After she had finished reading the notes she straightened up and looked at me with wet eyes
“There's just so much suffering in the world” she said “We've got it made in this country”
And so I stayed to chat with her. Her son plays in the Bedford Town Band and she's furious that the new Mayor wants to stop the River Festival. She doesn't like the new Mayor. I told her the new one is a Tory and asked if she liked the old Mayor. “Mayor Dave, yes, he was good.” I agreed. Dave is a Lib Dem and was Bedford's Mayor for 12 years.
I told her I liked the fact that empty shops are being used as art showcases and that in Chatham we'd had no public art, just cannon.
“Bah!” she said, “Weapons of war! That's not uplifting like art!”
I told her that some people think it's the Mayor's fault that we have so many empty shops but I think that it's the same everywhere and it's to do with Covid and Brexit and the Cost of Living and everyone doing their shopping online and she said “I hate that! It's much better getting out and about round town and going to the shops and buying things from people and talking to them.”
There wasn't anything she said I wanted to disagree with. What an absolute treasure.

The hankies that make up this panel vary in age, some are 100 years old and all have been used to wipe away real human tears.