Going, going, gone... with Eric Knowles

By Tony Watts - Editor - 14/11/2007

Eric Knowles may have made his name in the exotic (and sometimes erotic!) world of art and antiques, travelling all over the world in pursuit of his profession, but as Tony Watts discovers, he’s still a Lancashire lad at heart - and proud of it.

It isn’t long before what starts out as an interview with Eric Knowles on the world of antiques diverts down the primrose path of football.

As a long serving (and even longer suffering) supporter of a team whose glory days are long in the past, we have plenty in common. Born and brought up in Nelson he became, perforce, a Burnley supporter. Once you’re born into a club, you can never – without betraying your roots – abandon it.

But Eric is a man very comfortable with the past in general and his own in particular. “I was very lucky,” he recalls. “We certainly weren’t well off but because everyone was in the same boat in those days no-one whinged. And I lived next to this wonderful countryside, in the shadow of Pendle Hill and close to so many historic houses.

“For entertainment I’d be taken to Burnley Museum by my parents or grandmother, or York Museum where they re-enacted street scenes, or Skipton Castle. So my love of historic and old things was kickstarted when I was five or six.

“Mind you, no-one ever told me that you could make a career out of it! In my part of the world if you got an education you might become an engineer or a teacher.”

In fact, when Eric left school he took a national diploma in business studies. “It bored me rigid,” he says. But at a time when the options for work were reducing as the big factory employers in the North of England starting closing down, an opening appeared that he could never have hoped for. After “wearing out a pair of shoes”, he answered an advertisement in a local paper… and found himself working in antique shipping.

By the mid ‘70s he had acquired enough confidence and knowledge to make the move South: he joined Bonhams, the London auctioneers, working first as a porter in the ceramics department.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he recalls. “It was like working in the theatre. It was the happiest time of my life.” But even though his first role there was relatively humble, it didn’t hinder his progress. “I wasn’t just humping antiques around,” he says, “but talking to the dealers and learning all the time. It was my apprenticeship.” Within five years he had become head of the ceramics department and, by 1985 was offered a full directorship.

Not bad for a Nelson boy! But that proved to be just a staging post for his career. As his career progressed in Bonhams he became something of a specialist in a variety of fields – such as European and Oriental Ceramics from the 17th to the 20th century; the glass of Tiffany and Lalique; and 19th and 20th century decorative arts.

And he also became a recognized authority on erotic arts. “In the business I acquired the nickname of ‘Erotic Eric’,” he smiles. “And papers like the Times would quote me when certain works of art came along. So, when they were looking for someone to go onto Antiques Roadshow very early on in the programme’s history, my name came up.

“I’d already done a bit of work on ‘Pebble Mill at One’, and I was asked to handle areas that I was keen on, such as Art Nouveau and Art Deco. It was a question of meeting the right people at the right time. I have to say though, I never thought that the series would run for more than a couple of years!”

As it is, of course, Antiques Roadshow will soon be coming up for its 30th birthday, making it one of the longest running programes on television. And it’s not only here where it is massively popular, but in countries all around the world. “That can cause problems sometimes,” says Eric, “especially as people tend to queue for so long. In Canada several people suffered from hypothermia.”

As someone with such a broad knowledge, Eric regularly finds himself looking after a miscellany of items, and he is still staggered how often pieces come along where the owners genuinely have no idea that they are holding something of massive value. “You’d think by now that all the valuables would have been discovered, but no. And there’s also the fact that some items come into and out of fashion.”

But as generations of viewers will all agree, it all makes for hugely entertaining television. Which of us doesn’t feel a frisson when someone genuinely goes into shock at being told that something they’ve been using as an ashtray or doorstop for years is worth thousands?

These days, Eric divides his time between the TV appearances, still working for Bonhams and inducting people in the joys of antiques and architecture by hosting tours and courses in the UK, Europe and US. One week it could be a course in a Warner’s hotel in Herefordshire, the next a tour to see the work of Frank Lloyd Wright in Chicago, Rennie Macintosh in Glasgow or the potteries in Stoke on Trent.

But when he’s not pursuing perfection in building design, he’s never happier than returning to his roots: “There’s no better view than from the top of Pendle Hill,” he says. I get back there walking as often as I can.

“Being from Lancashire is something that would have to be surgically removed!”