The Pigeon, the Jewel, and the Money Mystery.

Uttoxeter is not a prosperous town. It shows in the predominating demeanour of its inhabitants, the almost total lack of anything you might call ‘stylish’, and the growing paucity of sustainable businesses. There’s a small parade of two-storey shop units which leads from the town’s main car park to the high street, in which only seven of the twenty five units are occupied.

And yet facing the top of this denuded and crumbling edifice to the free market principle is one of the town’s smartest buildings, a three storey Georgian house in near-impeccable condition. On the front of it, in big letters, it says:

RBA Wealth Management

In all the years I’ve been making regular shopping trips to Uttoxeter I’ve only ever seen one person go in there, and she looked like a member of staff. And so I’ve often been tempted to go in and ask just what it is they manage exactly. Maybe I will one day, but I doubt the place would have the sort of atmosphere I would be comfortable breathing.

*  *  *

I was sitting opposite it today when I spotted a group of three people crossing the high street. One was an old man who had so little control over his bodily movements that I imagined he was in the final stage of Parkinson’s. The walking stick he was carrying in his right hand was of no use at all, since he couldn’t hold it still for long enough to provide the necessary support. His support came from a young woman walking alongside him holding his hand, and I assumed she was his granddaughter or even his great-granddaughter. She was probably around twenty and unprepossessing to the casual observer, being devoid of make-up or any sense of style in hair or dress. And yet she was naturally attractive enough, and it occurred to me that she could have been surfing the mall with her friends in the city centres of Stoke or Derby instead of helping poor old granddad get about in little Uttoxeter.

I wanted to go over to her and say ‘Do you realise you’re something of a jewel?’ I didn’t because she was engaged in conversation with a middle aged woman on her other side, and my intervention would probably have embarrassed her. It seemed a shame because she probably didn’t realise that she had a laudable quality which had been noticed by at least one stranger. It’s been my experience in life that jewels rarely recognise their own glister. It’s mostly slithering invertebrates like Trump who think they’re something special.

*  *  *

Shortly afterwards I met Uttoxeter’s second pigeon. I’d seen two of them together earlier, and the one hanging around the benches clearly wasn’t Millie. No yellow leg ring.

‘Hello,’ I said. She strutted a few paces and then gave me a suspicious sideways glance. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

‘Dolores,’ said the pigeon.

‘That’s a nice name. Would you mind if I called you Dolly?’

Well, of course, we all know that birds are incapable of frowning, but she certainly sounded as though she was frowning when she replied:

‘What’s wrong with Dolores?’

‘Nothing at all. It’s just that we humans are lazy and prefer to cut out a syllable if at all possible. And it sounds friendlier, less formal. And it matches your friend Millie, with whom I saw you perambulating earlier.’

‘Oh, OK then. Have you got any food?’

‘Sorry, you’re too late. I ate it all earlier. But watch out for me next week and you’ll be welcome to share my lunch.’

‘OK.’ And then she wandered off down the high street.

‘Bye,’ I called after her. She didn’t reply.

And it’s all true. I don’t make any of this up, you know. And I never tell lies on my blog unless they’re sufficiently transparent as to be obvious.