“Look at the tyres!”
Aphorism. Meaning: incredulous assertion that one single part of an entity actually has a value greater than has been ascribed to the whole entity and, therefore, that the person making such a valuation must be kidding.
A household or farm clearing sale is an open invitation for everyone who’s always wondered how their neighbour lived – God Rest Their Soul – to check the reality against their prejudicial thinking on the matter.
Capt Gordon George Gregory’s clearing sale at Fordgate Farm was in 1958. Capt Gregory, his wife Flora and their four children had moved to Fordgate from Little Broughton farm, near the Taunton racecourse, in 1946. Gordon’s sightless brother Richard remained at Broughton and could regularly be seen, without reciprocation, milking his cows. On at least one occasion Uncle Dick was found tending the tiles on top of the cowshed roof, and he was said to plant out potatoes in the field in what, to people with sight, was clearly the middle of the night.
For the Gregory boys, Fordgate was a second home, enjoyed in the periods between their 12-weekly stints at Taunton School. It was the base from which Capt Gregory used to travel to the five racecourses at which the ‘system’ which governed his betting on horses apparently worked best. They were Doncaster, Newbury, Alexandra Palace (‘Ally-Pally’), Kempton Park and Goodwood.
Four of these five are relatively close to each other in the south east of England, and Capt Gregory made use of the Southern railway line, joining at Templecombe, between Sherborne and Wincanton, and on the Exeter to London (Waterloo) line.
He and some of his friends sometimes drove, and David recalls going to Goodwood races in a small Standard belonging to one of his racing friends, “who drove and overtook like a maniac”.
There was, incidentally, nothing maniacal about Capt Gregory’s wagering. His system has been referred to, and Peter remembers him as a very disciplined gambler: “sometimes he would travel miles to a racecourse but if the ‘runes’ weren’t right he would not have a single bet”.
Getting from Fordgate to Doncaster was quite a different challenge. This was in the period before motorways had been laid across large swathes of the English countryside. One can only imagine the time and energy it would have taken in his friend’s Standard or in his own Wolseley 4/44 (number plate RFC 5) to drive from Fordgate to Doncaster and, given his propensity while hurtling along to inspect the livestock in fields adjacent to the road, the number of near misses there might have been.
His nearest Mrs, Flora, would stay at home with the Aga cooker, in the large rambling house – several of its rooms unused – comfortable in the knowledge that she was in the bosom of the team of farm workers whose loyalty, by birthright, was to the farm and its proprietor.
I loved Fordgate very dearly and determined to buy it once my fortune had been made. (That hasn’t happened, but the fact that an anagram of its letters is one of my computer passwords attests to the importance of its memory! Another ongoing connection for me is the batting practice on the lawn at Fordgate, with Granny bowling to me underarm, the few remaining fruits of which are now ‘enjoyed’ by the Queanbeyan Razorbacks fifth grade team.)
There must have been many days’ preparation for the clearing sale. When it arrived every item which I had ever seen at any spot around the farm, together with many I had never seen at all, was arranged in separate piles in serried ranks like the regular droppings of some gigantic Beast of the Industrial Revolution. Each little pile was accompanied by a stick in the ground with a number which corresponded to the roneo’d listing of the day’s munificence.
The larger items, such as tractors (some of which were capable of independent motion), ploughs, discs and balers were at one end of the roneo’d sequence, with smaller piles of hand tools of known and mysterious function towards the other. I don’t recall if it was so but I imagine pride of place might have been taken by The Potato Harvester, a device of such huge scope and stature that – when laid up for the non-potato harvesting seasons – provided endless metallic channels and cubbyholes for small boys to play in.
Capt Gregory was an inveterate attender of auctions and the clearing sales of other farmers, and hopelessly incapable of keeping his hands in his pocket when in full view of an auctioneer with a difficult job to do. Thus it was that he used to come home with trailerloads of ‘things’ which were unloaded at some vacant and unsuspecting spot around the farm, there to be ignored until it was time for 1958 and the clearing sale.
I have a distinct memory of one such load arriving one day, with expectations on the part of the driver and – who knows? – perhaps on its own account (but not on Flora’s) that it might one day again amount to something of value. At first sight – and even more so at second and third – it appeared to be a load comprised of striplings of semi-rotten softwood mixed randomly and inextricably with wire and chicken netting. It was not, our father assured us, firewood as we suspected, but a useful and commodious chicken house needing only to be reassembled.
Capt Gregory’s four boys all inherited a gene which gave them a predisposition for creating one-liners which captured the essence of memorable family events (such as running out of petrol; having one of the boys fall out of the car on a bend; skiing uncontrollably; and trying to find new homes for piles of immature industrial archaeology) and then quoting it to undeserved gales of laughter by other members of the family as well as by the teller himself.
Anthony (‘Greg’ to everyone in Australia) gave few words to the sale in the detailed description he wrote of his life from birth to 1970, but nevertheless captured its essence and the one-liner that became associated with it:
It was the ex-US army Dodge that had sat in the bottom yard for 10 years, un-driven and unloved, that made the most impact. It must have been towed by a tractor to take its place in the orderly rows of sundries on offer.
“What am I offered?” came the auctioneer’s usual cry.
” Ten pounds'” came a genuine offer.
“Ten pounds!?” replied the auctioneer in disbelief. Then, striking the vehicle close to the ground with his shooting
-stick: “Look at the tyres: they’re worth more than that on their own!!”
Other family sayings of note included “They know me in the office”, (about petrol in the tank) “There’s enough for another twenty miles”, and “That ‘No Entry’ sign doesn’t mean us”. David has a clear memory of arriving at Cardiff Arms Park for a rugby match against England for which Capt Gregory had no tickets. After he went to ‘the office’ he and David found themselves high up at the end of the old stadium with a fantastic view down the pitch – ideal for appreciating Bleddyn Williams’ jink.
In his book Greg records the fact that his best friend Pete Raw was also permitted to be away from school for the clearing sale, which may have been part of his – Pete’s – inspiration to become a successful auctioneer himself.
Dusk fell over Fordgate. Many of the piles were loaded onto trucks and trailers and pondered away to new homes. And the Home Field – every field in this glorious 300 acres of Somerset had its own name – returned to normal duties.
Not sold that day were the bee hives. A bees’ nest in an elm tree just across the drive from the front lawn had been transferred to a hive, with more hives added to the collection when swarms provided the opportunity. It may be that the last vehicle to leave Fordgate Farm was RFC 5 with a trailer in tow containing the bee hives.
Nobody had thought to close the hives overnight, so when it came time to relocate them they were simply covered with hessian bags and loaded onto the trailer. Capt GG Gregory set off up the lane to North Petherton followed by a mass of bees confronted, like him and his family, with the challenge of a new home address.