Weird Wycombe
Wycombe is a town in a valley; it has grown up through its furniture making industry, presumably because of the abundance of raw materials available in the Chiltern Hills. Furniture making is not really a big business in the town anymore. Because of its valley location and subsequent poor access people only go there when they really have to. The local industry is a reflection of this, the town is full of dour but necessary industries. The interesting industries go some place else. It doesn’t make for a great town.
It’s a similar situation with the people, George talks of ‘valley people’ who live in Wycombe and tend to be a bit odd. It’s not surprising, if you were bright and intelligent, you would live in one of the local villages, or perhaps Oxford, or London. Wycombe is the last place you’d try.
Being a good natured chap, I wasn’t prepared to believe it until yesterday when I had to go and pay a bill in town. I waited in the queue and used the pen on a string to fill in my pay slip, then stared vacantly as I moved forward. Suddenly I felt and nudge and a rustle, I was being manoeuvred out of the way. I turned to see what was going on. A small Jamaican lady was edging her way past me. “Excuse me” she said reaching down the counter. I moved out of the way unsure of where she was trying to get to, she picked up the pen I’d just been writing with, gave it a yank to break the string, and put it in her bag. She then shuffled back to her spot in the queue.
A little disturbed by the desperation of someone so openly stealing a 20p pen, I went to WHSmiths. I was looking for a magazine when one of the staff came up to an old man reading an angling magazine. “Can I help” she said obviously trying to push him into making a purchase, or put the magazine down. He looked up.
“No thank you dear, I’ll just read the bits I’m interested in, then I’ll go.”
And then he carried on reading. It’s a town of fruitloops.
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