Antiques Roadshow had viewers feeling emotional with their episode to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings. The beloved BBC programme filmed in Normandy, France and Portsmouth’s D-Day Museum, was given a special format change. Host Fiona Bruce explained that for one edition of the programme, items wouldn’t be given a valuation as they were ‘priceless’ to guests.
‘We’ll be unfolding the events surrounding D-Day through various items and artefacts you’ve shared with us for this special commemoration,’ she told viewers. ‘Given the very personal and moving nature of the items we’ll be seeing tonight, our experts won’t be giving valuations. To each owner, their item is priceless.
’ Explaining the history of the day, she added: ‘From across the channel, the first troops stepped onto these shores on Tuesday June 6, 1944. A day that will be forever known as D-Day.’ Throughout the show, people who lived through D-day shared their experiences, including a radio operator, who was listening to the invasion as it happened.
‘The sounds of war, it was in my head, I think I grew up on that day,’ she recalled. Just like other Antiques Roadshow episodes, contributors brought items in to be looked at by experts, but this time, each had a special connection to D-Day. One guest showed a photographic map her father used to know where to land while flying a Horsa glider during a mission.
She also read a letter he’d sent to his wife and son on the d.
