Wartocracy

For some reason, I got it into my head the other day that I would like to take a look at the memorial garden which was planted on the site of the demolished Horton Hospital water tower.

Despite the fact that I had visited the site a number of times in the past, my first attempt, on Sunday was a failure, with the only positive results being that I worked out that Horton Crescent was a good ring road around the housing estate on the site of Horton Hospital and that Manor Cresent is a bad ring road round around that on the site of Manor Hospital. To be fair, Horton Hospital was the neater of the two in the first place.

Today, I armed myself with both a satellite picture from gmaps and the maps on my telephone and eventually tracked the memorial down, illustrated above, with the plaque on the brick pier giving a little potted history of the hospital and its place in the world. Ten of out ten to whoever organised it; nothing flash, but a decent and sensible memorial. Rather more positive, four years down the line, than I was at reference 4. Plants which didn't make it have gone, plants which did have settled in and the place as a whole is neat and tidy.

Along the way I noticed a TQuality wagon pulling into Horton Retail, no doubt servicing the fish and chip shop there, the place where we had a good experience quite recently. As it happens, the last time that I noticed TQuality was outside another excellent fish and chip shop in Ilfracombe, North Devon. See references 1 and 2.

Also a middle sized caravan in a front garden, which appeared to be in residential use. I would not be too impressed if someone tried that down our road.

And then, in Ewell Village, apparently outside a charity shop, there was a much smaller lorry, more Luton size, from World of Books, people from whom I buy secondhand books, from time to time, for not much more than the postage. I get to them through Amazon. Reference 3 suggests they are big in the world of second hand books and it seems quite likely that they might do business of some sort with charity shops, perhaps as either buyer or seller, depending on circumstances, but I did not like to ask the driver who looked to be too well engrossed in his newspaper.

I then thought of the book flavoured unit/warehouse in Blenheim House, Blenheim Road, Epsom, but google suggests that this was a company called 'Books at Work', now defunct. Must check next time I am down Longmead Road, probably tomorrow.

Reference 1: http://www.tquality.co.uk/.

Reference 2: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=fish+ilfracombe.

Reference 3: http://www.worldofbooks.com/.

Reference 4: http://pumpkinstrokemarrow.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=wartocracy.