The Village Squire, 1981-07, Page 20SOLD!
to the
highest
bidder
City auctioneer Paul Gardner
Still, in spite of his doctors' warnings to convalesce for six to
eight months, within three weeks of his release from hospital he
was back at the helm of the company his grandfather, George
Roy Gardner, started in 1922. "He was a travelling salesman,
and my grandmother didn't want him doing it, so he bought an
auctioneer's license." Gardner's father assumed control in 1950
when the grandfather died. Paul, the third generation Gardner,
bought out his father in 1976.
The company concentrates on estate auctions, and in its fifty
years plus in business has developed a regular clientele. Gardner
doesn't solicit business, and there are two reasons for that. First,
he says, he doesn't have to and, secondly, he explains feedback
from clients indicates they don't like being hustled.
He adds he is in the first place a businessman and in the
second an entertainer. More to the point, any entertainment is
an undercurrent which helps hold the business together.
But it is business first. "As a solicitor of bids, you're working
for the vendor. When an object is sold, your responsibility goes
to the purchaser. You wear two hats."
So that's the basic business ethic, but it's also a description of
the potentially undermining pressure as, later on the floor, the
auctioneer begins four hours of hat changes.
It's tense work. Though, granted, it is a muggy late May
PG. 18 VILLAGE SQUIRE/JULY 1981