My wife Lesley and I left Kent the night before, Lesley travels with me on some of the live shows as she like to catch up with the production team as she's known them all for the past five years. This show was also a bit more poignant as the series producer Linda was retiring and this would be her last shows for Bargain Hunt.

The night before the live show we reminisced about all the shows we had done together with Linda for Bargain Hunt and all the good times we had had together, it really is a close and friendly team and everyone works hard together to make it a fun show to work on.

The live team have a large scale production team with state of the art satellite equipment, lighting and numerous cameras to catch every angle. The whole team consists of about 25-30 people with websites, phone-in's - you name it, they've got it.

After arriving at the auction room we have a dress rehearsal when Tim, the two teams, David Barby my fellow expert, and myself walk through the show, timing it to ensure it works out for when we go live on air as there's no room for mistakes when you're live.

The time flies past and suddenly the lots are coming under the hammer. My team had spoken to me about the trolley and I suggested to them that they should swap as the item I had bought for the swap was a lot cheaper so would lose less money on the day. I still feel that the trolley, in the right saleroom would have made a few quid. Our lots went under the hammer and the dreaded trolley came up first and struggled to get over £10. The bidding eventually started and the trolley gradually rose to £65, extremely cheap for what it was. Thankfully my team had decided to take their swap option and went for a 19c tureen wood Crow Scarier. Next under the hammer was the studio pottery which we paid £60 for and it struggled to reach £40 in a very quiet saleroom. The silver clock was up next and it should have made £120 all day long. But with a quiet saleroom and a sale consisting of boxes of bric-a-brac, the clock was not the sort of item the buyers were out for on this particular day.

The clock eventually made a £2 profit. The swap item was up next and that lost £10! All in all the team lost a total of £40 but it could have been a lot worse if they had not have changed the trolley!!

Mr Barby, and his team, went on to secure a win, albeit with a £28 loss.

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