Some background:- When my mother had moved to a smaller bungalow she had given Steph and I an oak sideboard. It was big and proved not as useful as we had first thought. We very soon came to realise that we had no place for it in our flat. This was in the 1980s.
In Wellington there used to be a secondhand furniture shop called Farthings. I went in and asked if they would buy the sideboard from us. They, man and woman, came in their van to our ground floor flat. The flat was in the kitchens of an old manor house. The deal the woman offered was that they would take the sideboard to the shop and when it was sold they would split the proceeds with us. I can't recall the exact split, was mostly pleased to have got the bulky sideboard out of the way.
I didn't expect a quick result, so gave it no more thought.
I can't remember if it was Steph or I who later on passed Farthings when it was closed and couldn't see the sideboard. I thought maybe – as we hadn't heard from them – it had been moved to the back of the shop. Next time I passed the shop it was open.
I went in expecting no more than the sideboard had been moved or sold.
The woman was there, woollen-dressed, new age look. I asked about the sideboard; and the visit rapidly went weird.
First off she irritably pretended never to have seen or heard of an oak sideboard. I pointed out that she and her partner had come to our flat to collect it.
“Oh that thing,” she said. “It went to auction.”
I asked how much it had sold for.
“No idea,” she said.
I reminded her of our deal, asked for my share.
Up to this point I hadn't really cared about the money, would have been a bonus had there been any. But she bridled up, became suddenly indignant and called her scruffy partner from somewhere out the back. He was told that I was demanding money for the sideboard.
“That fucking thing,” he said. (No more hippy-speak then.) “Count yourself lucky I don't chuck you out after it.”
I don't respond well to blustering threats. See Anti - https://rb.gy/6w0ge , and he was street-smart enough to see that if he came a step closer he'd get hit. He quickly shifted to a wheedling demeanour, took to whining about the weight of the sidebooard, how it had sat in the shop for ages, how they were having a hard time with money, had no record of the auction, couldn't pay me...
She said something about my 'attitude.'
I was itching for violence, but left. I cycled home angry at having been cheated, and believing at that point that I had no comeback other than putting a brick through Farthings' shop window. Which would bring no satisfaction: their insurance would pay for a replacement.
The sideboard had no sentimental value. My mother had been as pleased as I to no longer have it taking up space. Nor am I the least materialistic, have given away cars, am the world's most indifferent consumer. If the Farthings couple had said, when they first came to collect the sideboard, that it wasn't worth anything I'd have been happy for them to have just taken it away. It was the lies and bluster that had my adrenaline pumping every time the thought of them crossed my mind.
That anger had me moaning to a solicitor friend about UK justice. He told me to try the Small Claims Court, and how to go about it. That I did. Took months, but ended up with Farthings being ordered to pay me £50.00. They pleaded poverty, but told the court they'd pay me £10.00 a month.
My moaning to my solicitor friend about UK justice wasn't only about the sideboard. During this period there was so much else in my life that had rankled.
Down the back of the manor house was a lake. When, between the wars, the manor house had been a girls school the lake had been used for boating and swimming.
At the further end of the lake was an old mill. A property developer had got hold of it and had converted it to a house. He had then built another alongside it, having bulldozed someof the woods to do so. The second house hadn't had planning permission.
The new owners of the mill house and other house then stopped us manor house rentees using the lake footbridge to cross the fields to the village.
Aside from asking the council what they were going to do about the illegal second house, I was also campaigning for a roundabout to be made at the end of the manor house's long drive, which ended in a 5-way junction.
This was on the main A-road between Wellington and Taunton. Every day the squeal of brakes. A French boy in one of the flats upstairs had recently been knocked over. A roundabout would have slowed the traffic, have made it safer for all our children to cross the road.
Somerset council decided that children's safety wasn't paramount, traffic flow was. My daughters already had to negotiated a pavement-less road to get to and from West Buckland primary school. Now a council spokesperson said that not only did the council not have enough money to create a roundabout, with the property developer being prepared to go to court to defend the illicity-built second house they didn't have funds enough to fight that case either.
Farthings defaulted on the final payment.
I was advised – mostly by Steph – for my own peace of mind (and domestic harmony) not to further pursue them. Reminded myself, once again, that I was living in the UK which still has the best justice money can buy.
