As one of the most popular experts on the BBC’s Antiques Roadshow, Andy McConnell is renowned for his fun-loving approach to appraising items, his valuations always delivered with a smile and rakish twinkle in his eye.
But the show’s glass specialist’ is that his greatest wish is not so much to find that elusive one-of piece that Rene Lalique produced but to trace his family roots to Scotland around the time of the Highland Clearances.
Speaking from his home in the Sussex town of Rye where he runs his own antiques business, he said: “I’d like nothing better than to get a chance to take part in the geneology series, Who Do You Think You Are.”
“Family legend, and it’s no more than that, has us originating in the Highlands around the middle of the 18th century.
“As the story goes, forced to depart, we travelled across to Ulster and later ended up in Carrickfergus (there are lots of McConnells there), and it’s assumed we were later caught up in the Potato Famine and moved again to seek better fortune elsewhere as records definitely show the family relocated to Liverpool in 1848.”
Andy says the subject is something that has haunted him for many years – a need to discover where he came from.
The only issue he will first have to resolve, is finding the time to set aside for the necessary time-consuming investigative work to take place.
Now one of the most in-demand characters from the Antiques Roadshow, he is constantly juggling with different opportunities and has a very busy schedule that he works hard to fit into each new week.
Fundraising is high on his list of priorities. When he appears in public to give one of his talks, he always makes space to bang the drum and remind people – especially politicians – that we need to change some of our priorities.
“I set myself an annual target as a charity fundraiser in appreciation of how spoiled I’ve been in my life. I generally support humanitarian and environmental causes, the latter because we’re making such a mess of our precious world. We are losing species and it’s unforgivable that we’ve not done more,” he says.
Andy’s own interest in “nice old things” began in his childhood.
“My parents were part-time dealers,” he explained. “I went with them to countless antique shops and found it incredibly evocative that while the owners had died long ago, their effects had outlived them.”
By the age of 13, he was buying collectables at London’s famous Portobello Road market and selling them for a profit, and he jokes that he was the only pupil at his public school who paid his own fees!
Before he started dealing seriously and specialising in glass, he had a successful career in the music business as a video producer and writer and was working and living in Holywood, California. Out of the blue, he got an opportunity to go out on a European tour with US rock band Jefferson Starship, and during that time, he fortuitously met Günter Kramm, the owner of a Hamburg antiques shop, who gave him the opportunity to source glass for him.
That professional relationship lasted for twenty-five years while he sold glass exclusively to the German dealer.
“It was wonderful to be handling the stuff of history and earning a living from it,” he said recalling those times.
After his all-important Hamburg contact retired, he started writing articles and books about glass. Then in 2006, joined the Antiques Roadshow team.
Today, he has one of the single biggest personal glass collections in the world, containing an estimated 30,000 pieces, and he will tell you he “needs help.”
Last year, he published a major book on glass which had taken him eighteen years to research and complete. The first print run sold out at £70.00 per copy.
Between everything else that fills his daily life, he still manages to run his own antiques business.
The experience for visitors (during normal pre-pandemic times) was more home from home than hard sell, with coffee and buns served up to customers whenever trading activity was not too hectic to allow it.
“We want people to feel comfortable and that they are under no pressure whatsoever,” he says. “We encourage them to have a seat, and a chat.
“Maybe one day, I’ll be able to tell them how my family was forced to flee with only what they could carry, from the Highlands of Scotland around the time of the Jacobite Rising!”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel