Addicted to cafes
Chatterbox cafe 2015
Six degrees of separation kicks in yet again. One minute I’m sitting passing the time with a stranger over coffee on a cold winter morning, the next I discover she was my current managing editor’s number two for countless years.
It’s amazing how convivial sitting at a communal table can be, particularly if a hot drink and cake are involved. I have been addicted to community cafes for over forty years. They have ranged from squatted tea rooms close to the tracks at Willesden Junction to a small roadside cafe much-loved by bikers in County Durham.
What do they have in common? Tasty fare, good conversation, a warm welcome and the opportunity to make new friends. A recent favourite is Skittle Alley, started by friends George Williams and Lindsay Elder in the extension at the back of the Black Lion pub, site of a vintage skittle alley reputedly enjoyed by vintage Hollywood stars.
They started it, says George, “because our corner shop had been closed for twelve years and I noticed that we had got a lot of people of all ages, whether it be young mothers at home with small babies, or older men and women on their own, who wanted somewhere local to buy bread and other essentials but which would also act as a community hub.”
And this is exactly what it has turned out to be. Strangers sit down at the long trestle table, tuck into toast and home-made marmalade and tea or coffee, and soon strike up a conversation over the scattered newspapers.
It’s possible to keep tabs on those who are a bit frailer than others without intruding – because George acknowledges that independence is a quality that should be admired rather than chipped away at. And it has proved a welcome stop-off for those undergoing chemo and less able to walk far, and those suffering from bike accidents (there have been a fair number of both recently).
For there is something life–changing about community cafes. This summer while on holiday in County Durham we stumbled upon the Chatterbox Cafe in St Johns Chapel. Started by Cameron and Anne Marie Gordon some two and a half years ago as as a rehab venture after Cameron, a service designer, had suffered a stroke, it is now a thriving cafe popular with bike and motor enthusiasts, not to mention the local community and tourists.
Anne Marie told me that they’d started, on the first day, with a Breville toaster and a coffee maker. Now they have had to staff up, arrange rotas, produce a changing daily menu, constant free coffee top ups and breakfasts to die for. We were staying in accommodation nearby, and it became our first port of call in the morning. Indeed, our dog was adopted by the locals.
Previously the premises had been empty for three years, and other cafes on the site just hadn’t managed to make a success of the location. But a community cafe? Well, that’s a different beast.
Cameron holds the key to the church opposite, and allows locals to hold yoga classes there out of hours. A cafe that captures the heart of the community and those of itinerant passers-by is one to be cherished.