Richard III

I thought I had typed 'granjura' but my phone decided what I really meant was 'harbours'. I should proof read!

We do have the canal basin which has a fabulous Festival of Boats but that's as good as it gets, waterwise!

BTW Loogeboorooge- is the OZ pronunciation of LOughborough, apparently.. but in Epinal, the French twin town, they call it 'Lookbrook'.

Yes, thank you Kitty, expressed myself badly. But thanks for the info on Stockton to Darlington, it is interesting.

Being really dim here Kitty- but still don't get the 'harbours' - predictive text or not. What did you mean (lol)?

Harbours = predictive text. I think that I was going for granjura. Sorry to confuse!

Absent, I think granjura was talking about Thomas Cook's first 'package' tour not the first passenger service.

Thanks, just had a read, 1833 for passengers apparently (only goods before). Very interesting.

So Thomas Cook was quite a way behind in 1841- I suppose his for the first 'tourist trip' and in as much remarkable all the same.

OH's great uncle was a very famous GWR train designer- so it is all very interesting to us.

granjura The first passenger train ran from Stockton to Darlington on 27 September 1825 and is depicted in detail in a painting. The locomotive, named Locomotion, was taken out of service after the boiler exploded at Aycliffe Lane Station in 1828 and was superseded by the Rocket. Locomotion is restored and on display at the Darlington Railway Centre and Museum – and a splendid thing it is too.

1841- yes first trip ever and to Loughborough indeed. Now I know Loogeboroogue - quite well, having taught there for many years- but 'harbours' ? Where is the 'harbours' ;) do enlighten me. The Carillon is the best known landmark.

Oh btw, talking about history and Leicester- we of course have Wolsey at Abbey Park- and Lady Jane Grey of Bradgate Park.

And it is, J52, isn't it!

Wasn't Thomas Cook's first trip to the beautiful Loughborough harbours?

In The Cantle report, 2001, on multi cultural cohesion and racial harmony, Leicester comes out as particularly harmonious City. x

You missed that bit 'which works so well'. Fully aware of Bradfod and other towns where things are very different. The loss of traditional industries, mining and ship-making, fishing, etc- which concurred with large immigration in Northern towns, have led to a very different situation. Ugandan Asians, also are very different in culture, religion and education to those who now live in Bradford too.

I can't agree that Leicester is the only multicultural town in the UK. Have you ever been to Bradford granjura? It's like being on the sub-continent in large areas of the city. The demographic changes there, in my lifetime, have been dramatic. Some think not for the better.

Apples and oranges and all that. York is indeed beautiful and wall to wall history, so is Canterbury, and Cambridge and many more.

But Leicester has got something which is very very different- perhaps the only multicultural town in the UK and perhaps Europe which works so well- perhaps because Leicester has always had a very mixed industry as well as textiles- and because of the large influx of very well edcuated and ambitious Ugandan Asian in the early 70s.

The Golden Mile area North of the town, with its amazing Indian clothes, jewellery, food and spice shops from a huge array of different Indian areas and cultures and religions- is wonderful- and the way the Leicester population takes full part in the huge Hindu Diwali celebrations- give Leicester a vibrancy and dynamism which is just not found in pretty historical towns.

Marmadoit I knew it wasn't a figment of my imagination.

Great Central station was North of the town- now a mixture of garages and other workshops under the railway bridge arches.

And of course Tourism as we know it started in Leicester (and Market Harborough) with Thomas Cook and the Temperance Society. If some meet up in Leicester in May, perhaps a good idea to go and see the ceramic frieze above the Fottlocker shop- the first (or perhaps second, I think the first was in Belvoir Street) ever Travel Agent depicting the first ever passenger train, in an old coal train, with people standing, for a Temperance picinic in 1840is (will have to check date , it escapes me now)- and further travel to Scottland and of course 'my' Switzerland and then SW Spain, Seville, Toledo, Grenada and North AFrica.. Tourism in Switzerland owes everything to Thomas Cook, and so does the ski and walking/hiking industry.

DH remembers it. He seems to think there was an engine there too and it was a large 5 or 6 feet long. No idea where it went maybe to the museum.

I did hear about the GCR getting some of the national collection. They are linking up the line to Nottinghamshire soon too. I don't think they can take it further into Leicester which is a shame.

We had annual membership for the space museum for a couple of years when our younger boys were primary age. Not my kind of thing really and not sure how Leicester got that! Maybe something to do with the university again.

I want to know what Leicester railway station did with that apparently enormous model railway carriage they had in the entrance hall before they filled that area with WH Smith and fast food outlets.
It looked big when I was five.
Do any of you Leicester people remember it?

I was most disappointed to find it was not there over 50yrs after I last saw it.

From London, married to a Yorkshireman ( North Riding), living in Leicester, I think I can safely say 'there's room for us all!' x

Who the hell is Luke! We like York!

I thought Channel 4's coverage was awful and that the BBC would have done a better job. We Luke York, too, especially the railway museum.

I don't know how to break it to all the people who don't like Leicester but Great Central Railway are hoping to open a Visitor Centre and museum using some of York's 'stock'!!

Yes York is a lovely city. We visited every year when our DC were younger. We knew that visiting families were York's 'cash cows'.

Thank goodness for the National Railway Museum (somewhere free to get out of the rain!). York got lucky there it could have gone to Crewe, Swindon, Derby etc.

Not sure how Leicester 'made a meal of it'. The battle of Bosworth did take place in Leicestershire and Richard was buried in Leicester for over 500 years. Channel 4 did the coverage because the BBC didn't want to know. Channel 4 made a meal of it with too many repeat clips and pointless interviews.

With or without Richard York is a wonderful city to visit. Wall to wall history

trendygran I'm a Yorkist as well. But we're not bitter at all, are we?

Well, Shakespeare probably spent most of his working/creative life in London but Stratford has done well out of him being born and dying there. And King Arthur probably never lived at Tintagel but it doesn't stop people going there to see the castle.

Shame York is missing out on the hysteria surrounding Richad 111. Leicester really have made a meal of it all to boost their cash flow.
Still, I guess York remains much more interesting for tourists than Leicester, so maybe all is not lost.

King John murdered Arthur Duke of Brittany when he was 16 years old. He threatened to castrate and blind him, but settled for stabbing and throwing his body in the Seine. Arthur had a better claim than John as he was the posthumous son of John's elder brother Geoffrey of Brittany. Eleanor of Aquitaine championed John and Arthur had to go.