6th March 2026
I had arranged to meet Stephen Cooper at a coffee shop in Trowbridge. We reconnected recently on LinkedIn, as I was in the area I thought it would be good to meet up.
He was the Director of Manufacturing at Herman Miller but left in 2007.
This meant I had to travel to Trowbridge, a place with a dodgy reputation. It’s the kind of apocalyptic town where even Mad Max would say, “ What a shit hole”
I got to the bus stop in plenty of time, the driver wasn’t a happy soul, there was a grunt of recognition, but that was about as much interaction I got.
The bus started on its journey, no sooner as it got up to speed it had to stop at the next stop.
In fact the stops were so close together you could see them. Why there were so many? Maybe the council awarded regular passengers their own stop outside their homes, it was a bit ridiculous, but it just added to the excitement of getting to Trowbridge.
I was early, so I walked around the town looking at what was left, so many empty shops and ones selling cheap junk. The place felt depressing, which was a shame, I remembered when it was quite a bustling town, it had a brewery, a sausage factory and well established department stores, but that’s all gone.
By now I was dying to use the toilet, I knew there was one at the shopping centre. Another victim of redundancy, all the good shops had moved out leaving places where people can trade things for cash.
I followed the signs for the toilets, there was a notice on the door”Closed due to vandalism”
How bad can things get when someone vandalises a toilet.
By now the time of the meet was drawing close, I made my way to the coffee shop called Leykers. It used to be a computer shop that I had used an a few occasions. The place looked pleasant, and they had a toilet, in I went, ordered a drink and a toasted tea cake, I was letting the boat out.
I found a comfy seat, the most comfortable furniture piece in the whole place, although once I sat in it I sank below the level of the table. It must have been amazing for others to see just my hands on the table.
It was now past the meeting time, I checked everyone entering, most were old ladies, the whole of the downstairs was occupied by them, I was the only guy. I protected the spare chair in the hope that Stephen would arrive soon.
Well I waited over half an hour, and there was no sign, not even a message, so I finished the dregs of my coffee, got up and left, disappointed that I had wasted my time.
I walked to the bus stop, it arrived, I sat upstairs, then a message appeared on my phone apologising that he had marked it down for Friday of the next week. We rescheduled for another day, hopefully that will go better, but I will have to suffer Trowbridge again.
Another Lifetime to go 