Coffee Books used to occupy part of the ground floor of The Firs, a house that had once been the vicarage for Holy Trinity. Anyway, my first wife and myself, and our little dog, used to live in the top floor flat there many years ago.

The house had long ceased to have any social standing architecturally and slumped grey and peeling in what was left of a now very overgrown garden. Only from the vantage point of our third floor bay window could the collapsing gazebo, entwined with brambles, still be seen.

But in those days the old house lived on as best it could, with the aforementioned Coffee Books to the right as you came in, with, next to them, a ladies hairdresser that specialised in blue rinses, pink rinses, orange rinses, with matching poodle rinses for an additional 17/6. Have you ever seen a pink poodle? Believe me they can stand out on a dark winter’s afternoon.

Further back on the ground floor was the Stratford School of Driving whose priceless motto was Don’t Pass Us Because We’ll Pass You! Virtually the whole of their reception area was taken up with the engine and gearbox of a 1929 Bentley 3.5 litre Roadster, which had the legend, Exposed, That Which You Fear The Most, hanging above it. The company was run by a father and son who both had handlebar moustaches, wore tweed jackets and grey flannels, and had the bad habit of finishing each others sentences.

” Are you sure…”

” You want driving lessons…”

” Young man, because…”

” We are very…”

” Busy…”

” Very busy.”

I did manage to book one lesson with them but lost my nerve when the father turned-up in a three ton army truck that looked as if it still belonged to the army.

I was eventually taught to drive by a former World War II Lancaster Bomber pilot ( the charming man is still around) who used to correct my erratic steering by demanding more right or left rudder. Three point turns were always three point landings, and cyclists were invariably bandits at twelve, one, or three o’clock.

Next to the driving school was the WRVS ( Womens Royal Voluntary Service), whose members all used the hairdressers next door.

To the left of the WRVS was the Caledonian Society, who met on the same evening each week as The International Society of Friends, two door doors along, which was fine, unless the Caledonian Society had bagpipe practise, which was okay, unless The International Society of Friends had either a Juliet Greco or Jacques Brel record recital. Then it was wasn’t okay, just noisy.