Loafers’ Wall

There’s so much history in this photograph.
Loafers’s Wall (I’ve no idea if it has a proper name) was built in 1914 and for many years men used to lean on the wall looking over and putting the world to rights. A personal memory from the late1960s relates to when I worked at the Income Tax Office which was at the bottom of Fountain Street but also occupied The Annexe which was on the top floor of the granite building which is part of the markets. Our boss had a limp and used a cane and every lunchtime he used to walk down the right hand side of Loafers Wall and swing round at the bottom (where I’m standing). Monty Python’s Ministry of Funny Walks was on TV and we would fall about likening our poor limping boss to the Monty Python character…
On the roof of the annexe you may spot the lightening conductor which is shaped like a tobacco leaf. This symbolizes the way the building of the markets was financed; partly from Impôt duty on tobacco products and partly from quantitive Easing (printing money which was later destroyed when repaid).
I shall give further history of the area another day but the postie has just made my day! A good few months before Covid hit China I wrote off to the Army, enclosing a cheque for £30 requesting my late father’s army records. I never heard anything and never did anything about it.
Today these records have arrived!
A big wad of papers, a photograph and an apology. They were badly affected by Covid and unable to operate for best part of two years. Then had to catch up all the backlog. And of course my cheque was out of date so a request for a replacement which I’ll happily send right away.
So guess what I’ll be doing today!