Things are better nearer home, where we can see how nice the area in front of the town hall is going to be.

I was beginning to forget what it looked like, but it's looking good.

But at the risk of repeating myself I do feel it's vital that we have an open-air market like all the small towns that have retained their prosperity, vitality, and character - for example Clitheroe. Skipton, Omskirk, and Preston.

Needless to say the shops nearby do well.

My first job was 'standing' Blackburn Market whilst still at school.

I could only do Saturdays but I loved it.

My Manchester boss said if you could get canny Lancashire women to take off their coats and try the ones you're selling in the middle of winter you can sell anything.

But what did always puzzle me was how ordinary, hard- working women would never ask: "Are you going to knock anything off for cash," yet the posh ones from up Preston New Road (as it was then) would and as a rule they got it.

It taught me a lesson: always ask.

My Manchester market boss taught me a great deal about business.

"Margo," he'd say, "be smart but don't ever be greedy.

"If you always leave something on the table for the other man and he will then trust you and bring you business back."

That was very good advice, for whether it's business or pleasure your credibility is everything.

We had lots of fun on the markets. We'd moan at the crowded Tommy Ball stall because we'd be all quiet, but as soon as we'd 'cracked it' and made a sale, I'd be sent off for a bag of shrimps from the Morecambe Bay ladies who wore funny bonnets and called out to passers-by: "Hey Ladies, us husbands 'as grown um."

Meaning the tomatoes and lettuce of course, not the shrimps.

Then folk who were a bit short of cash would go round the fruit, veg and meat stalls just as they were packing up in order to buy 'lap ups' - collections of stuff that the stall-holder would sell cheaply as he knew they wouldn't keep till next week.

But my big treat was the delights of the tuppenny stall'.

I would look over their stock and gloat to myself that I could actually buy anything, anything at all, that was on show.

All of it, all of it, was within my reach. Very heady stuff that.