Seen at Starbucks

Waiting a while outside a coffee shop I was intrigued by this couple, an odd couple to my mind. Both deep in a broadsheet newspaper they exchanged not a word. They were most unseasonably dressed for it was a sweltering day and while passers-by were mostly in Tshirts and shorts, these two were heavily encumbered with clothing. He has on a tweed jacket, thick trousers and high Chelsea boots of shiny chestnut leather. She's also clad for a chilly day even though she's removed several layers of designer garments already. Her extraordinary headgear (wig? hat?) gamely cocks a snook at the age her face betrays. Are they odd, or only to my eyes? My best guess is they have arrived early in the city and are marking time until their hotel room is ready. Where else to do that but Starbucks? Such an all-American institution, the word redolent of nationalism and of profit, the stars and the bucks. And with a name-check to the old whaling families of New England, Quakers and pioneers.

Not many miles from where I live in Wales is the harbour town of Milford Haven. It was itself a designer town, unusually for Britain laid out on a small-scale grid pattern, established by the great railway engineer Brunel and intended as a major fishing port and naval dockyard. To kickstart the enterprise several Quaker whaling families were invited over from Nantucket to bring their families and their expertise. They settled in West Wales for a few generations and their graves remain in Milford's Quaker burial ground to this day, marked with minimalistic restraint of course, simply with initials - S for Starbuck, F for Folger and so on. Milford has long hit the hard times, there's little fishing now, unemployment's high and it's a remote destination. No Starbucks coffee there.