Born and educated in England, Gerald escaped the wartime ambience of post-war London in the late 40s to savour the vitality of the Orient. The richness of his life's great journey, through Bangkok to Hong Kong, is reflected in his business - a treasure trove of Asian antiques and reproductions which represents one of the world's largest inventories of Asian art.

Convinced that England in the late 40's was shabby and depressed and not about to foreseeable improve young Gerald, an English graduate from Oxford who had served a brief stint in the army, picked himself up and went "to the furtherest place from London he could think of". "Bangkok in 1950 was everything a young man dreamed of", says Gerald, "there were practically no cars only rickshaws, canals like in Venice down every street and unpolluted quiet". Posted by the Shell Oil Company, Gerald soon assumed responsibility for oil exploration and marketing in the Golden Triangle area of Northern Thailand.

After three years Gerald found the serene lifestyle at the edge of the opium trade had become monotonous. Yet his favourite diversion - tracking the country in search of ancient oriental art - had set his eye on a new path. A lasting interest in ancient temples and pagodas, in Thai and Khmer art had developed in the company of his friend Jim Thompson - a name now synonymous with Thai silk.

Attracted by Hong Kong's energy and vitality during several trips to the colony, Gerald decided that this would be his new home. He found the city virtually unchanged since the war except for the influx of Chinese refugees sleeping under colonnades in the streets.

On Jim Thompson's advice he decided to enter a partnership with Charlotte Horstmann, who left China in 1951 to open a gallery of Chinese and Thai artefacts in Bangkok. Horstmann moved her gallery to Hong Kong in 1955 where Godfrey joined her. The young man's aptitude for learning immediately endeared him to Horstmann. He had an excellent facility for languages and a ready comprehension of the worlds of art and business.

"In those days much of the business was Chinese objects and lacquerware which flooded out of China with all the refugees", Godfrey reminisces. "You could even go into China. The Chinese government had confiscated everything from everybody and was very strict about what was sold, so government officials offered you the most incredible treasures at low prices. They would send us offers of 15th Century and 16th Century Ming furniture at maximum prices of $200 US a piece. The same applied to jade and porcelain. It was a pleasurable position to be in but no lottery - $200 was a great deal of money then, you could buy a five storey building opposite the Sheraton Hotel for $80,000. Greed is such that we'd go through and pick and choose the best. With hindsight of course I wish we'd bought everything", he adds with genuine regret.

Godfrey and Horstmann sold their treasures in Hong Kong, which was a very select and exotic place to visit.Few planes landed there so it attracted the creme de la creme of American and European society. In the early 1960s, however, smooth trading was interrupted by the introduction of a US embargo on Chinese goods. The partners quickly diversified into Indian, South East Asian and Korean art, which remain an important part of the gallery's trade. Soon afterwards they began making Ming dynasty standard furniture for local customers and for export. The furniture was and still is hand-crafted from seasoned rosewood using only traditional methods.

Later that decade Hong Kong was shaking with widespread rioting against British control. As the prosperous antiques gallery was moved to the then depressingly empty Ocean Terminal Building near the Star Ferry's Kowloon base Red Guards were marching across China campaigning against those who did not follow Mao.

Visiting China during these Cultural Revolutionary days was not without its hazards. "Hotel room doors had no locks", recalls Gerald. "I used to go to bed about eight o'clock and an hour later in would walk two Chinese officials. They would sit on the bed and give me an hour-long lecture about English Imperialism. At the end of the lecture, they would say 'please convey what we have said to the authorities', salute and walk out".

But for Gerald this period is most memorable as a time of unearthing treasures. "Peking was the best", he says emphatically. "Being British I found the most incredible things in the middle of the Cultural Revolution. The most important find was a jade pillow which was under a bed in the middle of winter. When I asked the officials what it was they answered a 'jade pillow, 1890'. There was no such piece!Actually it was 7th BC Century and they knew it because they asked a very inflated price for an 1890 piece. I paid it because it was still a good purchase and they recommended that I 'carry it with me'."

Business in China has lost some of its early day charm for Gerald. "There is a real reluctance in the East to get down to brass tacks", he observes. "I recently took my wife to China to buy jade from a government corporation. I said to the woman in charge 'I'm interested in jade'. 'There's no jade', she answered. Several cups of tea and an hour-long conversation later a door opened to reveal a group of men carrying trays full of antique jade.

"The seventies was a strange time in China, behaviour was severe and even corrupt. There was no money passing hands individually and everyone was really unpleasant to deal with - they seemed to derive a satisfaction from refusing to issue an airline ticket or to allocate a table in a restaurant. Once I took a dear old friend of mine, Stanley Marcus, then Chairman of Neiman Marcus, to a restaurant. There was a man at a desk and I asked in Chinese for a table for two. He answered without even looking up - 'no space'. I said my friend has just arrived from the US and he's coming with me to Hong Kong. He was shocked when he realised it wasn't a Chinese person speaking to him and soon found a table".

"Dealing with the Chinese is very different from dealing with people elsewhere. The Japanese for example are very good organisers and terrible improvisers, everything is decided by committee. The Chinese are the opposite. It's their flexibility that's made them so successful. A vegetable hawker will be able to tell you the price of gold per ounce on any given day", says the astute businessman with visible admiration.

