grasses and on trees. In 1920, with conan doyles cameras, they took 2 more which elsie had prepared. But the