Source A: The market moved

An original contemporary non-fiction-style practice text, written for this question.

The notice was fixed to the market gate with four strips of yellow tape. From the far side of the square, I could read only the words “new site”. I had sold vegetables from the same stall for eleven years; I knew which paving stones rocked and which customers came before work. The council’s plan showed our new row of stalls beyond the ring road, beside a car park. On paper, it looked like a short walk. On a wet morning, carrying two crates, it looked like a different town.

At the meeting, the officer spoke about access, drainage and lower running costs. These were sensible things, but they seemed to leave out the market itself. People did not come only to buy potatoes. They stopped to ask after one another, to pass on news, to stand still without needing an appointment. I said this, though I heard how sentimental it sounded beside the neat figures on the screen.

For weeks I treated the move as an ending. I kept the notice folded in my till and showed it to customers as if the paper might change its mind. Some said they would follow us; others shrugged and said they rarely came any more. Their answers made me cross, then embarrassed. I had assumed that what mattered to me must matter to everyone in the same way.

On the first Saturday at the new site, rain tapped on the roof of the loading bay. The stalls were spaced too far apart, and the first hour passed with more looking than buying. Then a woman I recognised from the old square came over with a list of names. She had organised a lift-share for customers who did not drive. Behind her, two traders were already lending each other tables. Nothing about the place resembled the market I had lost, but it was no longer an empty row of metal legs.

By winter, the council had added a covered waiting area and a bus stop nearer the entrance. I still miss the square’s noise and the way people could arrive without planning to. Yet I have stopped keeping the notice in my till. The market did not survive by staying where it was; it survived because people carried some of its habits with them. I am not sure that is the same thing, but I can sell a bag of apples there and hear the old jokes being told.

Source B: The last crossing

An original contemporary non-fiction-style practice text, written for this question.

The ferry horn used to reach our kitchen before the boat appeared. My grandfather would look up from his tea and say, “There goes the morning.” He had crossed the estuary to work for most of his life. I used the service less often, but its timetable sat quietly behind the way our village worked: the first crossing for hospital appointments, the late one for people finishing shifts on the other bank.

When the operator announced that the route would end in September, the village noticeboard filled with handwritten dates and phone numbers. At the public meeting, people spoke about missed appointments, longer journeys and the students who would now need two buses. One man held up his travel card and asked what it was worth after the final sailing. The answer from the front was a list of replacement times on the road route. Nobody said the new journey was impossible. That was not the same as saying it was easy.

I joined the group collecting stories from passengers. At first I thought our task was to prove the ferry mattered. The more people we spoke to, the less tidy that argument became. Some residents had not used it in years. Others depended on it every day. A shopkeeper said the service brought customers; a nurse said the road route would make her evening journey longer. We pinned each account beside the timetable, until the board looked less like a protest and more like a map of different lives.

On the final morning, the queue was longer than usual. My grandfather came with us, although he had not worked across the water for years. When the boat pulled away, nobody cheered. We watched until it became a pale mark against the far bank. Then people began folding the notices and taking them down. The crossing had been more than a shortcut, but standing there could not bring it back.

The bus service has since added an early journey, and the village group still meets to check whether the timetable works for people who need it. I use the bus now. It is slower, and it does not carry the sound of the horn into our kitchen. I no longer tell people that the ferry was essential to everyone. I tell them that losing it changed the shape of ordinary days, and that a replacement should be judged by the days it helps people live.

Compare how the writers present their ideas and perspectives about changes to familiar community services.

Support your answer with detailed examples from both texts, including brief quotations.