I didn't take it too seriously and assumed the rivalry was being exaggerated.

However, this week I visited a number of shops in Market Weighton, asking them to display a poster for the Pocklington Book Festival.

I'm happy to report that every shop took one, all that is bar one.
The last shop I visited had about 20 posters on the wall so I was confident they would display mine.

I held it out and asked the man behind the counter if he would mind putting up a poster for the Book Festival and he looked at it and said "not for Pocklington, no. You're in Market Weighton now not Pocklington." He said this in quite a jovial manner and I assumed he was joking.

"But you've got lots of posters for events in Beverley," I pointed out. He had the decency to look slightly abashed at this and said: "Well it depends where it's for but we don't support Pocklington."

I was genuinely astounded. So much so that I was speechless and left the shop without further argument, which is probably for the best as I may have said something that reduced me to his level of maturity.

I fumed for the rest of the day, Market Weighton has no bookshop that I would be competing with and the people of Market Weighton may be very interested in a book festival.

Small market towns like ours are under enough threat from the big supermarkets, out of town shopping estates and the big cities, we cannot afford to fight between ourselves.

Pocklington and Market Weighton are virtually ignored in every tourist publication about East Yorkshire and so we have to promote ourselves.
Events like the Giant Bradley Day and Flying Man Festival do just that and both towns benefit from increased awareness in this area.

I don't know what may have happened in the past to cause such sour feeling between our towns and frankly I don't care.

If we are to survive against the 'big boys' we need to work together and put an end to such petty rivalry.

Sara Waddington
Pocklington Book Shop