House Clearance Surrey – Discovery of Rare 1908 Olympic Programme.
The sport of house clearance: Surrey based Jeffrey Avery & Associates recently found a very rare 1908 Olympic programme from The Great Stadium, Shepherds Bush, London. It is believed to be the only one known. The discovery was made during a house clearance in Surrey along with other Olympic memorabilia. Guildford in Surrey. As we were clearing the garage of the Guildford property of general rubbish we came the programme inside a tea chest, “we almost threw it away” but the material was put away for safe keeping. The collection checked later back at my premises and a good amount of Olympic memorabilia and photographs stretching from 1908 through to the sixties were found. I thought what a coincidence for it to turn up at this time with the Olympics just a few months away. The previous owner has sadly passed away. “Its not uncommon for us to find unusual items in our house clearances, Surrey in particular seems to throw up a lot of historical artifacts”
After realising how important the Olympic programme was i contacted Richard Poad, chairman of Maidenhead Heritage Centre, and offered to loan the programme for their exhibition “Our Sporting Life” which starts in the first week of April for about 8 weeks. The exhibition has an entire section dedicated to Lord Desborough a local Maidenhead man who was an Olympic fencer, as well as rower, mountain climber and lots else besides, who single handed organised the 1908 Olympic Games at The Great Stadium, Shepherds Bush, London, after the cancellation of its original hosting in Rome due to damage caused by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius. We have also contacted the BBC Olympic sports desk who have shown a particular interest, have written an article which can be found here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-16395130
The programme will eventually be added to the “UK House Clearance Museum”, our private collection of artifacts and interesting items, kept for historical purposes and research, this collection will soon be available online to the general public when we have completed building its new website, so watch this space, we have many interesting items ready to exhibit.
If you are interested in visiting the exhibition “Our Sporting Life” in Maidenhead follow this link for full details http://www.maidenheadheritage.org.uk/news.php
I hope you have enjoyed reading this article.
Good luck in 2012
Jeffrey Avery M.D.
