Leicestershire has many claims to fame. One; it has the world’s largest private collection of grand prix cars. Two; it has the world’s largest private collection of WW2 military vehicles. Both have been on show at Donington Park in north west Leicestershire for many, many years. Alas, time moves on.…
Riqueval Bridge looks inconspicuous enough, but the goosebumps climbing my legs, arms and neck know otherwise. A hundred years ago it was here the men of the Midlands broke through the Hindenburg Line. Spanning high above the narrow San Quentin canal, the bridge was witness to one of the…
It was the first day of the German spring offensive. The date was March 21, 1918 and the Kaiser’s boys were launching Operation Michael, an audacious bid to puncture Allied lines and seize the Channel ports that lay beyond. If they achieved that aim, Britain would be bracing itself…
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…
Joe Wykes, Lee Miller and Nick Reynolds are turning a golden shade of brown under the blazing sun. It’s a glorious, Tarmac melter of a day – the car thermometer reads 33C – and the three thatchers are up on the roof, overlooking a dazzling swathe of pretty, patchwork fields.…
The niggling human conscience affects people in different ways. In the case of Co-op salesman Roy Watts, it made him leave the comfort and security of his life in Leicester, travel all the way to war-gripped Spain, and take up arms for a cause as black and white as ink…
Legend of the Hangman’s Stone is taken from Thomas Rossell Potter’s Charnwood Forest – its History and Antiquities, 1842. It’s a traditional slice of folklore about a man out poaching who comes a cropper. In this story a man named John Oxley meets his maker snared on an igneous…
Yonks back there was a series in the Mercury on the men hung and buried inside the steep walls of Leicester Prison. William Henry Palmer was among them…and he didn’t go quietly. They’re supposed to do it with weary resignation; a sniff, a sorrowful glance, sometimes even with a…
Ulverscroft Priory, just minding its own business, 13th century. Aylestone Meadows on Sunday, January 22. Poplar skeletons at Western Park on Wednesday, January 25th. Twin Lakes in Melton, back in December. Imagine saying house to that. Twin Lakes. Nothing says Christmas like meerkats shivering under a heat lamp. National Space…
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…
Framework Brewery is a name you’re going to be hearing good things from in 2017. Leicester city centre’s first craft brewery started taking shape in the summer and their first brew, a hoppy American Pale Ale, only sloshed into a pint glass as recently as December 6. Since then,…
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.…
In classical parlance I am ‘knackered’. In recent days there’s been a double funeral in France, a christening in South Wigston, an orchestral concert and film on the Somme at Leicester Cathedral, and an archaeological dig at Castle Hill Country Park. Which is why I am sat in my comfies,…
Edward Ludlam’s name didn’t do the decent thing and die with its owner in the summer of 1776. Instead it emerged rudely triumphant more than 30 years after Edward – or Ned – was laid to rest at St Mary’s Church in Anstey. If the name rings a bell, it’s…
Simon de Montfort drew his last exhausted breath on a bloody Worcestershire battlefield. Outnumbered four to one, the powerful sixth Earl of Leicester had refused pleas to escape to safety as the Royalists continued their charge forward. “Our bodies are theirs, our souls are God’s,” he boomed as a hit-squad…
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…
Ralph Hollingworth was a man who didn’t like fuss. When something was over, it was over. It was how he was with the Second World War. Once the dust had settled, Ralph turned his attention to running the family business in Thurmaston and to raising his three daughters in Stoneygate.…
This little feature was published back in the summer of 2013. Austin Healey, as you can see, gives good copy. Sports people, generally, can be rather dry. The commitment, the single mindedness, often doesn’t do much for personality. Again to Tigers, that doesn’t go for Cockers. The Tigers coach was…
Leicestershire, through agriculture and industry, has always had fairly deep pockets. Which means we have quite a number of lovely homes nestled within the gentle gold and green of our shire’s undulating countryside. Kilworth House (Hotel and theatre) is one such place. Former home of genuinely lovely Black Sabbath guitarist…
