Room to move market unless town has shrunk

Megalomania, so Google tells me, is a condition in which individuals overestimate their powers and beliefs. The megalomaniac, it seems, doesn’t care for the beliefs of the rest of us. Our wishes will always be disregarded no matter how wellfounded.

Am I ringing any bells here? Were I to mention words such as ‘theatre’ or ‘market’, would the bells ring any louder?

With regard to the market, I was appalled to read Cllr Clokie’s letter to the traders - printed in full in last week’s KE. In it, he said the proposed switch to return the failing market to the position where it thrived a few years ago ‘is not possible.’ At the risk of exposing my own tendency to megalomania, this is rubbish. When the market was situated opposite what was then Woolworths (now B&M), it was extremely popular as the petition that was raised in an attempt to prevent it being cast into the outer darkness at the fag-end of the High Street showed.

Mr Clokie (whose Tenterden constituency is served by a thriving market) suggests that there is not enough room at the top of the High Street. That area of the town hasn’t shrunk over the past few years has it? Perhaps the stalls that were there have grown like Topsy. I doubt it.

If we are to have a thriving town centre, surely it would make sense to have it helped along by someone who can see day by day what goes on. Mr Clokie may be an admirable man but he really shouldn’t be allowed to dictate the disposition of our town centre from Tenterden.

Last Friday evening Mrs B and I (along with a great many people) sat on uncomfortable seats in Christchurch Hall to enjoy a fabulously professional pantomime version of Snow White. Written, directed and hilariously acted in by

Alan Stamp and an equally professional cast, the show was deserving of a proper, well appointed theatre. The team of dancers were fantastic, the jokes were side-splittingly bad (in true panto tradition) and I have not laughed so much for at least two years.

Tickets for next year’s production - Dick Whitington - are on sale already.