Galvanising myself for an early start and the prospect of a
two-hour drive, I cast my thoughts back to a time when keeping natural energy
in its place was more of a daily challenge than summoning it up. Luckily, I had
the Sounds of the Sixties on Radio 2 to keep me going. Friends swear by it, but
I’m still not convinced. While I was hanging on for the promised Beatles,
Stones and Kinks, Brian Matthews read out an email from someone living in
Spain, who said that although he was a regular listener to the show, “Most of
it Is rubbish,” which is pretty much how I was seeing it myself, as I navigated
the melee that is the A46/A45 road works. I had almost forgotten how upset we all
got at the time by yet another airing of “Yes, we have no bananas,” or anything
at all by Jim Reeves.
When I reached Pershore I was faced with a dilemma. Sit in
the car and wait for the track by the Nice, or go in and look at Malcolm Root’s
painting that I wasn’t going to be able to afford, close up. I rooted for Root.
After all, I’ve got all the Nice’s vinyl LPs [not played for decades] and their
hits CD.
I offered my bidding card for perusal at the desk but was
waved away, presumably on the grounds that I still seemed to be alive and that
I had not moved house. I made for the loos, fairly recently refurbished, I
think - but, of course, and as I know only too well - school bogs can take some
stick. I approached the cubicle and turned around to shut the door. There
wasn’t one. Deciding that that might be taking exhibitionism a step too far, I
went next door, instead.
Back in the main hall, my attention was drawn to the
Hovercraft poster for the brief service in 1962 that ran between Wallasey, our
home town, and Rhyl. I noticed that the advert pointed out that it had not run
on a Tuesday. I thought about all the times that summer that my plans for the
day had been thwarted by the lack of a hovercraft service to Rhyl on a Tuesday.
In fact, come to think of it, the whole hovercraft thing hardly got off the
ground at all.
When the image of the totem for Troedyrhiw came up on the
screen as the next lot it brought an, “Oh my God,” from the chair, then, taking
in a deep breath, “Here we go……Troedyrhiw.” “Six out of ten,” comes the
response from the floor. In a nearby classroom, but for the PA, you would not necessarily
know that there was an auction taking place nearby, at all. A knot of considerable
concentration was focussed on leafing through a pack of black and white,
postcard size photographs of diesel shunters, accompanied by the occasional
shared observation prompted by an inscription on the rear of the item under
examination. Such attention to detail devoted to, what appeared on the face of
it, to be such an underwhelming locomotive probably just indicates how little I
know about such things.
“Who put the lights out?” came the cry from the platform, as
the hall was suddenly dimmed. No one moved. Then it was pointed out that
someone had inadvertently been leaning against the bank of switches at the back
of the hall. “It’s behind you.” “Oh no it’s not.” Oh, yes it is, actually.
Discussion ensued about the possible use that two pistons from
diesel locomotives could be put to, and, although it was without resolution,
the sale was made. Apparently, the auctioneer, too, has a piston in his shed
that is was waiting for a more meaningful existence than it has at present. Perhaps
the buyer had thought of something. If he had, he kept it to himself.
As I drove home, I was kept alert by reports of Everton’s
lack of a cutting edge in the final third, in their attempts to gain a miserable
draw at home to bottom of the Premiership Swansea City. I thought about the
wonderful railway artwork that had been on display at the auction. I may not
have been able to compete with the big boys on price, but I took some comfort in
at least being able to tell the work of the maestros from that of the merely
competent.
0-6-0 diesel shunter No. D2399 at Weymouth in March 1969
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