Livestock still at heart of a town with eye on the future

HUNDREDS of cattle, the Tate-Smith family’s legendary carvery in the Green Man afterwards…

Ask any of the farmers (now probably gathered over a few pushed-together tables and mugs of tea in the King’s Head) about market days of old and they’ll come up with the same halcyon picture.

Malton Market, in its heyday, was a very special place.

Retired auctioneer Brian Wilkinson remembers animals being driven from the sale ring through the middle of town to the railway station.

After government “control” came off in 1954 the market boomed, with over 1,000 fat cattle at its weekly peak and 10,000 sheep.

“The only way we managed to fit them all in was because they were clipped,” laughs 83 year-old Brian, who started as the office boy with Boulton and Cooper in 1944.

It took him 14 years to become a director of the firm. Back then the company also ran a market at Seamer, which attracted up to 30 private butchers buying for the hotels and boarding houses of nearby Scarborough.

“All senior members of staff got a television set for Christmas the year control came off,” remembers Brian. “Trade boomed.”

When Brian was still wet behind the ears, several auctioneering firms, such as Driffield’s Dee & Atkinson, were part of the mix, all waiting for it to be their week to have “first turn” selling.

Boulton and Cooper and Cundalls, stayed put at Malton. B&C always ran the huge Michaelmas Sheep Fair The Cundall family, who were farmers, specialised in the annual Leicester sale.

The late John Cundall was particularly popular with farmers, as is the firm’s Peter Woodall who has worked tirelessly to build up Ryedale Show.

Change came after the late Bill Cooper returned to the family business from making his living as a tea broker in Ceylon. He sold the Boulton and Cooper business to Stephensons, the York auctioneers, in 1988. Buyers had been dwindling at Seamer and a huge Morrisons supermarket now stands on the old market site.

Brian remembers the horse sales he held here, along with ones at the Whitewall Stables in Norton and at Harrogate Showground. He carried on as an employee of B&C (Stephensons showed sense in not changing the name of a firm that had such a strong history) until retirement.

“They gave me a gavel,” remembers Brian. “Funny thing is I never used one when I was selling. Livestock auctioneers didn’t in those days. We always just used some sort of stick – gavels were too fancy for country markets.”

His fondest memories are of the Michaelmas Sheep Fair: the smells, the noise, the people, the thousands of animals.

He hasn’t been back to the market since retirement. He’s forward-thinking enough to realise that the next generation need to get on with it.

Boulton & Cooper still takes its “turn” selling first at Malton Market, with dry-witted auctioneer Philip Place often the man to be found behind the rostrum on these days.

On the other weeks, the young bloods of Cundalls take over. The firm was recently purchased by farmer Derek Watson, whose son Tom is in charge of the day-to-day running and seems to have a very sensible head on his young shoulders.

The Watsons have brought in a new young man for the market, Will Tyson. It was his late father’s ambition that one of his sons would become an auctioneer.

Will talks with great maturity and poise about the emotional story of how his father had been destined to come and see him sell for the first time at the market where he cut his teeth at Louth in Lincolnshire, but sadly passed away.

“At least he knew I was going to do it,” says Will, who says the move to Malton Market means he can help his brothers run the family farm at Snainton, near Scarborough.

He talks equally frankly about the fact he “wouldn’t have come” to Malton if he didn’t think the market had a great future.

There has been so much talk about what will happen when the lease on the town centre site runs out that Will thinks the message that Malton is open – and hungry – for business can get clouded over.

“Yes, a wonderful new market on an out-of-town location like those developed at Thirsk or Selby would be brilliant,” he says.

“But in the meantime I’m going to do my damndest to pack them into the existing Malton market.

“We have great road links, straight out onto the A64, but we can’t just sit around talking about things.

“We’ve sorted out the website, introduced a newsletter which we e-mail out and we send out text alerts.

“We’re hopefully, with us being a young team, getting the next generation coming down – getting them to say to dad, ‘Hang on, I’d like to take the animals to market this week’.

“I’m busy trying to get out to farms to talk to people face-to-face.

“We want to get this market busting at the seams. Then we can have a real success story to go into talks about a new market with.

“I watched my old bosses at Louth build up business and it’s common sense. Keeping in touch with everybody is vital. People need to know that we have buyers coming from Bradford, Otley, Leeds, Cleveland and Middlesbrough – all over the place.”

Will praises the work of livestock haulier Pat Foxton in co-ordinating the campaign for a new market. He mentions the work of James Stephenson, the head of the “other turn” company and his Cundalls auctioneering colleague Keith Warters.

The legendary days at the Green Man – venue for many a farm and land auction – have been mentioned. Others will have tales to tell about post-market afternoons in the Spotted Cow, just staggering distance from the market’s outdoor metal pens.

There’s something appealing about the awkwardness of having a market slap-bang in the middle of a town. If only for a few moments, while stock’s been unloaded, it reminds passers-by that this was first and foremost a farming town.

Every blue moon there’s talk of a beast that’s escaped or a “near do”. There’s banter and the sound of freshly-fixed metal boot segs is coming down The Shambles, hotfooting it to the bank before it closes. Popping across for a paper and a few bits and bobs for the wife. Malton still has it. Not like in Brian Wilkinson’s day, but it can still – thank goodness – be found.

Malton Market Information

Tuesday: Fatstock Sales cattle and sheep. Cattle 11am. Sheep (Follows on from the cattle).

Friday: Store Sales. Sheep, 11am. Cattle, noon.

Fur and Feather: Held on a monthly basis in conjunction with the farmers’ market. Usually the last Saturday in the month.

Market opens at 7.30am sale starts at 11am.

Further information from 01653 697820 or 692151. Or go online and visit www.maltonlivestock auctioneers.co.uk.