Chippenham Auction Rooms

Prime Minister Boris Johnson sacked more than half of Theresa May’s cabinet and brought in his own top-level team last month. Those MPs trying to stay in his good books may want to win him over with a thoughtful gift.

With estimates from £400-18,000, here are five previews from upcoming sales this week.

You can sleep easily now – we can announce that Emu, of Rod Hull and Emu fame – has found a very appropriate new home after being successfully sold at auction.

Chatshow host Michael Parkinson had a glittering TV career. However, he was quick to acknowledge: “The only thing I’m ever remembered for is being attacked by that bloody bird.”

If you worried about robots becoming a threat to jobs, or even to humanity, look away now. If you are, however, fascinated by the more benign impact of toy robots, then keep on reading about a Chippenham Auction Rooms sale.

When all the horrible roads are finally done for, and there’s no more petrol left in the world to burn, here to the halt from Salisbury and from Bristol, steam trains will return. So wrote John Betjeman in his 1969 in his poem in defence of the closure-threatened Dilton Marsh Halt.

Delays and overspends on the Great Western route out of London are frustrating but letters up for auction on April 29 reveal that things didn’t always go smoothly even for the brilliant engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

A sale at Chippenham Auction Rooms had to be cancelled after thieves broke in overnight by removing tiles from the roof.

Advertising ephemera from two large collections is on offer at Chippenham Auction Rooms on November 24 in Wiltshire.

This Eglentine Metal sign has never come to the open market before but is on offer among about 250 lots of advertising including showcards, packaging, mirrors and over 300-400 enamel signs to be sold at The Chippenham Auction Rooms on July 21.