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A FORMER teacher has won a £6750 Queen Elizabeth Scholarship to enable him to take a unique antique clock restoration course. Brian Coles, aged 53, pictured right, taught geography and geology for 22 years, latterly at a large South Wales comprehensive school, where he was also head of year.

The seasonal nature of the international Asian art market means buyers risk being swamped by the sheer volume of Asian art auctioned in a concentrated period. So it was the sale timing as much as the market freshness of a 103-lot private English collection of Asian works of art from a deceased estate that contributed to the success of Christie’s South Kensington’s (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) 465-lot outing on October 4.

THE Newcastle upon Tyne auctioneers Anderson & Garland are to relocate their second-string saleroom to a new purpose-built building at Westerhope. The firm took over Pattisons Rooms at Crawcrook near Gateshead in 1983 where for 20 years they have held their fortnightly sales of Victorian and later furniture and effects supporting the quarterly sales held at Marlborough House in the city centre.

Walking may be an unfashionably slow mode of transport in today’s time-pressured world, but lengthy periods spent on foot in past centuries were made more pleasurable by a vast array of walking aids. This material is now seriously collected and a cluster of cane collections have appeared on the market of late.

THE growing strength of the Modern British market has had plenty of publicity over the last couple of years, but strong demand for Post-War painting is hardly news to the Scottish and Irish collectors who have been faithfully backing the “Modern Celtic” market for decades.

DAVID McAlpine’s eye for quality textiles was evident throughout Fawley House and the most important items were a set of four George I embroidered wall panels, each 6ft 2in x 2ft 91/2in (1.88m x 85cm). Worked in tent and cross stitch in richly coloured wools and silks, these depicted ornate pots full of exotic flowers set on pedestals bearing armorials and surrounded by a menagerie of exotic birds, beasts and Oriental figures.

The lacklustre results posted at Sotheby’s (20/10% buyer’s premium) summer garden statuary sale were not bettered in early autumn, the September 23 catalogue seeing only 365 of the 666 lots sold.