HAVE we got an overall plan for Blackburn. If we have, where is it? Oh and can we see it? For at the moment it seems a little like we are making it up as we go along.

Most local towns, you know, Bolton, Preston, Wigan etc. have a main street, we haven't got a high street or a main thoroughfare that folk can walk or drive down in order to find out where everything is.

I know we have a ring road but that takes people away from the town centre, I just can't imagine people driving down Barbara Castle Way saying 'Oh my! Look what a very interesting little town let's drive all the way round this one way system and have a look'.

Surely all the bits and pieces for Church Street could have been ordered and all ready at the start. The impact would have been so much better if the statues and so on, were to be in place when all the flagging and work was completed. It's starting to look like Church Street is becoming Blackburn's Millennium Dome.

Good use could be made of the street though, we could perhaps try to create the feel of the old type market, towns that have done that like Ripon are certainly busy.

We could let our market traders have stalls, and if there wasn't room for all of them then we could have say 20 stalls on Wednesday, and a different 20 Friday and Saturday, that would liven it up a bit, and if we made it a proper Lancashire market with local goods and produce, it would be a big attraction and bring folk, and life back into the town again (the market would have to want to do it of course) the pubs on Church Street could open at lunch time and then bingo -- you have your 'Cafe Society',

As a girl I used to stand on the old cobbled market square selling coats, and if you can get a Lancashire Lass to take off her coat to try one on in the middle of winter on a open market you've got to be good. We used to have a rail of 'purpose' coats, they were for ladies that were 'so-so' and they endeavoured to hide their bumps, always wore smocks, and were advised by all the ladies magazines to wear big bows at the throat in order to draw the attention towards the face, which they were assured would be 'glowing' with fulfilment.

But I digress, what I always thought a little odd was the way ordinary honest, hard-working women would ask the price of the coat and then pay for it without trying to knock it down, whereas the better off woman who could afford it, would say 'how much for cash' and she would get a bit off. It seemed so unfair.

But of course, it taught me that if you don't ask you don't get.

I remember going in Roy Marlow's when it was on King William Street, it was when Mr Green was there, my husband was buying a suit, but in the window there was a camel coat with a reddish fur collar, which I thought was just the job, I asked 'how much for that coat?', 'Twenty pounds, it's a good one' he replied, so I said I'll tell you what, I'll give you fifteen', 'This, Mrs Grimshaw' he said very stiffly 'is not a market place but a high class gents outfitters'.

So I left it where it was, I can tell you I was quite chuffed when that coat appeared in his sale window later in the year, and I must admit I took a great delight in keep popping my heading and saying 'bet you wish you'd have taken my offer'.

Childish I know but I enjoyed it all the same.

Years later he and I used to meet in the street and he'd shout 'Margo! I've still got that bloody coat' which makes me think maybe a pound in the hand is better than two in the window.