When we bought our house five years ago, we moved in to a former military town where all the army things were being steadily demolished and replaced with new housing estates. As part of this new utopian vision, we kept being told that there would be a new town centre, which would one day materialise on the big patch of derelict space in the middle of town five minutes’ walk from our new place.

Over the years we’ve kept hearing stories about all the brilliant things that will be there once they build it, putting a range of wonderful conveniences on our doorstep. But the big derelict space continued to be big, derelict and empty. Would we even live to see this fabled wonderland, this Eden of small town commerce?

Well, finally, things are changing. A couple of months ago work started to build the steel frames of the first building, which will be a big Sainsbury’s, soon to be surrounded by other things as part of a phased construction project. And in the last couple of weeks, with people and cranes and diggers on site, new signs have gone up to advertise the company building it. I couldn’t be more delighted. Look who it is!

As yet, though, no sign of their cufflinks or their children. I’ll keep looking.