What happened in Garstang hadn't just been a spontaneous coming together of the community. It had taken vision, persistence and a lot of hard work to get people organised.
For years Garstang's Oxfam group, formed by Bruce, had been plugging away on Fairtrade and other Oxfam campaigns.
But with little joy. For years they trudged around local shops asking them to stock Fairtrade products, tried to win over dyed-in-the-wool town councillors who'd been in office for years, with little success.
Everywhere Bruce met the same responses: 'we're perfectly happy with our current coffee, thank you'; 'it won't taste as good; 'it won't make any difference anyway.'
One church in the town (the Methodist church) had set up a small shop selling Traidcraft and other fairly-traded goods. But in other cases, Bruce observed: "Churches would hold coffee mornings to raise money for Third World projects but use coffee from the large companies that pay coffee growers in the same countries a pittance."
Here it seemed Fairtrade was "too political."
I wondered why he hadn't given up. Bruce doesn't wear his Quaker convictions on his sleeve. But they smoulder behind the unflinching
connection he makes between belief and action.
"I don't think you can give up. Our children will look back and ask us how we could live in prosperity while over a billion people live in abject poverty - including many who produce things we use every day. How could we know this and not do what we could to stop it? I just can't accept we have to live in a world like that. I believe everyone wants to do the right thing when faced with the facts. It's just they don't know what they can do. Fairtrade gives everyone a way to do something to change things."
Bruce loves telling stories, waving his arms about as he does so, and describes with relish how change swept into his community.
"All on the same day I got a card from Cafedirect running a competition for the best local Fairtrade campaign, the vet nurse gave me a recipe for chocolate banana pancakes - and I realised Pancake Day fell in Fairtrade fortnight. I knew we had a winning entry: a Fairtrade banana chocolate pancake party!"
Before long this mushroomed into a full-blown meal to which they invited all the local community representatives they'd been trying - but failing - to get interested in Fairtrade. Then two days before the event Bruce woke up in the middle of the night.
"I suddenly thought, if we succeed in getting everybody at the meal to sign up to using Fairtrade, we'd be a community that all supported Fairtrade and, well, Garstang would be a Fairtrade town. I jumped out of bed and wrote it down so I wouldn't forget it in the morning.
"The evening was a triumph. Everyone attending signed up to support Fairtrade. Of course we had to follow up to make sure people acted on their promise. But what you can see when you walk around Garstang today all started that evening."
During the meal Bruce got the chance to float his idea of Garstang becoming the world's first Fairtrade town with the mayor. The mayor (Ben Andrews) looked wary.
"Would no one be allowed to sell Nescafe in Garstang then?" he asked.
Bruce reassured him it wouldn't mean that - it was about offering people a choice.
So a few weeks later the mayor invited him to address the once-a-year town meeting/assembly.
"This is all very well, but what is the council actually going to do about it?" said someone at the back, after Bruce had spoken and they were just about to adjourn.
The councillors would consider the matter at the next meeting, the mayor replied.
But then the council clerk (Bob Freeman) spoke up: "Mr Mayor, you don't have to wait until then. This is a public council meeting. It can discuss it now and make a decision today if it wants."
A slightly stunned mayor looked at the councillors and asked: "So what do you think."
Bruce grinned as he savoured the moment in his mind.
"I'll never forget the look on their faces - followed by silence as they looked awkwardly at the floor. It was clear they didn't want to take this dangerously subversive step!"
Immediately a woman stood up: "I propose we make Garstang a Fairtrade Town!"
"I second that," said another woman leaping to her feet.
It went to the vote and the motion was carried virtually unanimously...
Now the movement has picked up globally. People are organising Fairtrade Towns in Belgium, France, Italy, Norway, Sweden; Ireland has notched up 24.
When Wolfville in Nova Scotia, Canada, became Canada's first Fairtrade Town in April 2007, mayor Bob Stead said it was the "conscience of the community speaking."
* This feature is taken from 'Fighting the Banana Wars and other Fairtrade battles' by Harriet Lamb, which was published on February 7, price £10.99 (Pub: Rider Publishing).
The book is available from The Corner Bookshop, Garstang.