I was doing a gig in a town in North Wales.
Mair, a native of the town, had something to say to me about the amenities up the hill. Mair was teeny-tiny and gaunt, sitting by the bus window in the midst of a sou’wester.
‘Don’t be fooled,’ she said. ‘The Old Post Office never were.’
‘What were it as built, then?’ Sarah asked. She was long and lean with an iridescent blue rinse, sitting high in pink trainers, which she would have called daps. She clutched the fake fur collar of her puce coat, then dabbed first her left, then right, earlobe.
‘As built,’ said Mair, 'it were a plain new house. From the off in a dip and prone to damp.’
‘But who could make such a decision to lie about its history, then?'
Mair appeared to want out of her sou’wester, straining forward. ‘Council. On behalf of tourism. You find this sort of malarkey where there isn't something to tour past by coach. Loch Ness, Imperial War Museum, birthplace of Lord Lucan.’
Sarah said, ‘But they have to be impartial, the council, like the BBC.’
‘That’s as maybe, Sarah. But I lived here girl and woman - till I moved elsewhere - and never went in that house ever for so much as a stamp.’
‘You'd have looked odd over the years knocking the door and asking to buy stamps from turning and turning about non-post masters or mistresses.' Sarah let her coat fall as it may over her knees. 'Was the Old School a school?’
Mair said it was. ‘My aunt was the local nit nurse. And the Old Abattoir was an abattoir. I do believe of the classic amenities only that Old Post Office is a sham. Forge, Hospital...yes.'
‘Ye Old Wool Shop, mind.’
‘Yes. Even lately with the man they've got behind the counter. Who do freely advise on ply.’
Sarah, thoughtful, concluded, ‘Sign of the times.'
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