Name: Thornbury
Population: 12,324 (2001)
Cafés: Seven

Despite several particularly ineffectual attempts to leave, I currently still live in the small town in which I was born and grew up. I mean, I've lived for prolonged periods in other places — Coventry, Leamington, Cardiff (the city that, to my surprise, I have the most affection for). But in any case, as of today, 2 November 2010, I'm still here. Thornbury. Be still my beating heart.

It's not a place with a vibrant social scene for people over the age of 16. All of my friends have left, returning only infrequently, meaning that I have more regular contact with their mothers. I say mothers rather than parents because, as I suppose is true of most small towns during office hours, there are many more women than men around. Women, and children; as I mentioned, once kids reach mid-adolescence they tend to disappear. Probably if I ventured down to the parks I'd find some, drinking cheap cider and emoting on swings in time-honoured fashion. But I don't, because that'd be weird.

So, back on the high street, matriarchy rules. Thornbury couldn't exactly be called a hub of production, either. As the recession unfurled, a few of the small manufacturing plants on the edge of town closed down, although haulage trucks still rumble down the roads around the outskirts. What do seem to be thriving are a collection of coffee shops. Lots of coffee shops.

Date: 1999
Location: Heritage gift shop and café, Thornbury high street

So I'm just about to finish sixth form, and need somewhere to go and hang out in the daytime. Afternoon gin drinking still being a couple of years off, pretty much the only place that's suitable is the café at the back of a gift shop. It's us, and the elderly regulars at the next table. There's plastic tablecloths, and sugarlumps, and the general air of being tolerated rather than welcomed back with fondness and open arms. But there's tea, and cake, and a roof, and that's good enough. Fast forward to:

Date: November 2010
Location: Coffee #1, Thornbury high street

Man, this place is huge. It's a former video rental store, long boarded-up, and they've obviously knocked through into the storeroom or something because it was never this big before. It's very One Tree Hill in here, all exposed brickwork and duck-egg blue. If it was 2004 there'd be Sarah McLachlan.

And they there are, the mothers, with their children fresh from school, crayoning and generally too hyped up on coffee than will be useful later. But it's the farthest extreme of the continuum along which this town has quietly been moving, over the past decade, from tearoom to coffee shop, from sleepy backroom to café culture.

I'm not sure this is necessarily a good thing, because I'm not sure that all of these outlets can survive. I mean, seven cafés (at least) is pretty ridiculous in a town this size. But it's nice to see people meeting, chatting, being welcomed into a place that anyone can visit. The price of admission may be a couple of pounds worth of drink from a chainstore, but is that worth paying? In a Tory world of cutbacks and state shrinkage, is it a bad thing to watch consumerist meeting-places grow and compete?

I don't know, is the hugely enlightening answer. But the old café, with its ceiling fans and hopeful outdoor decking? I've not been back there in years.