WHISPERING SMITH: The vacant ex-post office

Well, the answer to that is easy, they are having a good time, enjoying themselves and providing a very necessary service to this little village with its haunting past situated just north of Angmering.

Neil and Mark spotted the vacant ex-post office, store-cum-Christian outreach centre when visiting the village just over a year ago, took out a lease at a peppercorn rent and literally set up shop there.

They sell milk and sugar and other daily essentials that many of us hope to find in our own corner shop, a good cup of coffee, snacks and play some nice music while you are drinking it. It is a sort of focal point and meeting place for the villagers but outsiders are made most welcome – never a muddy dog or dirty hiking boot turned away!

Special evenings such as Valentine’s Day are a feature and the pair served 14 meals from their tiny kitchen. Size didn’t seem to concern them and they treated it much as if serving the meal from a first-class kitchen on a BA flight!

A meeting place, a talking shop, a service, whatever, it is a very functional place. You can buy a card, a small locally made gift and even take your laptop and pick up their wifi.

Buy a bag of locally sourced charcoal or, soon to be available, a bag of llama poo, which, I am told, is far better than chicken or horse manure. The building was originally a brick showroom and the interior was very basic. Now, however, it is nicely rustic without being twee and was designed with the help of popular local builder, Douglas Kaighen, part Texan and part Birkenhead man who, sadly, recently passed away. It would be nice to think of him now though, sitting there on the small veranda on one of the rocking chairs gazing out across the rich green grass at the birds and the lovely old spreading chestnut tree that shelters The Junction from the southwesterly wind. Well, this is Clapham so he just might be…

cARRY ON PARKING

Here we go again, yet another consultation fee in the wind and this time it is about LA’s resident nightmare, residential parking.

Now, in theory, the idea of such a scheme at a moderate price seems quite attractive.

Think about it: you come home from work each evening and there in your street you find your very own parking spot.

Oh yeah? Of course not.

It may help to force visitors into the car parks but it will in no way guarantee you a parking place, there are just too many cars and not enough spaces. So, whatever the consultation costs us, it’s really a case of bolting horses and stable doors now, I am afraid.

Driving Miss Crazy

When it comes to being behind a steering wheel I am not without sin and having confessed that, I feel justified in relating the craziness I saw yesterday.

A young woman negotiating a busy LA roundabout one-handed while laughing into her mobile phone held in the other and a child passenger in the front bumper seat! What on Earth was she thinking?