South-east England

First organiser looks back at event’s origins as IACF celebrates event's 50th anniversary.

When British Special Operations Executive (SOE) agents were parachuted into occupied Europe in the Second World War speed was vital. Not only did they have to jump from sub-radar altitudes as low as 400ft, hitting the ground within 10-15 seconds, but they also had to make a quick getaway.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then the British were clearly impressed by the French lancer regiments they encountered during the Napoleonic Wars. The first British lancer regiments were established in 1816, just a year after Waterloo.

Until March 17, 1834, Her Majesty’s Body Guard of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms was known as The Honourable Band of Gentlemen Pensioners.

Factors dictating the pricing of Naval General Service Medals were clearly demonstrated in the March 6 sale at Bosleys (20% buyer’s premium) in Marlow. Ten NGSMs were offered as part of a large single-owner medal collection.

A rifle from the personal armoury of Tipu Sultan sold for £60,000 in Oxfordshire last week.

This 19th century painted photograph of an Indian maharaja was the stand-out picture in Sworders’ (23% buyer’s premium) dispersal of the Chelsea home of the late Henry Wilson – a World of Interiors photographer who died in a bicycle accident in 2017.

A Rosenthal porcelain model of the princess and the frog, c.1910, by Leo Rauth is among the objects on offer at The Cotswolds Decorative Antiques & Art Fair.

David Fulton (1848-1930) was a Glasgow painter who, like his contemporaries Gemmell Hutchison and William Marshall Brown, specialised in painting children in sentimental settings.

A charity antiques fair in aid of a Kent hospice will run at the Skinners School in Tunbridge Wells on Sunday, April 28.

Consigned from a deceased estate in Oxfordshire, a loosely bound album containing nearly 100 watercolours of marine and topographical views drew multiple bids at an Oxford saleroom.

A group of railway posters, found in a cellar and almost discarded by their owner, sold for more than £5000 at the House and Garden sale at Mallams in Abingdon.

A piece of recycled wood used to make an Arts & Crafts reading table on offer at WR Harvey has been revealed to contain the names of mischievous boys from Eton College.

Three models from an English porcelain factory about which almost nothing is known surfaced for sale in East Sussex last week.

The exact function of carved and painted wood butcher’s shop dioramas is uncertain.

An impressive Edwardian aquamarine and diamond brooch with a provenance to the first lady to take her seat as an MP in the UK sold for £54,000 (plus 25% buyer’s premium) at auction this month.