Following on from Knotty’s brilliant where we live thread. Very interesting reading
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Do any of the places you have lived have anything special about? Awards, famous for something? Not necessarily well known stuff. Like Stratford the home of Shakespeare.
Chard the place we lived in Somerset had at the time the highest rates of domestic violence per capita. Friday night’s, fight night
. Hopefully you will all have reasons to be considerably more proud of the places you’ve lived than me
New Zealand for the All Black's and Sir Edmund Hillary and being rather prejudiced against Pommies, although as a kid I loved it..
Taiwan for Chaing Kai-shek and my mum who taught conversational English to reformed prostitutes which she told me was a hoot.
Thailand for the ladyboys. I remember as a youngster being allowed to go to the hairdresser to have my long blonde hair 'put up' as a treat. A woman came over to me , she was a tall stunning Thai lady, beautifully made up and of course her hair was superb. She showed me to a chair and then said in a deep bass voice 'what can I do for you today' - shock horror she was a he and it was a bit unnerving to a very naive teen.
Salisbury for Stonehenge and the Cathedral also Porton Down where they are reputed to have carried out all sorts of experiments on both unsuspecting people and animals.
Leicester has joined the short list of cathedrals and abbeys outside London that are the resting place of an English monarch. In case anyone is interested, that's nine. (I'm not counting pre-1066 with all the Aethal-this'n'thats and Edmunds...)
Leicester was also the home of Daniel Lambert, 52 stone 11lbs and only 39 when he died. His coffin measured 6' 4" long by 4' 4" wide by 2' 4" deep. It was built on wheels and his grave was dug with a sloping ramp so it could be wheeled in rather than lowered from above. He died in Stamford where he's also buried.
Lord Tenneyson was born near where we lived in Lincolnshire.
I was brought up in a little village called Staincross on the outskirts of Barnsley. One of the village residents was Dickie Bird.
In my late teens/early twenties I lived in St Tropez which is famous for its celebrity holiday makers. July and August were always far too hot and busy, but the rest of the year it reverts back to being a sleepy little fishing village and it was a fantastic place to live.
I remember one of my neighbours had a small vineyard and in late summer he'd install himself in a deckchair on his front porch to keep an eye on his harvest with a shot gun. I used to walk past with my dog very quickly!
If I'd lived in my current house in 1973, I wouldn't have lived in Cardiff.
I also live within a mile of a Norman Motte, an Iron age hill fort and a 13th Century castle. I feel quite at home amongst these old ruins.
One of the cities I lived in during my 20s was the birth place of Edward teach, cary grant, elizabeth blackwell, James may and David prowse.
I grew up in small village of Rathcoole where we had quiet a number of local musicians and singers including Paddy Reilly the ballad singer and member of the Dubliners, Sean Keane fiddle player with the Chieftans R.I.P. , Members of the Wolfe Tones ballad group. The Rathcoole Pipe Band of whom I was a member of and we featured in tv series the Irish RM with Peter Bowles and Bryan Murray, we also featured on the movie The Year of the French and on the sound track with the Chieftans.
Oh I nearly forgot our most famous author Christy Brown of My Left Foot fame.