"As my Son has been called to His Majesty's Colours, this establishment will be open by appointment only until further Notice" was the announcement my grandmother posted on a card in the window of our antiques shop in Tring High Street in 1941. Two years later, with the help of my mother the shop was open on a regular basis. By 1943 I was four years old and already taking an interest in the assorted collection of small items that each evening the two ladies would wrap and put away for safe keeping, lest Hitler decoded to drop a bomb on Tring, and then unwrap and place on display the next day. Objects of silver and brass, copper and glass, ivory and papier-mache and of course small pieces wood called Treen. Each item was stroked and lovingly handled and for my benefit described. How, when and where it was made and what is was made of. How to tell a Georgian cut glass decanters from Victorian copies? Well the former were polished by wheel and were sharp to the touch, the latter polished with acid and therefore much smoother. Many of such pearls of wisdom stood me in good stead over the years that followed, but some were more fable than fact. I learnt that in France in the mid 1800's, the very best glass paperweights were made in four main factories; Baccarat, Clichy, Pantin, and Saint Louis. At Millefiori, a thousand flowers made of canes of glass was first developed about 100-200 BC, and used to decorate bowls and vases. Encasing these on a glass bubble magnified them and their great period was from 1845 -1860. Some have dates hidden in the flowers. All true. But that glass jugs, bowls and tumblers when decorated with enamel pictures of Victorian children were all done by Mary Gregory, a lady glass decorator at the Boston and Sandwich Glass Company is way off the truth. She certainly existed but worked only from 1880 -1884, making it humanly impossible to have produced the hundreds of thousands of examples that were actually made in Bohemia in the 1920's when they became so popular as a collectable. But the best of myth was the explanation of the little two-box tea caddy with its pretty glass bowl in the centre. One box for Fine Green tea and the other for Bohea tea and the bowl in the middle was for blending the tea to your own taste. I related this at many a television programme until the proud owner of a beautiful specimen produced it for an appraisal during a live recording. Having heard my evaluation the gentleman drew from his pocket the original receipt from the 'Caddy Maker to His Majesty' and dated 1824. In it the caddy was described much as my grandmother had said except it ended with "and one glass bowl - for sugar." Of course you didn't blend your own tea, Mr Twining did that for you. And Fine Green and Bohea would probably taste like poison. But otherwise.....Thank you Grandma.