What a week I've had travelling since Monday morning: Bristol - Swindon - London - Brussels - London - Ilkley - London - Holland - London. I'm exhausred!
Re. the FFO books and the Enid connection, what I meant to say was that subconsciously at least, I'd imagine most of Gillian's books were either presents from Enid or at least purchased for Gillian round about the time they came out. But in fact a couple of them she may have only owned 20 days rather than 20 years!
ALL the staff at Hartleys were very pleasant and helpful. Prior to the auction, even though the hall was very busy (somebody jokingly asked "who's in charge of crowd control?"),both the valuer who can be seen in the Yorkshire TV interview and the auctioneer were quite happy to spend as much time as necessary to answer my questions, or find someone else who would know the answer. I would have loved to have had more times to view the items (particularly the manuscripts and Gillian's diary) but only managed to make it to Ilkey just before midnight the previous evening.
When I arrived at the Auction room I panicked a bit because I couldn't see the table, and I had just picked up a catalogue which had a sheet of A4 in giving details of items which had been withdrawn and so on. I was panicking that I had come all the way to Yorkshire and the table had been withdrawn! The auctioneer quickly found the table for me, which I had missed because it was lower than I had imagined and was not displayed that prominently (it may have been under a shelf or a higher table).
The auctioneer, who was very businesslike getting through the hundreds of lots when it came to the actual auction (there were other lots either side of the EB items) remembered my interest and had his eyes ready fixed on me a couple of hours later when the table came up for sale. He also went out of his way afterwards to find some suitable packaging for the table, and wrapped it up for me so that I could carry it back!
Sorry Pink Cardi!
At least you made me pay for the table! 
I wonder how much it would have gone for otherwise? Were you wearing a pink cardi on the day? I think so! I'm glad you got some items you wanted. I too was interested in the 'Story of my life' books, the FFO series and also Gillian's diary (which I had a quick peek through; there could be some interesting stuff in there). However I knew I would have to restrict myself if I was to get my top targets. The table and 'Tally-Ho' were in fact the only items I bid for. Of course I would have loved 'The Mystery of Holly Lane' too! I did try to record some of the auction on the voice memo facility of my iphone. I thought I had the first hour or so, but maybe there's a limit to how much you can record because it's disappeared. I have got 5 minutes worth recorded which includes bidding for Malory Towers typescript and the FFO series (which I think started and finished with Duncan's bid). I also took a few pictures and video when the auction started (non EB items). I gave up in the end because it was all getting a bit too tense!
The nearest lot I remember nearly flopping completely was the box of videos. I think the auctioneer had to reduce the price to £10 before any interest was shown. Unfortunately I didn't have time before the auction started to check the videos and see if there was anything unusual in the box.I hadn't realised either that bids could be submitted by email until I read Duncan's first post. I knew that telephone bids were possible, but I was fearful of that sort of thing going wrong (I had never been to an auction for starters). A big plus, which was a real quirk of fate, was that Sarah from Seven Stories was staying at the same B&B as me, so were able to have some chin wags before and during the auction
