It's very easy for us to get to Grantham. This Lincolnshire market town is just a few minutes down the LNER line from Newark. The new trains are Azumas, and the company seems very proud of them.




Grantham has many famous associations: Physicist and mathematician Isaac Newton attended the local grammar school; Edith Smith, the first policewoman in Britain to have powers of arrest, was posted here during the First World War; and "broadcasting legend" Nicholas Parsons, who died this very day, was born here.

But beyond a doubt, the town's most famous scion is Margaret Thatcher, Britain's first woman prime minister.



It seems she divided Grantham just as she divided the country.

Stephen McClarence reported in 2017 on a conversation in the Grantham Conservative Club:

"Do you have a framed photograph of Baroness Thatcher on show, I ask Dawn Hedworth, the club stewardess. 'We used to, but we took it down,' she says. 'People would sometimes come in, see it and go straight out.' So where is it now? 'In the snooker room. In a cupboard.'"

A hairdresser a few doors down from the famous grocer's shop "remembers Alfred Roberts habitual brown overall and the solid red coffee grinder at the far end of his shop. What about his famous daughter? What did Grantham people think about her? 'Not a lot,' they chorus. 'I've yet to discover an older person who has a nice word to say for her,' says Della. 'She turned her back on our little town and people who remembered her said she was aloof even as a girl'..."

She obviously never had the common touch.

My mother, who despised all Tory prime ministers, had a particular animus towards this one. She especially hated the mantle of "ordinary-folk" solidarity Thatcher assumed by virtue of having a grocer for a father. Mum, who had experienced real poverty in her childhood, would spit: "People in retail weren't poor." Dad, on the other hand, harboured more than a little admiration... Of course, being Manx, they had their own representatives to vote for, so the discussion was purely academic.

The divided opinion in our household (I was totally with Mum on this one) is mirrored by the polarization Thatcher still induces in the UK.

Divisions extend even to the statue of the former PM, which was rejected by Westminster councillors, and is now heading to Grantham. Local police are worried it will be a perennial target for vandals (which is why it will have an especially high plinth...).

To date, the statue has not appeared. But they seem to be preparing the site...




Having got all that out of the way, I must point out that we actually weren't in Grantham for the Thatcher trail.

We were there to admire St Wulfram's. Named after a 7th-century missionary, and dating back to Norman times, this beautiful church has one of the tallest spires in the country, and a stunning 15th-century font.







We were there to walk the banks of the River Witham.




We were there to drink coffee at the Guildhall.



And we were there for lunch. We had no prior plans, and opted for Barkers Cafe. It serves good old-fashioned fare, such as gammon and eggs, or roast pork. The ample portions were very tasty, with good-quality ingredients and reasonable prices.


Sadly, this coming Sunday, the cafe, which has been running for 12 years, will be closing its doors for good. The operators, according to the cards on the tables, are very conscious of the pressures of the contemporary high street, and feel it is time to do something different.

As various habitual customers dropped by for lunch and a farewell conversation, we picked up a fair amount of information about the concerns of small businesses in this town and beyond.

It is fairly clear that the UK high street is struggling.

Local council policy, the availability or otherwise of car-parking facilities, the threat from big supermarkets and other outlets, the demands of labour law, the vagaries of leases -- all these factors have an impact, over which business-owners have little control.

So, good luck to the Barkers Cafe folks. We wish them well.