Coffee Pot, Guildhall Shopping Centre

With L, my uncle, and my mum, we had coffee in this long-running cafe near the entrance to the Guildhall Shopping Centre.

I can remember this place back in 1984 when I first arrived in Exeter and was a student at the college in Hele Road (for just three months, of course). Nowadays, its customers are mainly middle aged going on old. It should suit the three of us very well then.

There is a very attractive young foreign lady behind the counter and she is later joined by her friend who arrives by bicycle, parking just outside, next to the old granite pillar at W H Smiths. Nearby, two people are in conversation about foreign affairs and economics, an unusual subject for most people these days.

A man arrives, sits down, lights his cigarette and starts to read some business documents. He looks a friendly chap, deep in his own thoughts. I recognise him instantly as the owner/proprietor of Queen Street News, which he must've run for the past twenty years, at least. Whenever I have been in that shop, he has always been there, though his assistants come and go.

Of course, Queen Street has seen a number of changes since the mid-1980s. The old C&A department store shut down about four years ago, replaced by a Tesco Metro store, direct competition for the Queen Street News man. He also has to compete with the forlorn Costcutter in the Central Station arcade; that's two newsagents selling stuff cheaper than him. However, he seems to manage okay. Actually, he's also got the Sainsbury's metro store in the Guildhall to compete with, too.

'The pound now buys two American dollars.' The older man is talking to someone else sitting back to the window. This is where I enter the conversation!

'Well, they say the American economy is on the brink of collapse, the dollar sliding towards catastrophe.' We have a delightful conversation about this and also the history of Exeter, which L joins.

The older man says he is 83 yet seems quite disappointed when I say that I would've said 70. Really, he could pass for 65. He says he still enjoys his annual visits to Slovenia and its capital city, Llubjana - not Llubjanka, as the other man says (the ex-KGB hellhole in the middle of Moscow, as I point out). There really are a number of international connections in the city of Exeter; quite refreshing, really.

They take their leave, the younger man - about 50 - introducing himself as 'John'. I know I have seen him many times in the past, as well, though I can't quite place where. He is like a smaller, older, grey-haired version of Frank Worthington, the maverick 1970s footballer. He has long silver hair and sideburns and a moustache. I must try and remember where I have seen him before.