I'm going, going, gone ... auction stalwart to leave at 81

But when it comes to putting your money where your mouth is, Lilian Donald, 81, has probably written more noughts on cheques than all three of them put together.

Every Thursday since 1973, in the back room of a Yorkshire auction house, former housewife Mrs Donald has authorised transactions which would turn many a corporate banker's hair grey.

Over her 37 years with the Thirsk Farmers' Auction Mart Company, she has organised pay outs worth between 500,000 and 750,000 to farmers each Thursday. She reckons she has presided over sales worth more than 27m since she joined the company in April 1973, the same day her eldest son went into the air force.

Mrs Donald said: "My job has always been the same – to pay out the farmers. But I started doing it long before it was computerised.

"We did everything with pen and ink then. Now its all done on computer. I put all the sheep and pigs onto the computer and pay out when they are sold."

Now Mrs Donald has finally decided to retire.

Back in those now far off days of Ted Heath's Britain the average price of a house was a mere 9,942 and a gallon of petrol would set you back just 35p – at least in the early part of the year.

But these were still grim times with Opec announcing trade restrictions which led to a 200 per cent increase in oil prices and triggered a European-wide recession.

Things were not going that brilliantly at Thirsk Auction Mart either. Founded in 1907 by local farmers, it was not exactly an overnight success story.

In 1972 sales amounted to

only 80 cattle, 250 sheep and

100 pigs per week. But with a management shake-up and a massive investment programme the company was just about to take off.

Mrs Donald, of Romanby, near Northallerton, had trained as a children's nurse before she got married to her husband John.

Until she set out to find work again aged 44 she had spent the intervening years as a housewife, budgeting to feed her family of two sons and daughter.

She heard of a job going at Thirsk Auctions and applied for it – just as improvements to the facilities, which would continue over the next 20 years, turned the company around.

Now the business occupies more than 20 acres on Thirsk Rural Business Centre, having sold the original Mart in Station Road for house-building.

Mrs Donald said: "At one time there were 3,000 pigs, 7,000 sheep and maybe 600 cattle. Around 27m over the years would be about right. I have often said if I had a pound for every pound I paid out I would have been able to retire a long time ago."

In fact, her daily wage in 1973 would only have amounted to a few pounds and there was no overtime. As the mart acquired more land to handle large business volumes, sales went through the roof.

"I am used to it now. But it was a bit much when I first started. The director signs all the cheques. I just pay it out. It is done by computer now," she continued.

"But before I had to write a cheque out completely which takes some time when you are making out two to three hundred of them just for one day." She would enter the amount and payee for each transaction to be signed by bosses.

She sees nothing remarkable in what she does apart from the amounts involved. "I come in, and put the cheques onto the computer but I am stuck behind a desk," she said.

"Sometimes I go and collect the sheets from the auctioneer's clerk – but I don't deal with the livestock even though today 3,000 sheep were sold."

She had been happy to stay on way beyond pensionable age. "I liked the company and liked the money and I do not know what I will do when I retire."

Mrs Donald's last day at work will be Thursday May 13. A company spokesman said yesterday: "The directors wish her all the best for the future."

EXPANSION TO MEET GROWING DEMAND

Thirsk auctions traded from its original Station Road home of 99 years.

After the land was sold for housing, the mart moves to the 5.5m Thirsk Rural Business Centre in 2006.

The centre hosts weekly livestock sales, plus regular sales of household goods.

The auction mart has hugely increased its trade since the move and is to build an extension

As well as drawing in farmers, it has diversified into vintage, garden and furniture sales.

Bosses boast the modern, purpose-built facility offers customers the very best amenities and easy access.