About five years ago I told my “Spalding” friend that I thought Spalding should have some bye-laws about the sizes of shop window panes and the size and colours of shop lettering in the town.
She called me a very rude word which meant that she thought I was being interfere-y. Friends are like that.
There are some very nice looking shops in Spalding and some awful, awful ones.
So I think no window pane should be larger than 30 inches by ten inches, no lettering should be higher than five inches, and the allowed colours should be black, brown, maroon, navy blue, dark green, grey, gold, silver and white.
Yes, I’m afraid that I do mean that red and lime green and orange just have to go.
A town council should have the power to tell a shop to smarten itself up within, say, one or two years.
Spalding is in England, so all the shops in Spalding are actually English and this letter is definitely not a side-swipe at Indian or Chinese or Turkish or Eastern European or anyone else people who run shops or eating places in the town.
Rather, it is a call for you to just stand still and look at the commercial buildings in Spalding, at the higher storeys as well as the ground floor windows, and think how a relatively small effort could make many of them much more pleasant to look upon.
Think how you would improve them. Look at the net curtains at Elderkins and Masons Models. Today they are all matching and they look clean.
What about others above the shops? Look at the things stashed against upper windows. Could they look better?
(Non sequitor – and what’s more, interfere-y or not, I think the statutory school-leaving age should be lowered to 14).
Frances Richardson
Hungate Lane
Surfleet
