Opinion : Friday is market day

Friday was a nice day. I quite enjoyed myself sitting on a bench in the grounds of the Parish Church eating my sandwiches and watching the world go by.

Being market day the town centre was very busy indeed there is always a special something in the air when the market is on. I can’t quite describe what that something is but it’s magical and makes me feel happy.

All too soon the bells of the clock on the Parish Church rang out and my lunch break was over.

Naturally yours truly took the shortest and quickest, route back to work which happened to be down the High Street. However there was still time to glance at the goods on display on the market stalls.

The plant stall had some nice bushes and pot plants on it, there was a stall selling all manner of hats and caps and of course there was a plethora of stalls selling hot food.

Come to think of it these days there seems to be a disproportionate number of stalls in the market selling hot food to take away. Today there was even a converted van dishing out hot treats to hungry passers by.

There is an old phrase which you may have heard which goes something like ‘the sights and sounds of the market’, however these days Wycombe market seems to have a third element namely a various menagerie of smells coming from the stalls cooking food.

Some of the market stalls that sell hot food even have burners puffing out smoke which engulf passers by.

Today yours truly must have passed through several clouds of smoke while walking the short distance along the High Street. By the time I was at the junction with Corporation Street the smoke had got into my fine clothes and yours truly had taken on the aroma of the cooking food. Now I know how a kipper feels.

Personally I don’t think it’s acceptable for stalls to bellow out pungent smoke in a public area indeed in this environmentally friendly age I am surprised at the powers that be allowing smoke to drift in the High Street where people will breath it in.

In my opinion something needs to be done. Shopping in a cloud of smoke is not nice and I fear people are being turned away because of it.

There are enough fast food retailers in the town centre without having mobile outfits turning up and making out they are part of a historic market.

If someone lit a bonfire in the new shopping complex there would soon be complaints so why should smoke be acceptable in the historic High Street?

What do you think?

*Don’t forget my blogs are published twice a week here, on the Wycombe Today site, every Tuesday evening around 8pm and late on Friday evenings.