Wouldn't it be fun to have a flea market in Salisbury?

ON Sunday I took the puppy to a flea market. Luckily she didn’t come back with any.
Go on, groan if you feel like it, I know it’s a terrible joke but I couldn’t help myself.
My future daughter-in-law and I are in search of retro wedding decorations, and the tremendous array of stalls on the Bath & West showground at Shepton Mallet proved to be a very happy hunting ground.
I wouldn’t normally take a dog into the middle of such an enormous gathering – there were thousands and thousands of browsers, and just watching them carting their weird and wonderful purchases around was entertaining enough – but no-one was free to look after her at home all morning.
Apart from nearly pulling my arms out of their sockets as she tried to make friends with anyone and everyone, she coped very well.
As did my husband when he got home just after us, reacting with commendable calm to the delivery of two French barn doors, in a state of romantic decay, in the back of a large van half an hour later.
I hadn’t told him what I’d bought (I thought they could be a decorative garden feature, like the ones you see in all those impossibly perfect lifestyle magazine photo-shoots), but made him wait for the surprise.
The surprise being that they had nothing to do with what we’d gone out looking for, I just fell in love with them.
With a slightly world-weary air, but no audible grumbling, he stacked them in the garage to await further attention.
The guy who sold me them was a fascinating character. He lives in France and buys his stock there, but has a business unit in Kent.
He has a collection of 22 cars and more than 800 teddy bears.
He also has a home in Goa, and cooks authentic curries on a little burner in the back of his van when he’s at markets and fairs. What a great life.
Anyway, I hear you ask, what’s the point of this story?
Well, I was wondering whether we could have a flea market in Salisbury.
The city council wants, quite rightly, to make greater use of our expensively revamped Market Place, and has been advertising for extra staff to help make it possible.
The occasional vintage markets are pretty and popular, but I’m visualising something on a larger scale, maybe every couple of months, occupying the whole of the Guildhall and market squares, with dealers offering furniture, kitchenalia, vintage clothing, architectural antiques, old books, you name it ….
More upmarket than a car boot, but still a place where you never know what treasures you’ll find.
It could even have an indoor section for delicate stuff, in the Guildhall.
Judging by the crowds I saw at the weekend it would be a massive attraction.
Just the thing to fill that wide, empty space on an otherwise quiet Sunday.