HIGHWORTH auction house Kidson-Trigg wants us to look in our attics for Oriental treasures.

The reason? A recent sale saw a fascinating collection of snuff bottles go for the best part of a quarter of a million quid.

It was a truly remarkable result. For me the only disappointing thing was that nobody made a joke about it not being something to be sneezed at.

Actually, that’s not the only disappointing thing, now I think about it.

The news from the auction house has also brought on a bout of Loft Envy, which I suffer from every time a story like this comes to light. There’ll be those of you out there who read about such sales and suddenly remember that old family heirloom you never got around to having valued.

A Turneresque painting, perhaps, or an urn given to a great-great uncle who helped an archaeologist out of a tight spot in the Valley of the Kings in 1923.

If you are such a person, then good luck to you. Have your item valued, by all means, and sell it should you choose.

The rest of us, however, have normal lofts. Not for us the headlines about newfound wealth coming our way thanks to our late cousin Maude’s Renaissance thimble collection.

No, we don’t even get to appear on Antiques Roadshow and pretend not to care about the value of whatever it is we’re having valued. Not for us the chance to tell the BBC man: “We couldn’t possibly sell as it’s been in the family for generations.”

Not for us the chance to alter that stance by precisely 180 degrees if the BBC man decides it’s worth a bundle. Not for us the chance to kick our heels like Dick van Dyke in Mary Poppins as we head for the pawn shop. Such pleasures are only for the few with interesting lofts, while the rest of us, the ones with normal lofts, must look on enviously like Victorian street urchins pressing their noses against the chilly glass of a sweet shop window.

The nearest thing we have to an exquisite antique ornament in our lofts is something we bought from a department store in 2003 or 1997 or 1989 – something made by the million, and which we couldn’t be bothered unpacking during the last house move.

Either that or we realised it was so horrible that it even frightened the dog. Or rather, it frightened the dog we had two dogs ago.

Old toys are a perennial favourite on the antiques and nostalgia market, which is why any child over the age of 16 has long since stripped their parents loft, had the lot on eBay and spent the cash on skinny jeans, strange haircuts and hedonism.

Some of their parents’ old toys might be left behind though. That Action Man or Sindy, for example, might be worth a few quid – or they would be if we hadn’t decided to torture them with a magnifying glass one bored summer’s afternoon some time during the Callaghan government.

The same goes for that priceless Hot Wheels car we gave a beige paint job with the Crown Vinyl Matt left over from the downstairs lav.

Normal lofts also have boxes of clothes we might wear again some day, provided we happen to contract a tapeworm during a vogue for old people to dress up as Bananarama or Bros.

On the subject of of old bands, normal lofts are also a bit short on long-lost Picassos or Matisses, but there’s the occasional poster from our teenage years which we can’t bear to throw away. They might be worth as much as 50p on the collector’s market.

If you’re a bloke and the poster’s of Debbie Harry, incidentally, beware of nasty trips and falls on entering and exiting the loft, as your eyesight’s probably been knackered since about 1982.

  • WE learned the other day that some children are turning up at school without toilet training, and even the occasional teenager wears pull-ups.

This, the experts say, is the result of parents having excessively busy lives.
Right, I should have guessed. Nothing to do with certain parents being so useless that their kids would be better off being raised by badgers, then.

DON'T WORRY KIDS, IT'S ONLY UNCLE BARRY

STUDYING some of the CCTV images that appear in the Adver, and especially during our month-long anti-crime campaign a while back, I can’t help noticing the varying quality.

If you’re running a business and the CCTV salesperson comes calling, have them set up a sample camera in one of the areas needing protection.

Next, stand at the other end of the room and wave while your image is recorded. Finally, show that image to a loved one, preferably a child, and ask them to identify the person.

If they instantly say ‘Mummy’ or ‘Daddy’ or whatever, you’ll know you’re on to a winner.

If they burst into tears and have a week’s worth of nightmares about the bogeyman, you might want to reconsider.

Call me naive, but I thought the whole point of CCTV was to identify wrongdoers, not make them look about as recognisable as an alleged sasquatch in a photo on a website run by a nutter.

DO YOU WANNA BE IN THEIR GANG?

I KNOW the gang issue in North Swindon is a very serious matter, but I spat my coffee out laughing when I heard that one outfit apparently calls itself the North Young Guns.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I could cure any and all gang problems in Swindon for about £500 quid a member.

That’s roughly how much it costs for an air ticket to the States, provided you book in advance.

Under my plan, anybody in Swindon suspected of being in a gang would be given a choice between wearing their ‘colours’ for the next month or having them tattooed on some prominent body part.

Then they’d be transported to South Central Los Angeles, turned loose and told to report back in 28 days.

At the end of that 28 days, any who had managed not to be used as dog food, garden fertiliser or part of the foundations of a building would be allowed home and told not to be so daft again.

If any gangsters are reading this, I hope your mums stop your pocket money.