Emma Pattinson takes us behind the scenes of the Shepperton Car Boot, a beloved local fixture that’s been running for 24 years and counting. We chat about how she transformed a family land problem into a vibrant community event that’s all about recycling and finding hidden treasures. From the early days of setting up stalls in spirals to attract more buyers to the well-organised system they have now, Emma shares how hard work and a love for the community keep this event thriving. She emphasises that it’s not just about making a quick buck but creating a friendly space where people can find affordable items and connect with one another. Plus, there's a sprinkle of humor as she shares some of the quirky items and experiences that have popped up over the years. So, if you've been thinking about decluttering or hunting for treasures, tune in for some fun tips and a peek into this local gem!

• Shepperton Car Boot Sale website

Produced by Gareth Davies at The Sound Boutique

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The first car boot we did, I set it out in like a spiral to make it look busier, to try and make it look filled out, to attract more. It was so funny in the beginning. It was really hard work to make it look appealing to come into.

Hello and welcome to the Sheppertonian. I'm Gareth and this is the local podcast bringing you stories, voices and events from in and around Shepperton.

Before we begin, a quick thank you to the local businesses supporting the Sheppertonian through the Business Club, the Ferry Coffee Shop: purveyors of fine coffee, tea, in fact all the drinks and food. It's a lovely cafe by Shepperton Lock. Meon Media: flexible support for your small business needs. And Island Motors: Shepperton based MOT and servicing. Their backing is what keeps these stories being told.

You'll find the details on the website and if you'd like your message in front of a local audience, head to the Business Club page at www.thesheppertonian.uk.

Now... most of us have driven past it. A field off the road filling up with cars on a Saturday morning.

And by lunchtime it's empty again, as if nothing happened. 24 Years of that same field, same day, same hour.

I went to meet Emma Pattinson who runs Shepperton Car Boot on the land her family has held for decades. We sat looking out over it.

But the site is sort of split into two parts. The back of the site is a different enterprise, which is now a well witnessed facility.

Front of the site has been dedicated to a car boot since we opened.

Basically, it wasn't a plan, it was a problem that needed solving.

So we had the land and anyone that has any land will. Everyone thinks you're very lucky, but it also costs a lot to keep it maintained, fencing and just keeping it in a tidy condition.

So we were forever having to spend money, not making any money from it. Years ago there were horses grazing on it, but ultimately anyway, we needed to make a bit more money, so it made it worthwhile to keep the land.

I can't actually remember exactly how we came up with the idea of running a car boot, but I think because it's a big piece of land that's sort of fairly empty and flattish, everyone thought it would suit it.

And, yeah, we just went ahead and had a go in beginnings, starting on Sundays, which didn't work very well, so we quite quickly changed it to Saturdays, which seems to have worked. And it's grown since then, really. It wasn't always the plan at all. No.

24 Years on, the day still begins in the dark.

Basically doing a lot of site checks, you know, just checking everything's laid out properly, putting barriers out for when people arrive, making sure staff are in the right places.

And all the site, we've got signage that we take down and we put it back up for every event because we don't want to leave it up and make the place look messy. Not very nice for neighbours driving past all the time. So we do take quite a lot of pride in how the field looks and try and keep it neat and tidy.

It's basically health and safety stuff, really. Just checking the field for bumps, lumps, believe it or not, dips appear in the field for no apparent reason.

But I think probably because when they reinstated it, it wasn't done very particularly level, you know, level. So things sink sometimes.

So we just go through and just check everything's all right and make sure the radio is working, all the staff kits out and where we check people in and, you know, people come in through the site, all of that, clean toilets and all that sort of thing. Really exciting stuff. But people do arrive.

Pretty much as soon as staff are here, people start to arrive, mostly regular sellers that want a particular place near the road or something. But, yeah, sometimes they beat us here, but it's not often.

There's a version of this event that would be much easier to run. Emma isn't interested in that.

One of the main concerns for me as a operator is not to affect local people with it, so I wouldn't want it where you've got other events. Sometimes they really clog up local roads and everyone hates the events and all that. So we are lucky that we've got quite a big area at the back.

We pull all the cars in and we queue people up within the field rather than making them queue on the road, which sometimes unfortunately does happen. If it happens that a load of cars arrive at one time and we can't get them in the field fast enough, but rarely does it affect the road.

We do everything to avoid that.

