Plain talking Grammar School boy Phillip Serrell was born and brought up in Worcestershire where he is now established as a professional auctioneer.Well known for his television appearances on various antiques programmes, Philip is also an accomplished after dinner speaker and a welcome attraction with his new show 'An Auctioneer's Lot' in which he recounts enthralling stories drawn from his life experiences in sport, antiques, auctioneering, broadcasting and writing books.
He graduated from Loughborough College of Physical Education as sport was, and is, an enduring passion...
“If I had devoted as much time to academia as I did to cricket and rugby I would surely have been, at the very least, a double Oxbridge first,” he says.
However, life as a sports teacher was not for him and he took up the post of trainee auctioneer in Worcester, working in the local livestock market – much of the time spent cleaning out the sheep pens…
“a task, some would maintain, I was suitably qualified for, as by then I was completely unemployable.”
From there Philip re-qualified as a Chartered Surveyor, specialising as a Fine Art and Antiques valuer, which in turn resulted in him running his own auctioneering business from his saleroom in Malvern and office in Worcester.
Philip recorded a regular antiques slot on his local BBC radio station, and from there he went on to become a resident ‘expert on BBC's Bargain Hunt’ He makes several BBC television antiques programmes – namely Bargain Hunt and Flog It!
More recently he has also appeared on the 20th Century Roadshow, presenting their classic car feature – a role which he embraced as it allowed him to indulge his other passion for motor cars.
During the c
ourse of the past twenty years he has uncovered a huge range of priceless (and worthless) antiques, and along the way, met, done business with and befriended folk from some odd corners of English Life.In his first book, "An Auctioneer’s Lot", he brings to life a world in which the most valuable antiques frequently turn up in the most unlikely places – and accompanied by the most colourful characters - from a priceless 18th Century dining table hidden away in a decaying potting shed, to that of a tattooed gypsy with a penchant for Worcester Porcelain.
An Auctioneers Lot by Phillip Serrell
