As you'll gather immediately, the Yesterday channel's main intended audience is men, and bloke-ish men at that, the sort of men who like to know stuff, and do stuff with functioning machinery. Still, the channel's abiding thrust is all things historical, and a series like Murder Maps obviously has a wider appeal, if you like true (though sometimes grisly) tales of human interest. The Yesterday channel also shows that perennially absorbing history classic The World At War. I'd say that despite the big robust nod to male tastes, there's plenty to enjoy if you're daintier but still want your historical side tickled.
Back to Bangers & Cash. This is about a car-auction firm called Mathewsons at Thornton-le-Dale, a village between Pickering and Scarborough. But not ordinary cars. They specialise in classic cars, which is broadly anything notable from the 1920s through to the 1990s. But they'll also handle a very wide range of wheeled vehicles. Delivery trucks, old Green Goddess fire engines, motor-cycles, three-wheelers, road rollers, tractors, you name it. Plus sundry memorabilia.
But the main category is of course classic cars, sporty or otherwise, and in all kinds of condition, from loved and cherished and beautifully cleaned and polished - perhaps with a pet name - to redundant rusty hulks left untouched for twenty years in a street garage or tumbledown farmyard barn.
The ones from the barn, covered in dust and bird or rodent detritus, and apparently beyond redemption, are the subject of naked lust where restoration-minded enthusiasts are concerned. Such folk will pay big bucks for a flat-tyred, brake-seized wreck that their magic will transform. Apparently almost anything can be restored and brought back to life in all its original glory. It will of course cost a lot to do it, but it amply pays off if it's a rare car and the restoration is done properly, over a period of months, with attention to every detail, and preserving as much of the original vehicle as possible. Some of these finished restorations will be worth an awful lot of money. In all cases, the restorer has a delicious challenge on their hands, although their poor wives won't see much of them while they grapple with their latest project.
But those barn finds are unusual. The more typical classic car that gets put up for auction will be a runner in pretty good condition, needing only some TLC - if that. The term 'Banger' doesn't really do full justice to most of the cars on offer. But 'Cash' most certainly comes into the picture.
Who puts cars into an auction? Dealers and restorers obviously. Some sellers have a collection of cars, and occasionally sell off one or two in order to purchase something new. But ordinary people, such as old men in their eighties - or their widows - will offer a car for sale, often sadly, in the hope that the new owner will give their pride and joy a comfortable new home, and love them just as much. There's generally a human story behind every sale like that.
Who buys them? Dealers and restorers and car-collectors obviously. Men wanting a special nostalgic gift for their wives. Anyone looking for a special set of wheels, or a car that will bring back their youth. Some of these cars, the rally-standard ones from the 1990s say, will still blast down the road as fast as they did when new. Some, the ones from the 1950s or early 1960s (an Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphire for instance, or a Jaguar) are bought for their luxury and their style. 1950 to 1970 is the era that chiefly interests me: the aspirational cars of my childhood.
The show is not just about the cars. It's just as much about the people at Mathewsons - the owner Derek; his sons and lieutenants Paul and Dave; occasionally their wives; younger family still, such as Jack and Charlie, enthusiastic youngsters destined to step into their fathers' shoes in the decades ahead; and the office staff, such as Lucy, led by laconic family friend Sarah. Also the quirky sellers, characters all of them. Plus, of course, the people who come to the auction, the potential buyers. All sorts. Fascinating!
When planning my current holiday, it crossed my mind that it wouldn't be too difficult to take in Thornton-le-Dale (and the North York Moors) on a long day trip from Richmond. And so, a week and a half ago, on Monday 10th May, I set forth south-eastwards from Richmond, picking up the A170 at Thirsk, the road that would lead me through Helmsley and Pickering to Thornton-le-Dale.
I'd already ascertained where Thornton-le-Dale's village car park was, but wasn't prepared for its vastness. It promotes itself as one of the prettier Yorks Moors villages, and seems to be a mecca for tourists, whether coming to view Mathewsons or not. I bought two hours' worth of parking time for £2.76, paying of course by phone. Not bad, really. £2.76 would buy you far less time in Brighton.
Well, Mathewsons first, then lunch. The path from the car park led visitors through a serene little wood with a duck-filled lake in it. Then to the village green. A bit too much in the way of cars and buses to call it a chocolate-box hymn to prettiness, but pleasant enough. I spied Mathewsons up the road. It was just as on TV.