The website is unusually firm on one point. This is a car boot sale, it's not a market. And I asked Emma why that line matters enough to defend.

Quite clear on the website, so.

And I Think generally people who do this would know how people operate, you know, so we get a lot of emails in asking questions and we'll tell them there and then whether or not what they're selling is suitable. If a store does turn up and once they've unloaded, we see they've only got new stuff. We've got an advice card that we give them.

We give them the first chance. We say, look, we're not a market, we are a car bank. You need to have 90% secondhand stuff out of your house if you've got some new stuff.

For instance, if I cleared my house, I would have some new stuff. But you certainly don't want a whole stall full of it because that goes against what the car boot is for, in my view.

Yeah, we are about recycling, basically.

And there's a second line she won't cross either.

One of my particular pet hates is any tools. Because I've been broken into enough times and had tools stolen. I will not support anything that I think is not right. Doesn't feel right.

Don't want it here.

The prices have been held for over a decade. This year they moved. The reason is smaller and more human than you'd expect.

I do pay the family rent for the field because it's not owned by just me or my dad, it's owned by a group of families. So we have a rent to cover. And obviously staffing is a huge cost.

If you want to run it properly and have enough staff on site, obviously toilet emptying and everything else, there is a fair amount of costs.

The prices were basically to cover staff increases because I realised suddenly we weren't paying so well and I just needed to put the staff costs and that was that, really.

The entry fee for buyers hasn't moved in years. That's deliberate too.

So for me it's about having, yes, having loads of stalls. If you were absolutely rammed with stalls, you'd make a lot of money. But the more important thing to me is people buying.

So we want to keep the prices low so we get enough people in that can have a look at the stuff and people will do well when they sell.

Every car boot carries the same rumor that somewhere on one of those tables is something worth a great deal more than it's being sold for.

I personally have always gone for things that I can do up, so I'm quite. I'm a creative person, not artist. I think that plant pot there, for instance, is one I bought years and years ago. So heavy.

But I've sort of like Just gave it a little rub down, painted it. I try and get stuff, bits of furniture that maybe I could give a bit of love to and reignite.

Believe it or not, I'm not into buying stuff at Car Boots, but we get a lot of people that are specialists and I know that we. One lady bought a glass jug of some kind that she bought for £3 and sold for 30,000. But it happened to be a very unusual one.

And I don't know many stories like that.

I know people do make a profit and there's people that their life is buying things like Car Boots and then selling them on because they know they're more value than the person that's selling them.

And then there are the things that turn up which absolutely should not.

One of the weirdest things years ago was people trying to sell rabbits, like they bought rabbits. So on our safety, it says no live animals because years ago someone was trying to sell rabbits. And I, I was quite unhappy about that.

24 Years is long enough to build something that outlasts the stock on the tables.

I could go to the car boot next weekend and I would still see people that have been there since the first time I opened the gates. There's a couple of people that always refer to it when they see me because they don't see me as much anymore.

They go, don't you remember I was there, love, when you first opened the gates. When we did it, we had a totally different up. And the first car boot we did was like.

I set it out in like a spiral to make it look busier, to try and make it look filled out, to attract more. It was so funny in the beginning. It was really hard work to make it look appealing to come into, so. But those people still come, a lot of them. Yeah.

And they still remember that. I remember when you used to be at the end of the field and. Yeah. And the buyers are the same. There's still a lot of the same buyers that used to come.

Yeah, we've got a lot of really, really positive supporters that, you know, you'll always get something awful happen. You know, someone will get something stolen off a stool.

And we do everything we can to try and stop that happening and we try and deal with stuff if it does happen. But, you know, you do get some new people that approach. But always they'll come and tell us if something isn't right that's being sold.

We get the regulars that will come and see us because they know how we run and they don't want us to get a bad name.

You can plan the layout, the staffing, the signage, the barriers, but you can't plan the sky.

If it's a foregone conclusion. So Wednesday we've had tipping rain, Thursday, tipping rain, the fields flooded. We would close it as early as possible.

There's been quite a few occasions where it's forecast rain. We're not sure. We're on site at 4 o' clock in the morning and it's looking a bit cloudy, but sometimes it will clear.

So it has been that we've had to call it, literally as people are starting to come in and obviously because we wouldn't have many buyers coming, so you've got sort of balance. Oh, is there going to be enough sellers? Enough buyers?

If not, you don't want to take people's money and then they've got no one coming in to buy anything.

