Bowled over: trio of £1 ceramics fetch £75,000

A woman in her 60s is celebrating after three Chinese bowls her father bought for £1 each have sold for a whopping £75,020.

The stunned owner, from near Lichfield, Staffs, who asked not to be named, was hoping to buy a new carpet for her stairs with the money the bowls made, but said she may now retire after the windfall.

Her father collected Chinese pottery from junk shops in the Fifties, but never paid more than £1 for pieces and used to smuggle them into the house because his wife disapproved.