Stroud Farmers' Market: Ealing Studios

The script seemingly comes from the Ealing Studios, late 1940s or early 50s. 

Over there, I can see the ‘little man’, or woman, personifying good old fashioned English virtues of independence, self-reliance and a love of the community. Oh look! Here comes the other stock in trade of this genre; it’s the overbearing council with its overweening bureaucracy and overly obedient devotion to modernity. This is Ealing Studios land: ‘Passport to Pimlico’ or ‘The Titfield Thunderbolt’.

Who can forget Mrs. Pemberton’s lines in ‘Passport to Pimlico’? 

"We've always been English and we'll always be English; and it's precisely because we are English that we're sticking up for our right to be Burgundians!" Good old Betty Warren.

In the context of Stroud, the lines should probably be thus, however: "We've always been English and we'll always be English; and it's precisely because we are English that we're sticking up for our right to be Gerbians!" Good old Gerb. Good old Stroud.

As for ‘The Titfield Thunderbolt’, who can forget the Reverend Weech’s and Squire Gordon Chesterford’s famous dialogue?

RW: ‘They can’t close our line. It’s unthinkable.’

SGC: ‘What about the old Canterbury-Whitstable Line? They closed that down.’

RW: ‘Perhaps there were not men of sufficient faith in Canterbury.’

Well, there are certainly sufficient women and men of sufficient faith in Stroud.

So let’s hope for farce not tragedy in Stroud.

We want to see ‘Spinach Galore’ and Gerb starring in ‘The Rodborough Hill Mob’, followed by ‘Queue and Buy’, ‘Cabbage Hearts and Carrot Nets’ and ‘The Woman in the Boiler Suit’. We don’t want to see ‘The Market-killers’ at all. 

It’s hopeless. Rubbish.