My home town/British terms on the Lexicon

[catherine at cator-manor.demon.co.uk]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at y..., "Neil Ward" <neilward at d...> wrote:
> 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
> ________________________________________
Neil, you can count me in!  Is there anything you want me to start 
on?  

By the way, my husband's home town is Northampton and we have a flat 
and lots of family there, so I do know where Wellingborough is.  In 
fact, my husband's nephew used to play in their football team (so I 
should have got the reference.)  And I originally come from Lincoln, 
so I'm not one of those "it's north if north of Watford" types...).
Catherine