This week I want to return to the tragedy of the First World War because July 31 marked the centenary of the beginning of the Battle of Passchandaele.

Also known as the Third Battle of Ypres, it lasted just over three months and remains one of the most controversial offensives of the entire conflict, partially because British leaders could not agree on whether it was the right thing to do strategically and partially because the dire weather as the battle progressed made the already horrifying and miserable life in the trenches all the more unbearable. The Germans lost 217,000 troops, while the allied forces of British, French, Belgian, Canadian, Australian, Indian and South African suffered around 245,000 dead and wounded between them.

Lloyd George, the prime minister, deemed it “one of the greatest disasters of the war”. Others had wanted Field Marshall Haig to hold back until the Americans arrived at the front. The poet Siegfried Sasson wrote : “I died in Hell. They called it Passchendaele.”

For me, though, its legacy includes a wonderful reminder about how man can create something powerful and positive out of the worst experience. That reminder is the art by the likes of Paul Nash, CRW Nevinson and others, showing shell bursts, the wounded and suffering of those at the front in the battle – art that continues to command high prices at auction today, and acts as a warning to us about what we must avoid in future.

This time of year is what the media call the Silly Season, traditionally a period when news is thin on the ground and reporters will file copy on bizarre tales that wouldn’t normally make it into print. They do this because many newspapers and news websites are working on skeleton staff during the holidays and are under more pressure to fill the space available. It’s an ideal time to look out for articles on the weird and wonderful things that have sold at auction.

I recently trawled through the archives with this in mind and here are a few of things I came up with:

• William Shatner’s kidney stone. That’s right, 11 years ago the Starship Enterprise’s former Captain Kirk raised $25,000 for charity with this tasteless offering.
• A grandmother. Ten-year-old Zoe Pemberton put her grandma, Marion Goodall, up for auction on eBay in 2010. The site shut the sale down when the price reached £20,000.
• Lee Harvey Oswald’s coffin. After JFK’s assassin was exhumed in 1981 to check that a body double had not be been buried in his place, he was reburied in a new coffin. The original one fetched nearly $90,000.
• New Zealand. In 2006 an Australian man set a starting pricing of one Australian cent for the country. eBay also closed down this sale… when bidding reached Aus$3000.

If you looked out of the window on Friday, according to legend, you would have been looking at the weather we will be having for the next 40 days and nights. That’s because July 15 is St Swithun’s Day. The weather up till then included a lot of rain – much needed after the recent heatwave and dry period – but then a mix of sun and clouds greeted the day itself. I’ll settle for that.

While the legend is just that – and there is no record of unbroken rainfall over such a period – the Royal Meteorological Society argues that it is not without some logic because the Jet Stream, which greatly affects our weather, tends to settle into a regular pattern around the middle of July, which can last for some weeks.

The middle of July also used to be the time when auctioneers would pack up for the summer, taking advantage of family holidays, while attention is focused elsewhere, to give the gavel and cataloguing a rest with a view to recharging the batteries for late August in preparation for the autumn season of sales.

I like a break as much as the next man, but more recently I have found that maintaining a sales programme throughout the summer keeps the rhythm going and, rather like the Jet Stream, adds to the consistency of service for the rest of the year.

On July 4 I had the honour of conducting the auction of Haslemere Hogs – highly decorated sculptures of pigs that had been dotted around the town centre for three months – in aid of the mayor’s charities. Along with a selection of other lots, we raised £16,000 for good causes, as well as a tidy sum for Stepping Stones, the remarkable special needs school where the auction and reception took place, sited at Undershaw, once home to that master of detective fiction, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

When I say that Stepping Stones is remarkable, I mean that in more ways than one.

It’s been going for more than a decade now and provides for youngsters between 7 and 18 whose acute or chronic medical conditions, mental and emotional health issues prevent them from enjoying the sort of day-to-day schooling the rest of us take for granted. Stepping Stones is a triumph in navigating a course midway between mainstream schooling and more commonly found special school curricula and, in doing so, maximises opportunity for its students both at the school and after they leave.

Its newly constricted modern building is a metaphor for this process of finding the successful middle way, sitting in the hollow beneath the Hindhead junction alongside and linked to the original house built by Conan Doyle. Somehow, the ultra modern design works with the traditional architecture – and the new build literally saved the old house in the process.