Henry Sandon was born into a professional music and artistic family in London and after Army service and study at the Guildhall School of Music went to Worcester to sing in the Cathedral Choir, teach at the Royal Grammar School, conduct and broadcast.
This idyllic musical life, treading in the steps of Edward Elgar, was rudely changed by the finding of Medieval and Roman pottery in his garden and this led to him becoming a potaholic, in love with his pottery and porcelain. He was appointed Curator of the Worcester porcelain Company and the Dyson Perrins Museum, a post he held for 17 years, carried out an important series of archaeological excavations which have changed our understanding of Worcester porcelain and written a number of books, many in conjunction with his family.
Henry Sandon from the BBC's Antiques Roadshow
A friendship with Arthur Negus led to his early appearance on television in such programmes as Going for a Song, Collectors World and Arthur Negus Enjoys, which blossomed into the enormously popular series of The Antiques Roadshow, now in its 21st year. His most famous discovery in that time was the highly valuable Ozzie the slipware owl, which now resides in Stoke on Trent Museum and is greatly admired.
Other television appearances have been on several Children in Need spectaculars singing and dancing in a Cockney music hall setting and appearing as Dolittle the Dustman; on Big Breakfast with Zig and Zag and Noel Edmunds House Party, when he received his Gotcha Oscar.
He has also appeared many times on the Great Antiques Hunt and presenting a number of the long running BBC series Songs of Praise has made his face and voice well known and led to the making of a Toby Jug depicting him by a Staffordshire pottery as they said he looked like one.
Becoming director of a newly formed small porcelain factory. Henry has produced his autobiography “Living with the Past”, but he remains a simple potaholic at heart.
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