The Antique Market - eighteen units under one roof, though it's more like sixteen at the moment as one unit upstairs is empty and another unit holder at the front has just retired. The little cafe that was in there for a while has moved on, too.
The building used to be known as the "Atom Factory" back in the 1950s when some sort of electrical components were made there. The owner tried to burn the place down for the insurance, forgetting that the fire station was only just round the corner, so they arrived within minutes. He was Hay's other murderer (the most famous one being Herbert Rowse Armstrong). I'm afraid I've forgotten his name, but he was the pilot of a light aircraft that dumped a body over the Fens in the 1950s - when in Hay he used to claim that he had been an RAF fighter pilot during the War.
Meanwhile, just down the hill, Monica's has quietly packed up and disappeared. The clothes shop has been on the corner there for longer than I've been in Hay, and shot to brief notoriety when Bill Clinton visited Hay for the Festival.
3 comments:
Donald Hume owned the Little Atom Electrical Company. Ossie Lewis used to have the name plate from the company behind the bar at the Con Club.
His name was Stanley Settey.
Now I've been reminded of the name, I've looked it up. Donald Hume was the murderer, and Stanley Settey was the poor chap who was dumped in the English Channel.
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