Minette comments on 'Cash...'

When Cash in the Celebrity Attic first asked me if I'd be willing to auction 12 items for charity, I thought, ‘Brilliant!' I've always wanted an expert to rootle through my possessions and unearth something of enormous value. A Van Gogh in the barn, perhaps? A Chippendale chair in the outhouse? (We have a Leonardo da Vinci in the loo but it's a copy of The Burlington House Cartoon – bought by my mother for £5.00 in 1962 – and, sadly, it's not worth much more today!)

For those of you who won't have the chance to see the programme, we didn't find a hidden treasure I'm afraid, but we did discover enough good things to happily top the target of £500 that we set ourselves at the start. My favourite item remains a hideous tea set that was valued at £5.00 but reached a magnificent £18.00 at the auction. In truth, I'd have paid someone to take it away because it's been cluttering up the back of a cupboard for years! For those who do manage to catch Alec and me doing our thing, I apologise in advance for my auctioneering skills. Thankfully, I was only required to sell one lot otherwise we'd have been lucky to reach £100.

We decided to donate the money to the Churches Conservation Trust, which may surprise anyone who knows that I'm an atheist and that Alec's ‘in the reserves'. In fact the CCT is a wonderful, unsung charity that maintains and looks after the centuries' old churches of England which would otherwise fall into disuse. They have many supporters like Alec and me, who aren't religious but who have a love of history, architecture, culture and community, and who believe in keeping the ancient crafts of stonemasonry and wood-carving alive through the preservation of old buildings.

Photo of Dorset church © L. Moore 2001

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