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Interpreting Matisse/Picasso by Elizabeth Cowling, published by Tate Publishing. ISBN 1854373935 £9.99 pbk

This large Highland hunting landscape by John Frederick Herring Senior proved to be the highlight of Sotheby’s annual auction series held last week at the Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland, when it sold for £470,000 (plus 19.5/10% premium) to London dealer Richard Green Fine Art bidding on the phone.

Many sporrans are military or feral in character, but this leather wallet had graced the groin of Sir Harry Lauder, legendary laird of the music hall. Winston Churchill sounded dangerously like Samuel Johnson when he described the folk singer and comedian as “Scotland’s greatest ever ambassador”, but there is no doubt that Lauder, though dead since 1950, remains popular with tourists who swallow his sentimental vision of the old country.

LONDON: THE Greenwich Development Agency has just published a new guide in a bid to boost the trade in antiques and collectables in the south east London borough.

NEARLY 40 years after 15 men stole 120 mail bags containing £2.6m from the Royal Mail train as it passed through the Buckinghamshire countryside, the Great Train Robbery can still arouse controversy. In 1969 the police held an auction of items found in the robbers’ hideout on behalf of the banks who lost money.

UK: FROM October 1 – 31, to mark the 602nd anniversary of Chaucer’s death, the Gallery in the Friars, Canterbury, is holding an exhibition, entitled The Canterbury Tales.

ANTIQUES fairs currently allowed to operate without planning permission may continue to do so after the Government announced that there would be no change in the law after all.