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Like many of his school chums, Gerald Ball was fascinated by cars and the world of motor racing. While still at school he was the kid in the corner with an oily rag on the Castle Combe Circuit in Wiltshire, keen to get under the bonnet at the slightest excuse. Born in Wolverhampton in 1945, and brought up in Gloucestershire, he signed on for a four-year garage mechanic apprenticeship in Dursley as soon as he left school. After a two-year spell with the Jack Brabham racing team, he went back to nuts and bolts when he was persuaded to return to the garage where he had started out. Within a few years he and his fellow mechanic, who had been an apprentice with him in the early days, took over the business. It was, as he puts it, 'heads down and bums up' as they built up trade.
Gerald explains that: 'It had been going since the 1930s, first as a blacksmith's and then as a garage. There were cobwebs everywhere and bikes hanging on the wall when we took it over, but we soon turned it into a good business with a petrol forecourt and a two-bay workshop for general repairs.
Marshfield is a proper village with a good variety of small shops, but it faces the problems of villages everywhere. Sometimes the 2,000 or so villagers don't appreciate what they've got on their doorstep. For example, we can't compete with petrol prices at the supermarket nine miles away, so that's where they fill up. It's only when their tank is empty that they call in and buy a gallon and say how wonderful it is to have a garage in the village. But it's only if they keep using our shops and garage regularly that they will help preserve what they are looking for in a village.'
Girton College, University of Cambridge
Cambridge
Title
Gerald Ball, Garage Proprietor
Date
1999
Medium
oil on board
Measurements
H 34.5 x W 29.5 cm
Accession number
461
Acquisition method
on loan from the Royal Society of Portrait Painters
Work type
Painting
Inscription description
signature and date
Girton College, University of Cambridge
Huntingdon Road, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire CB3 0JG England
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David George Vaisey (b.1935) Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford -
Keith Gilbert Robbins (b.1940), Principal and Vice-Chancellor of University of Wales Lampeter, St David's University College (1992–2003) Trinity St David, Lampeter, Founder's Library -
John Hood (b.1942) Bodleian Libraries, University of Oxford -
Sir Keith Thomas (b.1933), President (1986–2000) Corpus Christi College, University of Oxford -
Brian Robert Morris (1930–2001) Trinity St David, Lampeter, Founder's Library -
Brian Robert Morris (1930–2001), Baron Morris of Castle Morris, Principal of St David's University College (1980–1991) Trinity St David, Lampeter, Founder's Library -
Robert G. Beldam (1914–2003), CBE, Honorary Fellow (1995–2003) Corpus Christi College, University of Cambridge - 19 more