February Town Talk

A mixture of gossip, rumours and outright lies

For those of you new to this column a little enlightenment may be in order. Basically these precious inches of white space are given over to our own undercover hack. He is a man of indeterminate humour and knowledge, an observer in the true sense. He looks, he sees and he comments!

So to continue. Our man arrived in the office at his usual late hour, rolled his ultra thin ciggy and gazed intently at his computer screen. He was puzzled, his desk top publishing format had changed, “How come we are now a tabloid?” he asked, “Have we finally arrived, in some sort of weird sense?”

The editor scowled, “Just get on with it, you lazy old scribbler. I need your column in ten minutes. We have to grasp this new technology and commit your profound thoughts to paper.” Our man rose to the challenge immediately. He rolled up his somewhat frayed shirt sleeves, blew the cigarette ash off his keyboard and removed the sticky residue on the keys with a single piece of nappy wipe!

“You know that new statue?” He said, “That one outside the Co-Op. Well, I have been snooping around it at various times of the day. The shape and form of it interests me. The Ball game is represented, The Hatting industry is remembered. The years of labour and sacrifice of countless local men in various coal pits is also acknowledged and the Book Town concept is recognized. So having looked, I then began to wonder if the actual position of this fine monument had any significance, as in Stonehenge and the summer solstice, lay lines and all that jazz.

To test this theory involved me visiting this artistic creation at various times of the day and night, lining up its relationship to the Sun, Moon Stars and after a few pints, gazing into the night air. I found that by lying on my back and lining up the pile of books at the base of the statue with a star point due west that I could actually trace the escape route of a former book town guru and purveyor of dreams. (employed at great expense with taxpayers money) back to the good old U.S. of A from whence he came. The route incidentally passed directly over Blaenavon which seemed to have a sort of damp cloud hovering over it’s own particular book town failed aspirations. At various other times of the day and night and by delicately adjusting my viewing position I was able to observe other meaningful sightings.

Standing on tip toe and creating a line from the tip of the concrete ball adorning the top of the statue to the apex of the new Aldi store, it was possible to blend in this excellent store beautifully with it’s surroundings. Not a mean feat I might add, when others with a sense of civic pride had tried previously and yet failed to grasp the concept of change for good in Atherstone.

Finally by gazing due East, on a clear night and by lining up the worthy miner represented in this monumental piece of art with the distant horizon, it was possible to observe in the stratosphere a haze of uncontrolled pollution rising over some distant Mid European coalfield, where former communist miners were busily digging out fossil fuel from the depths of their own earth to feed our native power stations. On a still night I am sure I could hear the chuckle of some new breed of “Coalski” entrepreneur who could not believe his good fortune.”

The editor read the piece, churned out furiously by our man. Thought for a brief second and pronounced. “Very profound, as usual you have managed to offend at least three separate groups. As to the statue, it looks a little phallic to my eye.”

“Each man to his own boss, each man to his own.” chuckled our man.

Editors note: The statue is not owned or controlled by the Co-oP. It is part of the Heritage Trail project .So far as we are aware its position has no relationship to any heavenly body, alive or dead! The book town shops are alive and well and prospering.