For Gerald Godfrey the antique business he stumbled into by accident has become a ruling passion. It has changed greatly since he started. "The antique business is a limited business because there are only so many things made and surviving", he says. "Asia's been thoroughly combed over. The power of the press has ensured that there are few hidden articles. People know what they've got. It's rare to find mythical treasures nowadays - the precious object that's used as an umbrella stand which is in fact worth a hundred million pounds. Unfortunately it works the other way everybody who's got an umbrella stand thinks it's worth a hundred million pounds. The new search for things that are not in the classical vein means there is no fixed avenue of supply. That's why I now go to South America and Morocco". Nevertheless, Godfrey predicts a brighter future for Chinese and Japanese art than for the arts of South East Asia and India.

Collecting is itself a difficult art. "Going back a few hundred years there were great collectors and antiquities were not so expensive", Godfrey explains. "With the diminishing of supplied and the upsurge of auction houses precious objects reappeared. People began to collect a wider range of things and a much broader market of collectors became established. Antiques are now more widely dispersed and more difficult to find".Despite the increasing scarcity of antiques the Horstmann-Godfrey partnership built what is now generally regarded as the largest selection of Asian Art anywhere in the world, a vast collection of exquisite antiques and works of art from every Asian culture. Charlotte Horstmann's retirement in 1981 did not dull Gerald Godfrey's strong entrepreneurial instincts. As sole proprietor Godfrey further expanded the company, rapidly moving into progressively larger premises.

Today the gallery in the Ocean Terminal overflows with the vigour of Asia shaped into remarkable pieces and eye-catching treasures.

Godfrey's collection includes some real curiosities, like the tour de force 19th Century Japanese 'group of mice' carved from a single block of ivory and unnervingly lifelike. Precious rarities such as colourful and shapely antique Chinese glassware still make their way from Beijing to Godfrey's showroom, although jade pillows are literally a find of the past. And for those who feel inclined to ride side-saddle, there is even a suitably saddled 8th Century Tang Dynasty pottery horse.

The 10,000 square foot Ocean Terminal Marine Deck private showroom, often described as a kind of Ali Baba's cave because of its cavernous depths and gallery recesses, is strangely humanised by the incredible array of objects it houses. A feast of colours and textures arrests the senses, blending bronze, wood, jade and porcelain with terra cotta and stone. The deepest recesses of 'Ali Baba's cave' date back to neolithic China while the gallery upstairs attests to the finest in contemporary reproduction craftsmanship.

Since 1987 London's fashionable Mayfair district has been home to a subsidiary gallery of Far Eastern Art. Godfrey has contoured this environment for collections that share some of London's reserve - featuring the ancient and the dignified. The London gallery's inaugural exhibition of Chinese, Korean, Japanese and South East Asian works of art, dating from as early as 1600 BC China, displayed a rich and scholarly selection of Godfrey's exquisite treasures.

This was a journey through ages in the Orient. An archaic bronze wine vessel dated back to the late Shang period. A pair of iridescent green glazed pottery 'backgammon' players knelt excitedly over a Liu Bo board while a large Japanese haniwa figure carried a water jar on her head. A Tang Dynasty earthernware lady gazed at a Khmer zopomorphic jar modelled in the form of a tusked elephant. The gilt bronze figure of a Song Period Guanyin was seated in vajrasana beside a Burmese lacquered wood figure of a Pagan Bodhisattva-King. Ming Dynasty Porcelain met Qing Dynasty jade. The gently expressive face of a Burmese Mandalay-style Buddha cast in silver and bronze faced walls decorated with Chinese ink and gouache paintings and Japanese Sumi-E Screens.

More recent exhibitions at the gallery include antique Chinese pottery sculpture, paintings from Tibet and China, and a range of Chinese ink paintings by contemporary artists.

Gerald's other interests and investments are as diverse as his treasures. This Patron of the Arts and connoisseur of jade recently acquired several racehorses in France and Hong Kong. Some are reserved for racing and others are nurtured for breeding. A proud horse owner and racing enthusiast, he regularly visits the mares and their foals maintained at stables in Chantilly.

A frequent visitor to Morocco, Godfrey was recently appointed Honorary Consul General for the Kingdom of Morocco in Hong Kong. Friend to the Royal Family since meeting his Majesty's Personal Ambassador during his travels, Godfrey now promotes Moroccan interests as well as its art in Hong Kong.

Ever flamboyant in his artificially lit, windowless office in the bowels of the Terminal, Godfrey radiates an irresistible energy as he takes the visitor through his life's travels cast in ancient jade, wood and bamboo roots. His personal style has become imprinted on the business of collecting antiquities and objects d'art. His natural eye for good design and both Eastern and Western aesthetics has pleased ambassadors, corporations, banks and individuals around the globe and distinguished his exotic and colourful galleries. As he explains, "I am surrounded by beautiful things which I choose myself. Everything has my little stamp on it. There's no team of buyers. We're not traders. You have to have an eye".