So I'd say the word, the worst ones, we've had sort of medium rain in the middle of the morning and then sudden the wind's picked up and that's quite bad on the field because obviously it's very open, people, you know, so that's quite tricky. The wind is probably trickier than the rain, but the rain we can just cancel.

But the wind, you don't cancel it, but then people are fighting against it, you know, it can be quite amusing at times.

For anyone who's been meaning to do this for years and never has, this is the part to listen to twice.

You need to decide before you put everything in your car is what you. You want to see reasonable money for. And if you have something that you think is definitely worth money, label it.

Don't just let people offer you money because quite often you have a lot of people stood there. It's quite a busy car boot, so you'll have a number of people stood at your store.

You don't want to be caught out selling something cheaper that you didn't mean to, or if someone's helping you, they sell it for too little and anything of great value put it out of reach. So people need to ask you to have a look at it because there are, sadly, people that are willing to steal off people.

Even though we're all out there just trying to make a bit of money to help our lives, people are still horrible and will try and steal from you. So anything that's of decent value, put it near the back of the store, out of reach and people have got to ask you to have a look at it.

If you're not overly concerned.

You just want to get rid of loads of stuff, then, you know, don't maybe necessarily price it because that will sometimes put people off if they think they can get a deal. But whatever price you put on something, I could try and sell that for £2 a pen or something like that for £2.

And someone will always offer you, even if it's really good value, they still offer you under what you're asking. So price above what you actually really want, probably.

It's part of the charm, isn't it, the haggling?

Yeah, yeah. But people are often quite unreasonable with what they're asking.

The other thing I would recommend is, for anyone that hasn't done it before, is obviously have change with you, because people will pay you with cash, perhaps have some bags with you. But if you can, don't do it on your own, because having more than one set of eyes on the stool I think is better. If you need to go to the toilet.

I mean, 90% of our stall holders are lovely people, you know, really lovely families, etc. But, you know, if you need to go away for anything, then you don't want to leave your stall unattended, ideally.

I asked Emma what she'd want Shepperton to understand about the car boot, that.

We're here really as a facility to take your stuff to.

To sell it, if you can, for someone who wants to buy something rather than taking it to the tip, because the tip is literally few hundred yards away and, you know, you see cars queuing to go in there. And it makes me sad that some people just can't be bothered to take the time to sell it to someone who might actually need it.

And there's a lot of families that can't afford furniture and things like that. And you can have all that on sale here.

You know, people can come and get rid of a number of different things, garden furniture, pots, clothes, anything, really. And it makes me sad that they'd rather put it into landfill than anything else. And we're here as a local community and we try and support.

Support local people, you know, and make it as friendly and as safe as we can.

And it doesn't stop at the gate.

I know for a fact a lot of people go for breakfast locally afterwards. You know, people come from quite a long way away as well. We did do one new. We had.

Just one of us was stood on the gate asking where people come from and that people come from the coast, from up the other side of Nottingham. They come from quite a long way.

So if you're going every Saturday.

Yeah.

We open in April normally, until we have made it in November once, because often you cancel loads during the summer because we run the 28 days, so we've got 28 events we can run. But normally by about September, October, it starts to get a bit miserable. It's bloody cold and dark in the mornings. It's not very nice.

I have no idea what that happens. Yeah.

Which is a pound. And if the weather looks doubtful, there are four ways to check before you load the car.

Our website's always updated. I've got a little header at the top of the carpet. If it's closed, I'll say that we're closed. Our Facebook, Instagram and that.

We've got an answer phone that is highly popular with a lot of people that don't like social media or websites and things like that. So people will pull up and I'll update that as soon as we're going to cancel or whatever. The website as well, though is...it's got the phone number on it as well, oh, fantastic. Which is sheppertoncarboot.co.uk

That was Emma Pattinson of Shepparton Car Boot.

If the weather looks uncertain, check sheppertoncarboot.co.uk or the Facebook and Instagram pages. There's an answer phone line too, and the number for it is on the website.

And if there's a loft or garage in your house that you've been avoiding, that's the one to think about. A few hundred yards in one direction it's landfill. A few hundred yards in the other, it's somebody's kitchen table.

Thanks again to the businesses supporting the Sheppertonian through the Business Club. Their support keeps this podcast rooted in the community. I'm Gareth. This has been the Sheppertonian until next time. I'll see you around.