At her home in Sileby, Ina Napthine gently holds her father’s birth certificate. This fragile piece of paper reveals Percy Faulkner Hawkins was born in the middle of a red brick terrace at 19 Payne Street, Leicester, on December 21, 1904. Just a few weeks later, this same certificate…
1. The Beatles’ AA Side Strawberry Fields/Penny Lane was kept off the Number One spot by which county singer? 2. Which world religion was founded in Leicestershire? 3. Which well-known TV fashion stylist once told me, “I was fat, gay, mixed race and grew up on a council…
The voice on the other end of the phone needs convincing. Amir Zarbafi has spoken to the Mercury three times already – why, he says, do you need another interview? It’s the advert in Saturday’s property guide, he’s told, a full-page invitation to “meet the most controversial developer to hit…
Wymondham is a pretty village six miles east of Melton Mowbray. It boasts a windmill, 12th century St Peter’s Church and the ever so lovely The Berkeley Arms, where the food and welcome is always amazing. The village was also home to Frances Pawlett, the person who pioneered Stilton and…
Mr Azim Walters is a defence lawyer with a handsome office at 58 London Road, but, as you may be aware, his Georgian building, along with neighbouring properties at 52, 54 and 56, are now on borrowed time. “We don’t want it demolished, for historic reasons,” he says. Set…
“And the boys of the NYPD choir were singing Galway Bay, and the bells were ringing out for Christmas Day.” Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl’s Fairytale of New York gets everywhere at this time of year. Even Tesco in Narborough Road, where this week I was shopping and…