On the edge of Leicester’s newest bar you’ll find a pink elephant, a gnome and two Trappists from Belgium. This unusual quartet is among 150 UK and international beers at Head of Steam in Market Street. The elephant, AKA Delirium Red, is a silky smooth cherry brew, the gnome is…
A hundred years ago WW1’s second most notorious bloodbath was churning up souls in Flanders. Here, I spare a few words on Leicestershire’s involvement at Passchendaele. The three Leicestershire Regiment officers stared at the map, looked hard at the surrounding mud and then, with incredulity, at each other. The…
The suggestion came at the end of a terrifyingly large Greek meal. “We should do this again, but somewhere new,” said Emma. “…there’s Madeira a Vista in Woodgate,” I respond. At that moment it was settled. Our group of four had probably eaten enough after the second of five courses…
It’s a tough question. Marlene Yeo looks skyward and then slides her eyes to the left in the hope of tweaking out the answer from a corner of her brain. The grey-haired 74-year-old looks defeated – she can’t remember how many times she’s been arrested. “I should keep a tally,”…
It was February and raining when they found him, covered in a century-old cloak of earth and chalk. In the dirt near his bones, attached to a shred of uniform, they found a brass shoulder title, green with age and a little twisted. One word could be seen clearly…Leicester.…
Earlier today I was at a friend’s house. Her garden has been transformed into an open air larder. Squashes grow beside the fence, cucumbers dangle excitingly from the vine in her green house and tomatoes as fat as your fist seem to grow about everywhere. In an effort to help…
You’ve said it, I’ve said it, we’ve all said it: “Meet you at the Clock Tower, yeah?” It’s a sentence which has been doing the rounds for almost 150 years. And yet, apart from its role as Leicester’s most well known landmark – and a hub for noisy religious irritants,…
The 4th Leicesters had sat in trenches overlooked by the Boche on the Messines Ridge and at Hill 60. And now at Vimy the enemy were at the top of the ridge again thanks to those responsible for our shortage in guns and munitions. If you had wished to…
The entrance to the walled garden at Braunstone Hall… Braunstone Hall, if you didn’t know, was the seat of the Winstanley family. The last of their line expired a decade or so ago. What’s left is their old home, its stables and a walled garden with the most elegant magnolias.…
It’s that Paganistic time of year when 120,000 tattooed, long-haired, skinny jeanists come to worship upon the sacred fields of north west Leicestershire. Roll ups? Check. Leather boots? Check. The ability to lose one’s mind/wallet/friends? Check. This weekend, Download festival is serenading Donington Park. Rock’s General Synod first hooked up…
When you own a full deck of cards but shuffle a little slower, old age has a habit of throwing up a few impeccably-timed niggles. If it’s not grappling with parcels sealed like a drum of North Sea uranium or dragging leaden luggage on to buses, trains and…
Some clever artist from London came up and sprayed this all over a wall off King Richard’s Road. It’s a corker. Just after taking this pic this morning, I called into Dayman’s DIY store “If you’re going to do it, do it with Dayman’s” – which is a stone’s…
Leicester City are holding on at the top of the Premiership with four games to go. Meanwhile, on eBay, the action is also hotting up… What’s not to like? Claudio has probably already got his. “Latest design for Leicester City fans, quality ring spun cotton. Be quick as stock…
Wave after human wave crashed against the bar, the demand for beer ripping our prediction of 1.8 firkins per hour a new whatsit, and by the time we were four hours in – four hours ahead of schedule – the beer had gone. GONE! This is what happens when…
Yes, quite. Taken on the walk home from town yesterday. A billboard in King Richard’s Road, just after West Bridge. One of my favourite places in Leicester for lunch. Excellent pies washed down with Swithland spring water. The staff are lovely too. Also a great place…
With the annual French/Belgian battlefield experience rapidly approaching and Download rock festival soon after, my thoughts are currently turning towards Donington, which combines military on one hand and music on the Devil-horned other. Cue an article from 2012… Kevin Wheatcroft next to a German half-track Some people…
What says Mothering Sunday more than dressing as one of Simon de Montfort’s knights at the Battle of Evesham (August 4, 1265)? Exactly. We were back at Jewry Wall Museum on Sunday to join in the 50th birthday celebrations. There were demonstrations, from Leicester’s many different periods, my daughter had…
Tony Magee is searching for the right words as he absently taps his fingers on the table in an airless conference room at Mercury headquarters. “What do you call it when something is like something else?” asks the grey haired 55 year old, his accent a disarming patter of Midlands-softened…
When you live in an unfashionable city with two thousand plus years of history, it’s easy to be a bit meh about the things you graze past every day. Easy and a bit, well, silly. A 25 minute amble from my house and you’re in Roman Leicester. Jewry Wall…
What in the blazes is going on? Beer. Firkins and firkins of it. For £3 a pint. Where? St Anne’s Church Hall, Letchworth Road, Leicester. And when is it? Friday, March 4, from 5pm. Eh? It’s a pop-up pub serving the liquid gold of Leicestershire’s finest brewers; Charnwood, Tres…
It’s one of Leicestershire’s unofficial tourist destinations. Tucked away down a side street, removed from the bustle of the city centre. “I get plenty of visitors,” nods Mukhtar Shah, who has a car workshop in Great Central Street. “Sometimes 10, 15 people come a month, a lot of people who…
Leicester City FC won the league in 2015/16. But what do you know about the city and county which spawned them? 1. Leicestershire is the Spiritual Home of Rock Music. It started back in 1980 with the first Monsters of Rock at Donington Park. It continues today…
Fingers clatter across an iPad and up goes the internet chat room profile of 14 year old Jess. A couple of seconds pass and the phone vibrates to indicate a message. The date is December 14, 2014 and this is the first contact from Peter Hyam in Essex. “Hello Jess…
It’s a riches-to-rags story where the ponies, nannies and chauffeurs are swallowed in the vortex of a collapsing city knitwear firm. It’s a story where the finishing school-raised family matriarch, recently divorced, finds herself making a living changing roller towels in pubs and clubs across Leicestershire. It’s a story which,…
With a world class archeaology department on our doorstep and a 16th century churchman at large, is it time to start disturbing the soil in Abbey Park? Cat Turnell reports. The mortal remains of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey have lain sleeping beneath the ruins of Leicester Abbey since the winter of…
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…
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…
You’re high above the ground in a revolving transparent cage. A six year old girl sharing this cage is talking about the cage dropping and falling, and everyone dying. A four year old boy hearing all this is getting nervous. A 40 year old with newly discovered vertigo is hoping,…
There’s a smidge of a lady talking in the middle of The Smiths’ Pretty Girls Make Graves. “Oh, really?” says the voice. And that’s it. Many years later and the identity of that voice’s owner is still adding intrigue to numerous Smiths’ biographies. Each time, the writer invariably points…
He is Leicester’s head man, giving the biggest say so in the city every day of the week. And, let’s be honest, Sir Peter Soulsby could quite easily get a warm seat in an executive box or the director’s box at the King Power. With the other people…
Lilian Lenton in court in Doncaster with co-accused Harry Johnson in June 1913. Lilian Lenton’s prison photograph sits in a display case at the National Portrait Gallery in London. The sepia image, now more than a century old, was taken covertly by police when she was among…
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…
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…
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…
