Country Life
By IAN NIALL MARKET day always seems to me to be one of the most solid traditions of country life. It goes back so far that I doubt if anyone could say exactly when the practice of bringing produce and livestock into the town for barter or sale really began. On a journey the other day I passed through two market towns where markets were in progress and a third where the market had been held some days before, and I was struck once again by the contrast between the activity in the first two and the sleepiness of the third. If there is one thing that shows outstanding change in the country market towns I knew as a child, it is the congestion caused by cars. The people are the same. The stalls and itinerant traders are much the same too, although they offer a greater assortment of overalls and clothing of the 'war disposal' sort. The same cheapjacks are there and the same audience of so obviously rural folk ready to be entertained. Forgetting the lines of cars and the incon- gruity of the cinema looking down on the old stone cross, one might be excused for half-hoping to see a long-dead relative or friend wending his way through the crowd, and the illusion of time having no meaning persists, if one begins to daydream, until a screaming jet aeroplane goes rushing through the heavens. One realises then that there are no ponies in the mews to be terrified by the disturbance and the old men of yesterday are not listening to the auctioneer today.
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