Dennis Gould at his market stall in The Shambles

We’ve had a gorgeous sunny spring day, but Woodpeckers and I have been stuck indoors at our stalls in The Shambles Indoor Market. There was a good footfall around town as the renowned Stroud Farmers’ Market attracts people from far and wide, but sadly wallets and purses tended to stayed rather shut. Even so just today I spoke to customers from London, Shoreham, Brighton, Chipping Sodbury, Birmingham, Bristol, Swindon, Gloucester, Cheltenham, Nottingham and even a young couple on holiday from Boston, Massachusetts, USA. 

At lunchtime I nipped out with my camera for a breath of fresh air, and snapped a few pictures. As I returned from the nearby High Street I spotted Dennis Gould at his book and print stall at the entrance to The Shambles. I went over to say hello as I hadn’t been able to do so at the recent Wayzgoose event two weekends ago, where letterpress printers had gathered. Dennis is a wonderful and much loved part of Stroud, renowned for his relentless activity as a peace campaigner, letterpress printer – particularly of posters and poems – and performing poet.

Tonight there is a special event to end the Stroud Film Festival where a film about him titled ’The last cuckoo’ will be shown at the Stroud Subscription Rooms. You can read all about the event here on the Film Festival's website. We saw the film at its premiere at Dennis' last and 84th birthday party.

When I quickly spoke to Dennis he said he was sorry that he hadn’t got tonight’s event organiser to invite Helena to perform on stage with them, as she has done many many times in the past. As it turns out she is very tired tonight and is quite glad not to have to go onstage!

Today Dennis gave me a copy of a brand new poem written by Jeff Cloves, his great friend and co-founder of the Riff-Raff poets, which Dennis printed at his workshop yesterday. I have added it as an ‘Extra’ picture, but I’m writing the text here as well for clarity. Dennis has printed it on an old Ordnance Survey map. It is titled ’No laughing matter’ by Jeff Cloves, and is set in upper case.

’No laughing matter’

TIN POT PUTIN
SAT IN HIS KGB
CORNER EATING
HIS POISONOUS
PIE. HE PUTIN
HIS THUMB AND
PULLED OUT A
BOMB AND SAID
WHAT A GOOD
BOY AM I

Jeff Cloves 2022