I wish I had kept my first Mini, it would be worth a maxi fortune

ROUnD the corner from me in Bristol, 20 years ago, a graffiti by Banksy appeared overnight on a wall beside a Chinese takeaway. no one took much notice. Banksy was a local phenomenon, not a global art celebrity back then. the painting showed a child about to pop a bag of crisps behind a sniper with a rifle. One day, someone painted over it.

Banksy’s work can sell for half a million quid. that artwork now might be worth more than the shop. Yikes.

I had that same feeling when a 1965 Mini Cooper S came up on Bangers And Cash: Restoring Classics (Yesterday). to call it a decrepit wreck would be generous. that Mini was barely still a car. the shell was just a packet of rust; the interior was stuffed with decades of rotting rubbish.

But all the parts, including the engine and the dashboard instruments, were original. Apparently, that’s what counts.

though most people might assume they’d have to pay to get it towed to the scrap yard, this rare but disintegrating automobile sold at auction... for £18,000.

My insides turned to ice. Like so many people, my first car was a Mini — a 1965 Mini 850, in fact, almost as old as me. though it had a top speed on motorways of 55mph, I loved driving it, bombing about the Cotswolds lanes as a cub reporter. But when it started leaking carbon monoxide from the exhaust, which meant that I had to keep the windows down to avoid passing out, I sold it.

I think the trade-in value was a couple of hundred pounds. A quick online search shows a mid-1960s basic Mini now fetches £28,000.

If only I’d possessed the foresight to bung mine under a tarpaulin in a field and leave it for 40 years.

the same thought must have occurred to the Bangers And Cash production team, because the camera crew that has been filming auctions at Mathewsons in thornton Dale, north Yorkshire, since 2018 has decided to get in on the act. they bought a couple of restoration projects including a 1990 two-litre vauxhall Astra Gte, with the goal of doing them up and turning a profit.

Part of the fun of Bangers And Cash is trying to spot the bargains, and this twist on the format raises the stakes. the Astra was a mess, with sun- bleached paint and carpets so grotty they renamed it the vauxhall Ashtray. But auctioneer Derek Mathewson urged the team along, promising that when the car was back to factory condition, ‘they’ll be listening to Duran Duran all day long’. Save a prayer for the producers. they sold the Astra at a £5,000 loss.

noel Fitzpatrick’s restorations were going much better as The Supervet (C4) returned. he was performing a double hip replacement on a young Shepadoodle, a cross between an Alsatian and a poodle.

noel’s shaggy curls make him look like a vetadoodle, but his scruffiness belies his incredible dexterity as an animal surgeon. he performed a minute and precise operation on a police dog, German Shepherd trigger, removing fragments of splintered vertebrae from its spine.

the Supervet is about the owners as much as their poorly pets, and dog handler Rob was in knots of worry: ‘he’s my best pal,’ he fretted, ‘a real big softie.’

trigger made a full recovery, and proved no softie on a training exercise as he tracked noel down through woods and held him at bay, barking and snarling.

But when the vet produced a rubber ring, trigger became his playful friend again. there’s a top tip for burglars: always carry a dog toy.