Scope charity shop, Chapel Road
They skip past the brand new picnic blankets, unfathomably priced at twice the rate of supermarket ones, but still a rapidly reducing pile each time they visit. Ladies separates is the goal today, and they happily grab the best bits fast and make for the friendly blonde cashier. While she’s ringing up the bargains (two pairs of trousers for a tenner! One Top Shop and one M & S!), they ask the cash-desk volunteer: – “Is Worthing the New Brighton? Yes or No, and why?” The volunteer clearly knows her own thoughts and answer to this, but mulls over the best way to say it while she snips tags and wraps up, folding with all the delicacy of a fancy boutique. She makes eye contact and laughs, to minimise her own discomfort at being so bold and critical – hard for her as for many women, schooled in compliance and the politeness of ‘I don’t mind’. Handing over the bag, she responds, “I hope not! But I’m worried it might be … Not sure if we can trust the council. The pictures they have look like a completely different town – not Worthing. I don’t like it at all. You don’t have to build new buildings to make a place different”. “Good point”, they agree, as they leave, mulling this comment over.
‘Silent Monkey, Sleeping Woman’ – ink on paper. Gary Goodman.
Artwork by Gary Goodman.
“I make pictures and I write poems;
it’s a bad habit, it stops me getting bored.”
Gary Goodman : https://garygoodman.wordpress.com/