How I got into antiques
Rob Cain, aka The English Polisher, a second generation French polisher, antiques dealer and specialist on Channel 4’s Antiques Hunters on Tour and Quest’s Salvage Hunters: The Restorers, shares his story
WHAT ARE YOUR EARLIEST MEMORIES OF BEING AROUND ANTIQUES? My dad, John Cain, is a French polisher, so my formative memories include the smell and sounds of his workshop in Leeds during the 1980s. I recall various characters and jobs coming through the place, and I found it all mesmerising. By the age of 12, I was earning pocket money by helping with deliveries, and by 15, I was stripping furniture and cleaning brass handles as a Saturday job.
HOW DID YOU GET INTO FRENCH POLISHING? When I left school at 16, I went to work for my dad. He’s one of the last master craftsmen of his kind and passed down to me everything he knows about furniture and restoration – working under him felt much like completing a 30-year-long apprenticeship. My love of antiques extends to selling from my workshop in Yorkshire – I’m old school and like to see people in person. I’ll always consider myself a French polisher first, though.
WHAT IS YOUR EYE MOST DRAWN TO? I buy stock according to the themes I collect, my theory being that if I love it, someone else will, too. Growing up around antiques, I learnt not to be sentimental; however, I have a thing for wooden shoe lasts as they have such a beautiful form. I often wonder what life would have been like if I’d been a cobbler…
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