East Midlands

Eleys Auctions in Boston, Lincolnshire have sold by private treaty 43 personal effects of the legendary World War Two double-amputee pilot Douglas Bader.

BACK in 1936, a Mr Harry Woods decided to refurbish his home, The Gate House in Brighouse, and commissioned a fellow Yorkshireman, working some 50 miles away, to provide interior panelling, window seats and doors, as well as various items of furniture.

It was catalogued as Bow c.1760 but this English porcelain coffee cup seen at Bamfords of Derby on July 25 was identified as belonging to a much rarer class of porcelain associated with Charles Gouyn and a short-lived London concern in St James’s.

This summer has seen a spate of sleepers awoken in provincial salerooms, but inevitably the one that grabbed the headlines in the national press was the tale of the rediscovered ‘Titian’.

FIRST a dealer and now an organiser - Phil Savory, a Northamptonshire-based dealer in ceramics and treen who exhibits at fairs in Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Essex, has decided to start his own fairs venture, PJ Fairs.

ARTHUR Swallow Fairs are having free entry on Wednesdays at their two-day Tuesday/Wednesday events at RAF Swinderby.

JP Humbert auctioneers of Towcester have purchased Harp auctioneers of Northampton.

Dreweatt Neate Neales in Nottingham will hold the first of a series of sales for Oxfam on April 19. Recent visitors to the charity’s website or one of its network of 750 high street shops may have noticed the launch of ‘Valued at Oxfam’.

NOTTINGHAMSHIRE police are planning to return £24,000 worth of antiques at the Newark fair this Friday to dealers who accepted cheques from a fraudster.

Auctions to centre on Nottingham, Bristol and Newbury as others become offices

Trading standards officers say close to 100 unpaid consignors have been unable to contact Gadsbys Auctioneers and Valuers, of Tuxford Road, Leicester after the company abruptly stopped trading two months ago.

DMG make it a trade event as they revamp portfolio across the board

LAST month at Hemswell Antiques Centres in Gainsborough, north of Lincoln, whose website proclaims it to be the largest antiques centre in Europe with 300 dealers in three buildings and 1000 antiques available online, ten of the centres’ customers were offered the opportunity to learn about antique furniture from an experienced dealer.

THE TILES and Architectural Ceramics Society (TACS) is holding its annual antique tile fair at St Jude’s Church Hall, Mapperley, Nottingham on Saturday September 30.

IN Nottinghamshire from Saturday October 7 to Saturday October 14 , it’s one hectic week for antiques and collectors’ fairs. Buyers can spend the week rushing around nine venues on a mighty buying spree, including the Newark and Swinderby Fairs.

A vast photographic postcard archive depicting Devon in the first half of the 20th century has emerged in Nottinghamshire.

Before The Great War the Lincoln engineering company, William Foster and Co, was synonymous with the very best threshing machines. By 1918, managing director Sir William Tritton, together with Major W.G. Wilson, had been credited by the Royal Commission as the inventor of an armoured fighting vehicle forever known as the tank.

DMG Antique Fairs have called a stallholder summit to tackle the issue of early leaving at Newark following a mass exodus on the Saturday of the February fair.

It’s unlikely that Peter Stretch (c.1670-1746) of Leek would be remembered among the great clockmakers had he not chosen to board a ship bound for Philadelphia with his wife and family in 1702.

POLICE are appealing for information following the theft of four stuffed heads of wild animals that were stolen from a Leicestershire house.