I am normally chary about agreeing to read self-published books especially if they’re by people I know, however peripherally. I’ve come unstuck too often when they’re embarrassingly bad – either because the unedited text is dreadful or because of amateurish presentation.
I agreed to read this one, and didn’t regret it, because it has Stewart Ross’s name on the cover as ghost writer. I’ve known Stewart and admired his work and enthusiasm for decades. He and I used to sit together on a committee at Society of Authors or which first he was Chair and then I was. He is a respected, prize winning author who has written many excellent books for children and adults.
What I didn’t realise until recently, is that he and Charlie Ross, the TV auctioneer and antiques dealer are brothers. Perhaps I should have done. They look so much alike they could be twins. So here is Sold!, Charlie’s witty, self-deprecating life story (just how DO you get to be an auctioneer, let alone one on national TV?) written, I suspect mostly by Stewart. It is published by Blean Books, the Kent based publishing house Stewart has set up to publish a few titles of his own which haven’t gone to his usual publishers. Stewart is mentioned so often in Charlie’s story that it is clear that the two men are very close, anyway.
They were the sons of a touchingly snobbish mother and well-meaning but unworldly father (eventually separated) who got into disastrous debt to send them to boarding school. There Charlie, a good talker, quick thinker and reasonable singer, failed his A levels so he couldn’t follow his successful uncle into dentistry. Instead he went to work for an estate agent which meant auctions. Very gradually, with lots of serendipity because he had no life plan, he worked his way into antique dealing and auctioneering. For many years he and a business partner ran their own auction house, Downer Ross in Woburn. Along the way he played a lot of rugby and cricket, acquired a wife and two children and played The Pirate King in an amateur production of The Pirates of Penzance. His ebullient personality sustained all his activities.
Then came a call from the BBC inviting Downer Ross to feature in the programme Flog It!. He’s funny about later participation in The Antiques Road Show for which he wasn’t always serious enough but says that working in STV’s Antiques Road Trip and Celebrity Antiques Road Trip have given him some of the most enjoyable moments of his broadcasting career. Today (long story) as well as charity auctions and lots of other jobs he regularly auctions very high value vintage cars in America – a dream job if those sorts of vehicles are your thing. He has no plans to retire.
Charlie Ross is good company, although I confess I switched off a bit during a whole chapter about cricket. He has been professionally very successful but he’s no show off and that works well in this rather entertaining book which has lots of lovely photographs at its centre.
Next week on Susan’s Bookshelves: The Lightless Sky by Gulwali Passarlay with Nadene Ghouri