Plenty of reminders that polling day is finally here

We missed it. I find that one of the problems associated with being retired is that days seem to merge into each other.

Because of this, Mrs B and I, who had been determined to attend the hustings held recently in St Mary’s, didn’t realise we’d missed the event until Charlie Harman’s report on the affair appeared in last week’s Express.

Fortunately, there will be enough reminders throughout the various media to ensure that we will not have to regret having missed polling day. I was horrified to read that possibly 18-plus percent care so little about the country’s future that they won’t be voting and I was surprised by the numbers who declared themselves ‘undecided’. It was interesting to see how much - or little - the various candidates know about the area they hope to represent. The Labour candidate scored highest on the local knowledge quiz, while the Lib Dem seemed to know very little.

In a recent poll which listed

MPs in terms of value to their communities, Damian Green came in at 163, about a third from the top. Consequently, his report card would have shown ‘adequate but could do better’.

I see that the model railway museum has opened in what was originally intended to be a restaurant under the Cineworld. I must confess that I haven’t and probably shan’t, visit it.

Perhaps it’s because, as a child, I was given a toy train set.

The wretched thing kept falling off its tracks and it could be this that has put me off toy trains forever. However, ‘Chacun a son gout’, as our French neighbours might say or, as entrenched Brexiteers would put it, ‘whatever floats your boat’. It’s well known that our council prefers the town’s relatively recent railway heritage over the centuries-old market heritage. That’s why recent councilendorsed erections (the bandstand and so-called ‘beacon’) are decorated with wagon wheel motifs.

‘It could be that this has put me off toy trains forever’