John Bly

A leading authority on antique English furniture and famous for his longstanding appearances on the Antiques Roadshow, John Bly has recently celebrated 130 years of his family’s antiques business and is eternally fascinated by social history…

- ROSANNA MORRIS

John Bly has a special place in the world of antiques. He’s been deeply charmed by fine furniture and decorative arts since he was a boy in the 1940s, and at 82 has endless stories to tell about his life in this curious, fascinating industry. Born in 1939, months before the outbreak of the Second World War, John’s earliest memories are of his wartime childhood; growing up in his family’s antiques shop in Tring, Hertfordshire, where his grandfather started the business in 1891.

‘My father took over the business and, when he went offto fight in the war, my mother and grandmother ran the shop. They would buy and sell pieces people would bring to them from London during the Blitz. Every night they would move stock into the cellar. While they wrapped and unwrapped paperweights, tea caddies, porcelain and china, they would talk about each item. I would sit and listen to them chatting. That was my education – listening to them while I sat on my grandmother’s knee.’

John left school at 17 and his father found him a job in the basements of Sotheby’s on New Bond Street. ‘I was absolutely captivated by Sotheby’s,’ he says. ‘I was a numberer in the silver department. I ended up working on all sales – jewellery, silver, enamels, ephemera, musical instruments, ceramics, Japanese works of art. It was 1957 and I earned £4.10 a week. You could buy a box of netsukes for a fiver then. The amount of goods was amazing. I didn’t have to study anything; it all just floated into you.’