My home town/British terms on the Lexicon

[Neil Ward]

Catherine said, following my ramble about local dishes and football teams
and mention of my home town:

<<Excuse my ignorance... what is your hometown - somewhere North?>>

I imagine most people are ignorant of my home town, with the possible
exception of Catlady, with whom I had a discussion about its early origins.
It's Wellingborough, in Northamptonshire.  It is "somewhere North" if you
live in London, as I do, but, otherwise, it's in the Midlands.

MY HOME TOWN (sounds like a school essay, doesn't it?)

Wellingborough's greatest claim to fame is that it's in the exact centre of
England, i.e. the furthest from any piece of coast.  It's a market town and,
like most of the towns in the area, it's predominated by the boot and shoe
trade (my father is a cobbler).  Apart from the aforementioned Whitworths -
producer of packaged flour, dried fruit and nuts - the town is also home to
a famous public school that no one knows: Wellingborough School, aka The
Plum School.

History tells us that the town was founded on the banks of the Nene, in
around 1000, by settlers led by a guy called Waendel, and many locals still
take the Waendel Walk each year in the form of a walking marathon.  IIRC, in
the C18, the Great Fire of Wellingborough destroyed all but six buildings in
the town centre.  Records have it that the fire was extinguished with the
help of the landlady of one of the town's public houses, who ordered that
beer be brought up from her cellars to help douse the flames. Once the town
was merely a smouldering ghost, she was carried through the streets on the
shoulders of her peers and declared a heroine.

Um... you just wanted the name really, didn't you?


BRITISH TERMS

Catherine, you asked about the British section of Steve Vander Ark's
Lexicon?  That's something that I've been working on with Doreen from Iowa.
She's been sending through puzzling British phrases from the books (from her
perspective) and I'm collecting them into a database and aiming to add in
the explanations.  So far, Doreen has been through SS on this basis.  I plan
to get other British members involved in this, so I guess I can count you as
interested?

These cultural and language differences seem to be the lifeblood of this OT
Chatter group, but it would still be nice to have a reference list of terms,
rather than have to explain Knickerbocker Glory or chipolata every few
weeks!  We already have a mine of information in our archives, so it should
be invaluable once it's done.

Neil
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