THE SECRET SILVER

IN 1994, Margaret Hobbs and her son turned up at the Antiques Roadshow in Sussex lugging a battered holdall full of silver she described as so ‘dreadful’ she hadn’t dared give it away.

In fact it was early English pieces, including a James I parcel-gilt bowl and a silver-mounted ostrich eggcup, that fetched £78,717 at auction. Pensioner Mrs Hobbs had found it in shoeboxes under a bed. Her late husband Harold, knowing that she hated ornate silver, had collected it in secret and squirreled it out of sight.