Helena Fairfax

A few days ago I was at the filming of the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow in the beautiful gardens at Cartwright Hall in Bradford.

I love the Antiques Roadshow for all the fascinating stories behind the antiques. Each treasured item has a tale to tell, and the emotional attachment often means far more to the owner than the money they could get for it if they sold it.

I decided to take an item that’s been in my family for more than 120 years. Something that means a lot to me…but which my husband is convinced may bring us bad luck…!

This beautiful embroidery comes from China. In the late nineteenth century, my great-great-aunt Lucy was a buyer for an enormous place on Regent Street, London, called Jay’s Mourning Warehouse. In those days, mourning clothes were worn for many months after someone died, and selling them was a big business.

Lucy gave up this job on marrying. Her husband was a steward for P&O Cruises. Sadly, he died in the Far East, and their son also died in infancy. After this, Lucy herself became a stewardess for P&O and travelled the world, and it’s at this time we think she acquired the piece of embroidery in China that is still in the family.

I’m lucky to know author Lorna Hunting, who writes excellently researched historical fiction. Lorna is also an expert on Chinese textiles. Through Lorna I learned the silk embroidery belonging to my aunt Lucy was designed to go round the sleeve of a kimono. These sleeve bands were common, and the particular sleeve band belonging to my aunt, with its distinctive shades of blue, would have been for a married woman. The embroidery shows petunias, which are for luck, and is on a peach background. Peaches were a symbol meaning sons.

This silk, which was meant to be auspicious for married women and bring them many sons, was owned by my aunt, who was widowed and lost her child. It’s at this point that my husband would say the silk has brought the opposite of luck…and its history after this does seem to suggest it.

So what happened in the century to come? After my great-great-aunt Lucy died the Chinese sleeve band was passed to my grandmother, who gave it to my mum’s youngest sister, my auntie B. My auntie B died in very tragic circumstances forty years ago. She was unmarried, and had no children. The embroidery was passed to my auntie N. While in her early twenties, my auntie N had been seriously ill with TB. It was thought it had so weakened her that it would be unsafe for her to go through a pregnancy, and so sadly, she also had no children.

My auntie N then gave me the Chinese embroidery after I helped her move house. My husband framed it in its present frame and we gave it to my mum when she moved into sheltered housing. Not long after this my mum and we as a family had a terrible few months in which we lost my dad and my two older brothers.

The embroidery is now hanging in our house. Of course I could have recounted here all the very many joyful occasions and the many pieces of good fortune we as a family have had over the many decades since my great-great-aunt Lucy acquired her silk. It has seemed a tragic irony, though, that the Chinese sleeve band, intended to bring a happy marriage and children, has been owned by four women who were either widowed, or single, or lost children, or could never have children.

You may be wondering what the embroidery might be worth if sold. My author friend Lorna Hunting told me she thought it would be worth £90. The expert at the Antiques Roadshow valued it around the same, at £100. He also said it might be worth more if the embroidery were better quality. I laughed at this, as my mum would totally agree.

Like many women in my family, my mum was an excellent needlewoman and embroidery was her speciality at college. We’ll never know now, but I like to think 120 years ago in China some strict person in charge of needlework, as particular as my mum would have been , told an unfortunate young Chinese needlewoman that her embroidery didn’t pass muster, and offered the sleeve to Lucy on one of her trips.

So this is part of the story of my antique Chinese silk. As I mentioned before, it’s the stories behind antiques that fascinate me, and one of the reasons why I set one of my novels in an antique shop.

Here is the blurb to Penny’s Antique Shop of Memories and Treasures

One rainy day in London, Wyoming man Kurt Bold walks into an antique shop off the King’s Road and straight into the dreams of its owner, Penny Rosas.
Kurt looks every inch the cowboy hero…but he soon brings Penny’s dreams to earth with a thump. His job is in the logical world of finance, and as far as Kurt is concerned, logic is everything, and romance is just for dreamers.
But when Kurt hires Penny to help refurbish his beautiful old house near Richmond Park, it’s not long before the logical heart he’s tried to keep guarded is opening up to new emotions, in a most disturbing way…

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If you love antique browsing as much as I do, I’ve listed below 6 novels featuring antiques. I hope you enjoy!

