Mind your manners

The piece I’d never part with

Estimate £15,000-£20,000 Sold £32,000+BP An evocative, delicate watercolour, The North Wind, came from the brush of free spirit Emily Brontë, author of Wuthering Heights and one-third of the world-fam

A cut-crystal bed, with associated mirrors and throne, sparkled at auction earlier this month, but no glamour could beat the prize that was the Union Flag flown by HMS Spartiate at the Battle of Trafalgar

The Yellow Boy by Joshua Reynolds saw multiple peregrinations, passing even through (Romanian) royal hands for a time, before returning to London in 1981. It now headlines a selling exhibition of magnificent 18th to 20th-century works

Cecil and his pug dog in his indoor ...

I must extend my huge thanks to Jon Winder for his excellent article Swings and Roundabouts (July). I am currently scribbling notes which I hope to turn into a memoir of my childhood, and one chapter