Antiques Roadshow expert turns down items due to their social history

Antiques Roadshow's Marc Allum refused to value items on the popular BBC show because of their significant social history.

Live Aid was set up in 1984 as a way to set up a global response through music to the Ethiopian famine but Leon Leiffer, lead singer of The Blackstones, was frustrated at the lack of African and Caribbean artists taking part and set up the British Reggae Artists Famine Appeal (BRAFA) with fellow musicians and members of the public.

The BBC then helped BAFRA record an alternative charity single called 'Let's Make Africa Green Again' which released in 1985 and raised thousands of pounds for the Save the Children Ethiopian famine appeal.

And on an episode of Antiques Roadshow, Leiffer appeared alongside a number of BAFRA members with a number of items of memorabilia on display.

Explaining what was on show, Allum said: "We've got some original material from the time, we've got a copy of 'Let's Make Africa Green Again', we've got various bits of ephemera and photographs."

A photo of Leiffer with Princess Anne was shown.

A copy of 'Let's Make Africa Green Again' from 1985 was displayed on Antiques Roadshow / BBC

"We talk about value and things on this show and I can talk about the values of these items in front of us here, and maybe there's a few hundred pounds worth, but that's not what's important here," Allum said.

"It's about social history, it's about what you did, it's about the money you raised and it's massively important to see that reinvented in a way that brings it back to people and younger generations too."

Allum then asked Leiffer and the people with him to sing a reprise of 'Let's Make Africa Green Again'.

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