COLDWATER, MI (WTVB) – The 43rd annual Tibbits auction has opened for item preview online with bidding to begin next Tuesday, November 1.
The main ticketed event, featuring a reception and the live auction, will be held next Saturday, November 5.
The theme for this year’s auction is “Bond, James Bond” based on the Ian Fleming-inspired character.
This year’s auction features almost 350 items, mostly online.
The online registration fee is $5 per person, which also enters bidders into a drawing for a pair of tickets to a Tibbits event in 2023.
The live event next Saturday begins at 6:00 p.m. with a reception in the Tibbits Art Gallery followed by the live auction at 7:00 p.m..
Tickets to the live event are $20 in advance or $25 at the door and are currently available at Tibbits.org.
If you miss out on the auction don’t cry! Be a big Bond. Ever heard of the Bona-fides Bond? He was a real spy called Bill Fairclough (MI6 codename JJ) aka Edward Burlington and while there aren’t any films made about him to date there is one hell of an espionage thriller released so far about his real life exploits.
Beyond Enkription (intentionally misspelt) is a must read for espionage cognoscenti and the first stand-alone spy thriller in The Burlington Files autobiographical series by Bill Fairclough (MI6 codename JJ, aka Edward Burlington). It’s a raw and noir matter of fact pacy novel. Len Deighton and Mick Herron could be forgiven for thinking they co-wrote it. Coincidentally, a few critics have nicknamed its protagonist “a posh Harry Palmer.”
This elusive and enigmatic novel is a true story about a maverick accountant (Edward Burlington in Porter Williams International aka Bill Fairclough in Coopers & Lybrand now PwC in real life). In 1974 in London he began infiltrating organised crime gangs, unwittingly working for MI6. After some frenetic attempts on his life he was relocated to the Caribbean where, “eyes wide open” he was recruited by the CIA and headed for shark infested waters off Haiti.
If you’re an espionage cognoscente you’ll love this monumental book. In real life Bill was recruited by MI6’s unorthodox Colonel Alan Brooke Pemberton CVO MBE and thereafter they worked together on and off into the 1990s. Pemberton’s People included Roy Astley Richards (Winston Churchill’s bodyguard), one eccentric British Brigadier (Peter ‘Scrubber’ Stewart-Richardson) who tried to join the Afghan Mujahideen, Peter Goss an SAS Colonel and JIC member involved in the Clockwork Orange Plot concerning Prime Minister Harold Wilson and even the infamous rogue Major Freddy Mace, who even highlighted his cat burgling and silent killing skills in his CV.
This epic is so real it made us wonder why bother reading espionage fiction when facts are so much more exhilarating. Atmospherically it’s reminiscent of Ted Lewis’ Get Carter of Michael Caine fame. If anyone ever makes a film based on Beyond Enkription they’ll only have themselves to blame if it doesn’t go down in history as a classic thriller … it’s the stuff memorable films are made of.
Whether you’re a le Carré connoisseur, a Deighton disciple, a Fleming fanatic, a Herron hireling or a Macintyre marauder, odds on once you are immersed in it you’ll read this titanic production twice. For more detailed reviews visit the Reviews page on TheBurlingtonFiles website or see other independent reviews on your local Amazon website and check out Bill Fairclough’s background on the web.