I realized that it might be possible to make a living out of buying and selling antiques when I was about fifteen - we were living in Africa at time and we owned a very lovely 19th century chaise lounge which my mother bought from an antique dealer somewhere out in the bush  (there are antique dealers everywhere you know!) This chaise had a fantastic story attributed to it - the story went that it was once the property of Lord Nelson; it had apparantly been purchased from his old London home and had been shipped out to Africa 100 years earlier. This tale simply fascinated me and I just couldn't believe or get over the fact that I was sitting on and looking at the very same piece of furniture that my hero Lord Nelson had actually touched and looked upon...well, with his one good eye anyway! I spent weeks researching this thing - lying underneath examining the way it was constructed, working out the kind of wood it was made from, whether it had ever been reupholstered or restored and crucially when it was made...judging by its shape and design, curve of the legs, type of wood, the handmade screws and the original pottery castors it didn't take long with the help of reference books to discover that this was an English William IV or early Victorian, circa 1840 rosewood chaise which had been reupholstered several times in its ancient life... I loved every second of the time it took to research this piece - however all my hard work and research sadly shattered any Lord Nelson connection, bearing in mind he famously died at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805...35 years before the chaise was even made!  It wasn't all bad though, because soon after we packed up our belongings and came back to the UK - the chaise was repatriated to old blighty and sold in auction for 3 times its purchase price in Africa!  This experience sparked an idea in me that I could actually do this for fun and pleasure and even make a living out of it!

So, since the age of 18 I've been studying, researching, buying, selling and enjoying all sorts of antiques from Roman antiquities to 1920's Art Deco.  I've sold through my own shops and international fairs, shipped antiques to America and even brought some back from the states too!  I've owned an antique restoration business which also made copies of Georgian and Victorian sofas and at the age 25 I was one of the UK's youngest directors of a plc company importing rubber wood antique style furniture from Thailand - I have also written over 40 nationally published articles on antiques.

TV work
It never crossed my mind to get into TV - TV was something that other people did and certainly nothing I'd ever thought possible or had considered for a moment.  But in 1999, I had a call out of the blue from BBC Radio Tees, saying that they were doing an outside broadcast from Barnard Castle (where I had an antique shop - and still do) Barnard Castle has several antique shops and centers and Radio Tees were looking for someone to come into their temporary studio to talk live on air about the antiques trade in the town and to take calls from listeners looking for valuations and advice on their antiques. I reluctantly agreed to do it, almost chickened out at the very last minute, felt sick with nerves and literally couldn't sleep the night before, so when I entered the studio I felt as though I was in a feverish daze and really would have preferred to have been anywhere else! Amazingly though the presenter and the producer seemed like ordinary people! Not scary at all, incredibly friendly, funny and welcoming. I was thrown straight into the deep end, given some headphones to put on and went straight into talking about the antiques business and taking calls from listners wanting to know all about their antiques and what they might be worth - it wasn't difficult or scary at all, I loved every moment and after what seemed like no more than a minute, the ten minute chat was over and I was sent back to the real world of my shop...never to feel the same again!

I loved the radio experience so much that I rang all the northern BBC radio stations asking if they'd have me on! they agreed and after several years of regular antique spots on BBC radio (all unpaid!) I started approaching TV companies - a couple of years worth of phone calling, letter writing, emailing, door knocking, free behind the camera valuing and general begging later I was asked to do a screen test for a new Channel 4 show - the director came up from London stuck a camera in my face, started firing questions at me and left after half an hour - the next day his producer called me and said he'd viewed the tape, thought I'd done well but before he put it to C4 he wanted to film another one the following week - however, he requested that I made some changes before the next screen test. The list included: shave my hair off, pluck my eyebrows, put some glasses on, shave my beard off, put some false tan on and wear a jacket! This was not a confidence building conversation, but I did as he asked - two days after the second screen test showing the newly modeled me, I got another phone call from the producer with the fantastic news that C4 would like me to present the show.  However, he requested one or two extra changes before we started filming... 'Grow the beard back and lose some weight'...  You can't be too thin skinned in this business! P.S I've shaved the beard off since!

01833 631500

24 The Bank, Barnard Castle, Co Durham

Mon to Sat 11am to 5pm

info@davidharperantiques.co.uk