Graham Dury was working on a botany PhD at the University of Leicester when he accepted a job at Viz, the cult comic which parodies the likes of The Beano and The Dandy for a kidult audience. Fast forward 27 years and Graham’s now editor of the mag famous for…
He’s a reluctant national treasure who has been exploring the natural world for 60 years. Sir David Attenborough talks to Catherine Turnell about growing up in Leicester, not discounting the yeti and nature fighting back. Sir David Attenborough is a man who requires little in the way…
How they covered football in the old Leicester Illustrated Chronicle. These two pictures were published in an October 1915 issue of the Leicester Illustrated Chronicle. Helpfully, there is no final score mentioned. Or when the game was played. A cursory glance at the internet and I can find…
My, what an impressive organ. This is the dazzling interior of Bishop Street Methodist Church. It overlooks Town Hall Square and is just a couple of doors away from the library. They run the Chapel Cafe here, where, for a nominal fee, you can get…
With vandals on one side and the elements on the other, Western Park School – formerly Western Park Open Air School – has taken a bit of a kicking in recent years. Shut in 2005, this elegant 1930s building – Grade II listed and one of very…
“Always and always facing toward the light.” They’ve not seen Poltergeist, have they? Here are some magnificent suffragists standing proud in Bowling Green Street. I don’t know their names but I’d like to buy each of them a drink. Which they’d most likely turn down, cos they’re probably part…
Take Mr Henry Lee, the verger of St Peter’s Church in Leicester. Add Professor GF Moss, who had consulting rooms at 70 Sparkenhoe Street. And then throw in photographer Mr HJ Hitchcock to take a picture. What do you get? The answer is this rather spiffy advert…
Salford, Manchester. 1950. Green hills in the foreground, smoking chimneys in the distance. Life in between. Laurence Stephen Lowry was a genius. And generally I dislike the word genius, but in this instance it’s bang on. You’ll find this magnificent painting in the little gallery on the left in…
Here are a few piccies I took on my walk to work on Tuesday. The first is on West Bridge (Decorated with Chaucer’s characters, fave is Wife of Bath), looking at the river and over to Castle Gardens. There was a load of graffiti on the…
Sometimes she’ll find herself alone in the middle of a deep forest. In the dream, she’s a shivering nine-year-old girl again, searching for mushrooms and berries. It’s then, as she hunts for food among the trees, she’ll be gripped by an old terror. You’re lost, says the panicked voice in…
At this time of year the people of Heather like to go a bit batty. In a nice way. Across the village, wherever you turn, the streets and gardens are full of scarecrows. Some will have a contemporary theme, some will be traditional and the rest…
You don’t need me to tell you this, but Old John, a chubby stone tower that looks a lot like a beer tankard, is Leicestershire’s most iconic landmark. This photogenic enigma has been crowning the highest, rockiest peak in the tumbling, well-loved acres of Bradgate Park since the autumn…
Fat doesn’t really cover it. Nor does chubby or rotund. Daniel Lambert was fat in the way Mozart was a composer. Known throughout the British Isles for his spectacular girth and even, believe it or not, admired for it Dan was a horizon-blocking 52 stone 11lbs. For generations, children and adults…
The headliners Sienna Root were rocktastic organic man-flesh from Sweden. The Cult of Dom Keller were a Leicester-Nottingham hybrid with an awesome drummer. And my oldest mate Ben, representing Western Park, and to some extent Hinckley, did the opening Moog atmospherics under the moniker The Early Remains. Oh,…
Graham Chapman helped make the world a much sillier place. The Life of Graham, a new book about the pipe-smoking Python, retreads his formative years in the county. Graham Chapman was the Leicestershire-born hero of British comedy. One-sixth of trail-blazing surrealists Monty Python, the pipe-smoking Chapman was…
Mick Bunnage is a dream interviewee. The former musician, Loaded writer, cartoonist and Leicester resident has an unerring habit of making the mundane seem peculiarly jocular. Even when he’s trying to pronounce the address of his old stomping ground in Belgrave. “Leer-rah Street,” he hazards. “Leer-eh?” He…
It’s a sunny Sunday in October and I’m pootling around Faircharm Industrial Estate with a camera. Faircharm is a mixed use industrial estate on the edge of Aylestone Meadows, bisected by the River Soar and the Grand Union Canal. On first appearance it’s pretty underwhelming, but carry on walking, graze your…
