Shall I paw? David, cat Leonard, and the Wedgewood pot with its broken spoutAs the longest-serving expert on Antiques Roadshow, David Battie is trusted by viewers to know how to care for valuable objects.
But when it came to looking after a £1,000 Wedgwood teapot, the ceramics specialist on the BBC1 series had reckoned without his pet cat Leonard.
Made in 1795, the classic blue Wedgwood pot had taken pride of place on a shelf at David’s home in West Sussex.
But just days before he filmed last Sunday’s edition of the show, Leonard, a one-year-old Bengal, sent the antique crashing to the ground, smashing the spout into three pieces.
David, 69, saw the accident happen and blames himself for not putting the pot out of harm’s way.
He said: ‘We got Leonard at the beginning of the year and he is only a year old.
Like all cats that age, he is very curious. He managed to get on the shelf where we keep the teapot and unfortunately chose to knock it on to the floor. The pot fell spout-first, and it was the spout that broke in three places.’
He said: ‘It is sad when you see something so cherished broken. But you can’t blame the cat because he was only doing what cats do.
source: dailymail
Posts
