A Collection of Characters

I was going up the little road at the side of the Wheatsheaf when I met Brian and the two Staffies, so I stopped to thank him for the loan of a video. He'd lent me Timeslip, a 1970 children's serial (black and white!), starring Denis Quilley as a 1940 naval commander and 1970 physicist. Brian does some book dealing by post, so we moved on from children's TV to talk about the relatives of various authors that he's sold books to, like the son of John Creasey, and a Mr Simenon in Switzerland.
Rob Soldat cycled up then, just out of the library where he'd been telling stories about amber. He showed us a couple of pieces from the Baltic, including one with a fossilised fly inside it.
And as we were talking about Whitby and Gdansk, an old chap walked by, and Brian said: "My hero!" explaining that he had been a Sherman tank driver in the Second World War. There then followed a very technical discussion of Sherman and Tiger tanks (way over my head).
I'm sure this sort of eclectic conversation could only take place in the back streets of Hay!