Antiques Roadshow guests burst into tears as they’re reunited with figure from past with heartbreaking rescue story
ANTIQUES Roadshow guests burst into tears after they were reunited with a figure from the past with a heartbreaking rescue story.
The Christmas Special of the BBC show revisited a number of items that have featured in recent years, and let Antiques Roadshow viewers know what happened next.
One of the stories first featured in an episode filmed at Aston Hall in Birmingham, where a lady called Kate brought in a collection of items from her childhood.
She had been displaced by the ‘Great Leap Forward’ in China between 1958 and 1962.
Kate was a baby refugee, having been abandoned in Hong Kong where she was found on a stairwell.
She explained how she had been taken to a children’s home, then to another, before being brought to the UK in 1963.
She had brought in a framed picture of her as a baby being carried by an air stewardess, as well as the jacket she was wearing in the snap and her I.D bracelet.
The expert asked: “Presumably you’ve got nothing else?” and she replied: “I’ve got nothing else and I’m privileged to have them.”
Host Fiona Bruce then revealed how – after Kate’s episode aired – the show was contacted by the daughters of Helen Childs, the air stewardess carrying Kate in the picture.
Sadly, Helen passed away a few years ago but her two daughters came to meet Fiona and Kate in an emotionally charged moment.
One daughter, called Mandy, said: “We were really stunned to see our mother in front of us on the Antiques Roadshow when we’ve had that photo for so long and not know its heritage and to see the woman that that child became is incredibly emotional.
“She would have been thrilled to see that and to know about Kate.”
Kate revealed the flight was 21 hours from Hong Kong to London and she marvelled at how Helen and the other air stewardesses had managed to look after so many small children for all that time.
She added: “One of the things that is lovely is I now know their mum’s name all these years I’ve just thought ‘Oh it’s the air hostess’.”
Fiona then asked the women what it was like to meet one another, and Mandy replied: “It’s been really lovely, we’ve got on so well with Kate in the time we’ve met her. We feel like we have a friend.”
Choking back tears and pointing at the framed photo of baby Kate with their mum, she added: “And it’s brilliant that it’s this friend.”
The siblings then gifted Kate a compact mirror their mum used to use while flying.
Mandy’s sister said: “When I first saw the clip where Kate was on and she had the picture, the jacket and the bracelet, at the end of the clip she said ‘These are all I have and I’m lucky to have these’ that really got to me.
“Every time I look at the clip it still gets to me, so we would very much like you to have the mirror that would have been with her on her flights around the world, with our love.”
Also emotional, Kate replied: “I’m really touched actually, I’m really grateful.”
Antiques Roadshow is available on BBC iPlayer.