Tower and Town, February 2024

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Editorial

From time to time someone surveys the towns of England and we find that Marlborough comes in the top ten of the most-something-or-other places to live. So we feel smug for a bit because a newspaper finds that we are contented with our town or good at community relations.

I wondered partly to what extent businesses here have us, the public, in mind. So I put myself about recently, not in any systematic way but just to get a few snapshots. The results for what they are worth are inside these covers. They are not intended to be advertisements.

I got in touch with some new arrivals: The Funghi Club, Sassy and Boo, and Vinegar Hill in the High Street and Mrs Brown’s Bakes. I tried to be positive and not judgemental, and I apologize if I have omitted a business that you think – or they think - deserved a visit and a mention.

I went to Fermoie because they were the Lit Fest’s lead sponsors in 2023, to Greatwood because they are there for young humans as well as old horses, to The Green Machine Company because they save stuff in this world of waste, and to David Chandler who knows the history of the town and writes about the Free family. ARK is just one of the voluntary and charitable organizations who do so much here. And if you’d like to find what it was like in the floods of 1947 go to the Tower and Town archive online and look up Muriel Cobern’s reminiscence published in April 2019.

We welcome the Gardening Association, who send the first of what will be regular contributions, and thank the Reekies, who are the only people I know in Marlborough who know Gaza. Huge thanks to all the contributors and for their stunning photographs.

John Osborne