On a Thursday, I do book keeping work for the Strawberry Fox in the Cross Keys. It's a very old building, and as well as being difficult to heat, it also has very strange accoustics. So even though I'm not on the shop floor, and the door between the shop and the back office is usually closed, I can clearly hear most of what goes on in the shop.

 

This is often entertaining, mostly mundane, and sometimes - like today - a bit shocking.

 

This week, Simon Wood (one of the owners of the Strawberry Fox) sent a letter into the Journal about the Sunday free parking in the city centre. Simon read it out to us before he sent it, and it sounded to me like a very well put together piece saying (in short) that the free parking was a good idea, and that he was disappointed in the comments of two councillors who had voted against it. The closing comment was that one councillor had complained the free parking was a "knee-jerk publicity-seeking gesture" - but, said Simon, how could that be the case when there had been no publicity as yet?

 

This morning, I was shocked to hear the voice of a Salisbury City councillor in the shop, apparently harangueing Theresa (Mrs Strawberry Fox) about the content of the letter. He seemed to take the letter as having a negative view of the free parking, and was not happy that it did not thank the city councillors for their work in the initiative; especialy when Theresa is always so vocal about parking charges in the city. He also seemed to think the letter was complaining about the lack of publicity for the venture, which he didn't think was fair considering the decision had only been finalised a few days before the first Sunday where parking was free. He then began to demand a follow-up letter next week.

I took a sneaky peek out of the stock room door, only to see two customers hastily leaving the shop. This was shortly followed by Theresa asking said councillor to leave her shop immediately. Although she had stood up for herself, she was clearly shaken at being verbally attacked in her own shop, in front of her customers, over something that seemed so clearly to be a misunderstanding.

We were all outraged by this. We tweeted the council to tell them how disgusted we were, and other people who had seen or heard about the disagreement also voiced their distaste. The owner of a local bar (who knows Theresa purely through her quiet, sober chats in the corner, I'm sure) brought her in a take-away cup of wine to cheer her up, which was touching.

A little later on, I read the Salisbury Journal and found that the same councillor who had been so aggrieved by Simon's letter to the paper had also been singled out later in the paper, by a columnist who seems to disagree with the free parking on the principle that actually, we'll all end up paying for it ourselves, since the money has come out of the City Council's funds. I don't know enough about the situation to know why this particular councillor was singled out in that way - perhaps it was all his idea, or he's the poster child for the idea, or he was just the one who provided the quote for the announcement; who knows. But I started thinking that perhaps that article was what had upset him so much, and he'd misunderstood the letter in the paper, or mixed up the authors, or was just plain in such a bad mood and needed to let off some steam.

Either way, I sent a message to Theresa to tell her that the man in question was featured in the paper. Her response? "he's just been in with a bunch of flowers and an apology." 

 

Originally, this blog post was going to be all about how terrible was that this City Councillor had come in and attacked a local business woman in her shop, scaring off customers and causing her upset rather than having a quiet discussion. 

Yes, it was a bit horrible. Theresa was upset by the discussion they had and the man himself was clearly not at his happiest. But two good things came out of today's incident. Firstly, the councillor apologised, and they are now friends again, both passionate about Salisbury and helping our city to flourish and grow. They were both more or less of the same opinion to start with, and I'm sure they've probably well and truly cleared the air now. How many people do you know who are willing to admit they were wrong and apologise - and so quickly?

The second thing? Well, free wine is never a bad thing, is it! 

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Readers who submit articles must agree to our terms of use. The content is the sole responsibility of the contributor and is unmoderated. But we will react if anything that breaks the rules comes to our attention. If you wish to complain about this article, contact us here