Gremlins

At GW Railwayana Auction’s Pershore event on Saturday 1^st April, the gremlins certainly got into the works. At least four interruptions had halted the proceedings in their tracks before the auctioneer announced that he would “have to go manual.”

Like cars, computers are a great asset as long as they are working properly. When things go wrong they can be a nightmare. The trouble was apparently to do with a software programmes with an itchy, over-sensitive trigger finger that was on the look-out for incoming malware, but which frequently jumped in to block proceedings, freezing the computers on the rostrum and for the support staff. The live link provided for internet bidding was not the problem and the public-address system in the hall was unaffected.

During one of the enforced breaks, the auctioneer added, somewhat ruefully, that he had only recently paid for the troublesome antivirus software package. By then, we were still only up to lot 178 and the clock already showed 12.57 p.m. It was going to be a much longer day than anyone had expected. After a series of urgent phone calls, presumably to the software providers, had failed to solve the problem, the team reverted to that old pre-digital recording system – pen and paper, to see them through. They will hardly have been the first to be inconvenienced in this way. We have all been there, though usually in the privacy of our own home. It’s a bit different when you have several hundred people in front of you expecting something like continuous action, plus a few hundred more waiting patiently at home for a resumption.

In the event, it just gave folk a prolonged opportunity to chat and to take lunch a little bit earlier than they might have first planned. The social side of railwayana auctions cannot be underestimated. The regular punters are also a generally good-natured bunch, including many retirees, who, like myself, have given up hurrying as part of their revised third age arrangements.

Had that been me in charge of events, however, I imagine that by 1.00 p.m. I would have been a quivering wreck, with my head in my hands and with both between my knees, like Basil in that scene from the Fawlty Towers episode entitled The Psychiatrist, when it all goes horribly wrong once more and he finally throws in the towel and simply gives up looking for a way out of his predicament and retreats into his shell. It gave me a cold sweat, reminding me of occasions when the planned video failed in front of classes of troublesome teenagers. 

Instead, Simon Turner never lost the plot. Un-deterred, he steadied the ship and ploughed on in the old way, with the tried and tested implements that most of us relied on for so long, until the computer revolution overtook us. It was an impressive performance, which will do GWRA no harm at all. Gremlins will no doubt be vanquished from future events and GWRA’s reputation as a friendly, efficient and developing, specialist auction house that is always prepared to make changes and to try new things, will continue to grow.

Stuff happens that is sometimes beyond our control. It’s not the technical circumstances that one is judged on, but on how well one responds to unexpected challenges. There will have been a lot of sympathy for Simon on Saturday, but he won’t need it because he showed that he is a robust character who would not be thrown off course by unfortunate occurrences. The auction results were all online during the same evening, on their clear and well organised website. It is already business as usual.

He will be back – on Saturday 15^th July, in fact.