In this light-hearted talk, given exclusively for charity fundraising, Andy looks back over his career from his days as a 1970s Hollywood-based rock journalist to his current role as the glass specialist on BBC Tv’s Antiques Roadshow.
A trained journalist, Andy spent 1972-76 in California touring the US with many of the greatest rock & folk bands. The theme continued into the early ‘80s when he produced promotional videos at Island Records for bands as diverse as Tears for Fears, Kid Creole & The Coconuts, Siouxsie & The Banshees and Steve Winwood.
He turned to the ‘good life’ in 1988 by decamping for six years to Dordogne in southwest France to raise his young family.
But antiques have always been close to Andy’s heart, ever since he visited junk shops as a child with his parents, part-time dealers. Catching the bug, young Andrew began buying at London markets around the age of 14, and was the only pupil at his boarding school to pay his own fees from the profits.
Andy ‘discovered’ glass in 1977 and has been dealing in it ever since. He became serious about it after returning from France to begin a five-year sojourn that led to his tome about The Decanter, An Illustrated History of Glass, published in 2004. This was followed two years later by his 20th Century Glass, and his recruitment to the Antiques Roadshow as its first-ever glass specialist. An updated book on The Decanter will be published in 2018, followed by another on Swedish Glass Design.
This talk, spanning past-to-present, also takes an informal look behind the scenes of the Antiques Roadshow, now in its 39th season and still the number one ‘Factual’ programme on British television, regularly attracting audiences of 5-6 million.