© Sam Smith 24th April 2023
In Wellington there used to be a secondhand furniture shop called Farthings. I went in and asked if they would buy the sideboard from us. They, man and woman, came in their van to our ground floor flat. The flat was in the kitchens of an old manor house. The deal the woman offered was that they would take the sideboard to the shop and when it was sold they would split the proceeds with us. I can't recall the exact split, was mostly pleased to have got the bulky sideboard out of the way.
I didn't expect a quick result, so gave it no more thought.
I can't remember if it was Steph or I who later on passed Farthings when it was closed and couldn't see the sideboard. I thought maybe – as we hadn't heard from them – it had been moved to the back of the shop. Next time I passed the shop it was open.
I went in expecting no more than the sideboard had been moved or sold.
The woman was there, woollen-dressed, new age look. I asked about the sideboard; and the visit rapidly went weird.
First off she irritably pretended never to have seen or heard of an oak sideboard. I pointed out that she and her partner had come to our flat to collect it.
“Oh that thing,” she said. “It went to auction.”
I asked how much it had sold for.
“No idea,” she said.
I reminded her of our deal, asked for my share.
Up to this point I hadn't really cared about the money, would have been a bonus had there been any. But she bridled up, became suddenly indignant and called her scruffy partner from somewhere out the back. He was told that I was demanding money for the sideboard.
“That fucking thing,” he said. (No more hippy-speak then.) “Count yourself lucky I don't chuck you out after it.”
I don't respond well to blustering threats. See Anti - https://rb.gy/6w0ge , and he was street-smart enough to see that if he came a step closer he'd get hit. He quickly shifted to a wheedling demeanour, took to whining about the weight of the sidebooard, how it had sat in the shop for ages, how they were having a hard time with money, had no record of the auction, couldn't pay me...
She said something about my 'attitude.'
I was itching for violence, but left. I cycled home angry at having been cheated, and believing at that point that I had no comeback other than putting a brick through Farthings' shop window. Which would bring no satisfaction: their insurance would pay for a replacement.
The sideboard had no sentimental value. My mother had been as pleased as I to no longer have it taking up space. Nor am I the least materialistic, have given away cars, am the world's most indifferent consumer. If the Farthings couple had said, when they first came to collect the sideboard, that it wasn't worth anything I'd have been happy for them to have just taken it away. It was the lies and bluster that had my adrenaline pumping every time the thought of them crossed my mind.
That anger had me moaning to a solicitor friend about UK justice. He told me to try the Small Claims Court, and how to go about it. That I did. Took months, but ended up with Farthings being ordered to pay me £50.00. They pleaded poverty, but told the court they'd pay me £10.00 a month.
My moaning to my solicitor friend about UK justice wasn't only about the sideboard. During this period there was so much else in my life that had rankled.
Down the back of the manor house was a lake. When, between the wars, the manor house had been a girls school the lake had been used for boating and swimming.
At the further end of the lake was an old mill. A property developer had got hold of it and had converted it to a house. He had then built another alongside it, having bulldozed someof the woods to do so. The second house hadn't had planning permission.
The new owners of the mill house and other house then stopped us manor house rentees using the lake footbridge to cross the fields to the village.
Aside from asking the council what they were going to do about the illegal second house, I was also campaigning for a roundabout to be made at the end of the manor house's long drive, which ended in a 5-way junction.
This was on the main A-road between Wellington and Taunton. Every day the squeal of brakes. A French boy in one of the flats upstairs had recently been knocked over. A roundabout would have slowed the traffic, have made it safer for all our children to cross the road.
Somerset council decided that children's safety wasn't paramount, traffic flow was. My daughters already had to negotiated a pavement-less road to get to and from West Buckland primary school. Now a council spokesperson said that not only did the council not have enough money to create a roundabout, with the property developer being prepared to go to court to defend the illicity-built second house they didn't have funds enough to fight that case either.
Farthings defaulted on the final payment.
I was advised – mostly by Steph – for my own peace of mind (and domestic harmony) not to further pursue them. Reminded myself, once again, that I was living in the UK which still has the best justice money can buy.
© Sam Smith 24th April 2023