Corsham

The little town of Corsham, Wiltshire - close to Bath - used to be dominated by Corsham Court, seat of Lord Methuen. His lasting legacy was supposed to be the Art School he hosted on the grounds of his estate, but has become the peacocks which strut around the streets holding up traffic and making the place look pretty.

I once saw one standing at the edge of a zebra crossing, looking both ways until the traffic came to a halt and it leisurely strolled from one side of the street to the other like any other pedestrian.

Corsham used to be home to hundreds of white doves or pigeons too, but they all seem to have disappeared at once for no obvious reason. I suspect fowl play by the shopkeepers.

The town is only a couple of miles from my workshop so I quite often visit it, sometimes just to have a cup of tea at the cafe which this peacock is passing. Corsham is a strange sort of place. If it were in Oxfordshire, the dozens of very pretty 17th century stone houses would make it a town for the wealthy, but it is populated in the main by poor people with ailments and illnesses which keep them out of work and the pharmacy in business.

As I sit outside the cafe, I see many locals going into the chemist with sticks and zimmer-frames, then coming out with armfuls of prescription drugs to last them for the week ahead. I don't think I have seen such a concentration of sick people in such a small area before.

Poor people are always more likely to get sicker earlier than the rich, so this fits with Corsham. I don't know why, but you wouldn't see queues at a pharmacy in any other beautiful Cotswold town.

The last time I was there, I went into the pharmacy to buy some aspirin. I was served by a very serious and grave woman who withheld the box of pills (58p) just out of reach until I had answered a few questions. Was I on any anti-coagulant medication? Did I suffer from any of the following complaints? Did I know that these tablets were 300 milligram and not 75? I felt as if I were buying heroin.

A few years ago, Corsham by night was a dangerous place to be. A friend of mine was beaten unconcsious by a gang of drunk men, just for being on the street after dark.

Right. I'm off to pick up the latest Volvo. The wind outside has just started gusting at gale-force and furniture is being blown down the street. We may have to dodge falling trees.