9 Bargain basement

Thanks to the sterling efforts of Brenda, our tireless Tourism Officer, we have a hectic schedule of events lined up for the summer months. Morris dancing, the duck race, the scarecrow festival, blood donor sessions: will the fun never end?

You could go a long way (well, another postal district, anyway) to find better entertainment than our weekly car boot sales, held every Sunday morning on Potter’s field. It wasn’t so long ago that people went to church on a Sunday morning. They looked to the man in the pulpit for guidance and reassurance. But the habit’s been broken, and it will take more than gimmicks like hymn number bingo to bring the congregations back to fill the empty pews. Nevertheless, locals find there's a big hole in their lives where blind, unquestioning faith used to be. So they go car-booting instead - to rummage through other peoples’ cast-offs and maybe pick up a bargain.

Here, in the bargain basement of budget retailing, there’s plenty of stuff to keep the browsers busy. 'Antiques of tomorrow', the stallholders call it: what used to be described, more prosaically, as 'rubbish'. Displayed artlessly on makeshift stalls is the kind of junk that most Whimsey folk would otherwise be taking down to the dump: dodgy DVDs, rusty tools, chipped coronation mugs, old biscuit tins, novely ashtrays, foot spas, toasted sandwich makers, Polaroid Swinger cameras they stopped making film for twenty years ago... and that elusive third LP by Bucks Fizz.

There's always an ancient Hoover with a sign reading 'Genuine Reason For Sale'. Yes, it's a genuine reason all right: it’s knackered. Those who have suffered the misfortune of having their car radio stolen may find a replacement on one of the stalls. They may even find the one that was stolen in the first place.