This is the third part of my favourite places. If I were to name all my favourite places, I could make a list of 20 or 30 or even more – they would have been my favourite place at one specific time but for this set of posts, I’m sticking to places I’ve lived or spent many days, weeks, months or years in.

Place number three is Market Cross Cottage and the small town of West Malling in Kent. I have written about living in a small cottage in a busy High Street before (see The Market Cross Ghost, published in Oct. 2017) so, if you want details of the size, age, shape etc of that old home of mine, do please go back and read all about the ghost, the old prayer book etc etc. This evening I am concentrating on the town of West Malling.

In 1962, the young man I was going out with at the time lived in the small village of Wateringbury. To get home in the evening after attending the college we were both at, Tim had to take a train from Victoria Station in London to West Malling in Kent where one of his parents would pick him up for the short drive to Wateringbury.

Around ten years later Patty, my mother, decided we should move out of London and found a small cottage in the High Street of West Malling to buy. We all went to visit it and thought it was lovely and, some months later, we moved in. Living in the High Street was very convenient for a good many reasons – the shops were all at hand, there were several food shops including a ‘supermarket’ (really just a large self-service grocery store), there was an ‘off license’* next door to our house, several green grocers*, and, best of all, the library was just across the road! There were also, I seem to remember, something like 13 pubs!

The High Street changed a fair bit during the first few years we lived there. The ‘supermarket’ closed down and, sometime later that shop became a travel agent. The Fire Station and one of the pubs, up the road, were knocked down and a large shop called Cartier’s opened selling many frozen foods (including, during a short time one happy summer, Popsicles! (an American ice lolly on two sticks) We bought several lots before autumn, as I recall.

There were a few very useful shops in those first years which disappeared later – a large shop which sold gifts and stationery which also had a printing shop at the back; a takeaway Chinese restaurant just beyond the library; Briggs’ shop, which sold cigarettes, sweets and assorted items one tends to run out of after all the other shops have closed for the night. Mr Briggs stayed open until 9 o’clock every night, (and it fed my addiction to dark chocolate caramels during one long winter!) There was also a small department store called Viners, which took up several shop premises, upstairs and down. In later years Viners Undertakers was the last department still there, in one end of those premises, the others having been leased or bought by various other businesses.

Another shop which has disappeared, at least from the corner of Swan Street, was Baldocks. Baldocks sold a whole range of useful items like ex-army(?) bags in a green/khaki colour which were very useful as across-body handbags for us poor students, also jeans, army type jumpers, socks etc etc.

There was a launderette, a sweet shop, a news agency, a few restaurants, a few hairdressers, several estate agents, the aforementioned pubs, dress shops, gift shops, and – later on – two very useful charity shops where we did much of our Christmas shopping when our salaries didn’t seem to go far enough.

West Malling is where I first met Julian whose younger brother and father I had met earlier that year. Ralph, Julian’s dad, was an architect. He spotted a building just across the road from our house that needed saving and bought it. It had been the town’s Assembly Rooms at one time and, before it closed down, had been a toy shop but was, in the mid 70s, quite derelict.

Rumours spread about what the building would be used for. When I heard that it was going to be a wine-bar, my ears perked up! I was a primary school teacher and rarely met any new adults – I was too shy to go to pubs by myself and didn’t have a wide range of friends in the town. I decided that it would be good to get out of the house in the evening, once or twice a week, and work as a waitress in the wine bar. Other people who worked there were Ralph’s sister-in-law, Jackie, who was the brilliant chef and Julian’s youngest brother, Damien, who variously, ran the cellar bar and worked as a navvy on the building, We were joined by ‘Veronica’ who worked in the kitchen and ‘Betty’ who, like me, was a part-time waitress.

There were other waitresses, of course and other kitchen hands, also a bar manager, Charles, to whom I said, one Friday night in September1981, “Tonight Mr ‘Right’ is going to come in.”

And he did!

Sixteen years and several homes after that night, Julian and I moved back to West Malling, to open our Antique shop and Upholstery/Furniture Restoration workshop. We bought a building which had been one of the vast array of pubs, right next door to the old Assembly Rooms and directly across the street from Market Cross Cottage.

Those sixteen years had seen many changes in the High Street and were to see a fair few in the next seven years when we packed up our shop/business and moved away to the seaside.

*Off License – a shop selling alcohol in its various forms.

*Greengrocer – a shop selling fruit and vegetables.