I have fond memories of the Allan Water Cafe in Henderson Street. I well remember the the counter to the left of the doorway and the adjacent domestic freezer  where home-made ice lollipops could be purchased, My memory is that the lollies were 1d each and 2d for a double flavour. An ice cream cone with ‘raspberry’ was a special treat. I remember too the separate, often crowded fish and chip shop and the baskets of chipped potatoes awaiting submergence in the fat of the coal-fired fish fryer. I remember also going up the hill behind the shop with Sandy Oliver (whose parents ran the Bridge Inn) to see if Maurice Bechelli was able to come out to join us in the then current adventure in the nearby woods.

The cafe had been founded in 1902 by Maurice’s Barga-born Togneri grandfather and in the 1950’s it was still known as Togneri’s. It was only much later that I discovered that Maurice’s surname was Bechelli. His mother, Rita Togneri, daughter of the cafe’s founder, had married Luigi Bechelli.

The cafe , as I knew it as a boy, has been modernised and extended and happily remains a thriving business run by Maurice’s four children – Adrian, Neill, Gavin and Gillian.