Pondering

Wigton Market Hall at 6.45pm. We were about to join the queue for entry to a place that Gordon was last inside, probably around 1965.

I know Wigton quite well, but Gordon knows it very well as, many years ago, he came here every day on the bus from Silloth to attend the Grammar School and the Market Hall was where they had Speech Days etc. So why are we here now?

To the same school came Melvyn Bragg (he was in the sixth form when Gordon started) and, as his new book is all about Wigton as he remembered it growing up, he is appearing here tonight to talk to the local people he still knows well. I bought Gordon the book a few days ago and he has been reading it with great interest ever since. In fact, whilst I sit here watching the place fill up with local people (many buying the book!), he has gone for a wander to remind himself of places mentioned that he had forgotten.


Later
It is now 10.30 and we are home. A lovely evening. There were so many people there, probably most of Wigton, and Melvyn’s talk was very well received. He tells a good tale. He told one tale and a lady in the audience said - ‘that was my dad!’

The interesting thing is that Melvyn wrote all of this from memory. It was during lockdown and he had been seriously ill, so he did no research. He said that the more he tried to remember, the more the memories came flooding back.

There was a rush to buy the book afterwards, but Gordon gathered with a few others who already had a copy to get it signed. (See extra.)