The Antique Hunter’s Guide to Murder, by C.L. Miller

Freya Lockwood has avoided the quaint English village in which she grew up for the last 20 years. That is until news arrives that Arthur Crockleford, antiques dealer and Freya’s estranged mentor, has died – and the circumstances seem suspicious.
But when a letter from Arthur is delivered, sent just days before his death, and an ordinary pine chest concealing Arthur’s journals are revealed, Freya finds herself sucked back into a life she’d sworn to leave behind.
Joining forces with her eccentric Aunt Carole, Arthur’s staunch best friend, Freya follows both clues and her instincts to an old manor house for an ‘antiques enthusiasts weekend’. But not is all as it seems; the antiques are bad reproductions and the guests all have something to hide.

Hidden Riches, by Nora Roberts

Creative and spontaneous, antiques dealer Dora Conroy has an infectious enthusiasm for life. She also has an eye for quality, and her gorgeous shop in Philadelphia is overflowing with fascinating finds. But when – on impulse – she buys a few curiosities at auction, she gets a lot more than she bargained for. Because Dora doesn’t realise she has brought home a priceless cache of treasure: a collection that one ruthless criminal is determined to make his own – whatever the cost . . .
Caught up in a deadly chase, Dora turns in desperation to her new neighbour, ex-cop Jed Skimmerhorn. Jed, struggling with a personal tragedy, has no wish to jump back into the line of fire. But there is something irresistible about Dora . . . As Jed and Dora fight their growing attraction, they must work out what they value the most, before it’s too late.

The Old Curiosity Shop, by Charles Dickens

Little Nell Trent lives in the quiet gloom of the old curiosity shop with her ailing grandfather, for whom she cares with selfless devotion. But when they are unable to pay their debts to the stunted, lecherous and demonic money-lender Daniel Quilp, the shop is seized and they are forced to flee, thrown into a shadowy world in which there seems to be no safe haven. Dickens’s portrayal of the innocent, tragic Nell made The Old Curiosity Shop an instant bestseller that captured the hearts of the nation

The Antique Store Detective, by Clare Chase

Bella Winter loves her little antique store in the charming town of Hope Eaton. She gets to hunt for bargains and meet her neighbours, hearing about their lives and solving their problems when she can. But finding eccentric local historian Professor Oliver Barton dead in the ruins of Raven Hall is a bigger problem than she could have anticipated!
At first, Bella is like everyone else: saddened by a tragic accident. But then her colleague John asks her to dig deeper. Because it turns out the professor was hunting for buried treasure in the middle of the night, and John thinks he was murdered.
As Bella delves into the case she uncovers a hoard of suspects: the lord of the manor, a secretive group of treasure hunters, the dead man’s desperate niece and her no-good son. And when another local historian takes a fatal fall, Bella is certain that the answers lie in the antiques the professor stole. But can she solve the crime before someone tries to bury her?

The Little Antique Shop Under the Eiffel Tower, by Rebecca Raisin

Anouk LaRue used to be a romantic, but since she had her heart well and truly broken her love life has dissolved into nothing more than daydreams of the perfect man. Retreating to her extraordinary Little Antique Shop has always been a way to escape, because who could feel alone in a shop bursting with memories and beautiful objects…

Until Tristan Black bursts into an auction and throws her ordered world into a spin.

Following your heart is a little like getting lost in Paris – sometimes confusing and always exciting! Except learning to trust her instincts is not something Anouk is ready to do when it comes to romance, but the city of love has other ideas…

Savannah Blues, by Mary Kay Andrews

Landing a catch like Talmadge Evans III encouraged Eloise “Weezie” Foley to buy a gem of a townhouse in Savannah’s historic district. Divorcing Tal got her exiled to the backyard carriage house, where she’s launched a spite-fest with Tal’s new fiancé, the elegant Caroline DeSantos.

An antiques picker, Weezie combs Savannah’s steamy back alleys and garage sales for treasures when she’s not dealing with her loopy relatives or her hunky ex-boyfriend. But an unauthorized sneak preview at a sale lands Weezie smack in the middle of magnolia-scented murder, mayhem . . . and more. Dirty deals simmer all around her, just as her relationship with the hottest chef in town heats up and she finds out how delicious love can be the second time around.