Our town rises early. By the time farmers relieve their herds of milk, yesterday’s yield is on our table with the dailies, breaking yesterday’s news. Postmen have pigeonholed several tons of mail, stacked vans with parcels and packed their sacks for deliveries.

On my computer screen there as is usual, there is much evidence of activity in cyberspace: bloggers, spammers and hackers and updaters and e-mailers. It’s all graft.  In the background, the radio blathers on about this and that, papering over the cracks with speculation whenever facts run out or truth breaks down. For good and ill, much has changed swiftly in fifty years of our small town life. Yet, the basic human requirements for the living in small urban towns remain. We all need shelter, a regular income, food and space to take our leisure.

Where I live is deemed a dormer town, which means a routine of sleep here and toil elsewhere for the majority of students and working adults. Service and light industries are alive to the bust and competition but the boom is over. It is bread and butter time.

We were spared the pollution of factory development but, business parks better suited to the education of our population, elude us. House construction gathered momentum in the 1970s soared into the stratosphere of high prices in the ’90’s until its collapse in 2009. The rapid spread of concrete and asphalt over once green fields alarmed many.  The redevelopment of an old and dilapidated Victorian harbour, well past its usefulness, angered others but its construction continues.