There are several certainties in life if you are Kettering born and bred.
You will moan about the town of your birth to everyone you meet, right up until the moment they join in with your criticism, when you’ll punch them in the face.
You will stare into the sky (and possibly point) when you see passenger aircraft taking off and landing.
If you live to a ripe old age you will end up talking like the hideously ungodly offspring of Dave Tailby and Barry Frost.
You will play skittles at least once in your life.
And of course, you will despise the town of Corby until your dying day.
But why? Why do the people of Kettering and Corby not get along? Why does the song “Ebony and Ivory” mean nothing to the peoples of the two boroughs? They refer to us “sheep shaggers” during their occasional footballing lessons at the hands of the Poppies, but generally we gamely resist the urge to call them a chavvy bunch of fried Mars bar chomping, baby-murdering, lazy-taxi-taking, shell-suited, Irn Bru guzzling, pyromaniacs.
At least, we resisted the urge until just then.
We don’t get along as towns, but I, like most of you I guess, have invariably got on with Corby people on a one-to-one basis.
Again, until just then.
Is it because their town full of plastic Jocks has been horribly grafted onto our fair Northamptonshire County, thus giving us a taste of the border tensions which have afflicted the two countries for centuries?
Is it because public funding appears seems to be no problem for anything that the town of Corby wants, or even just has a passing fancy for? A new town centre every 25 years, just when they’ve buggered up the previous one. An Olympic sized swimming pool. As many football grounds as are needed until they finally build a decent one that a couple of hundred fans can rattle around in. More enterprise zones than you can shake a caber at. A new, practically empty train station. A strange, enormous Cube, the purpose of which is not entirely evident yet. Houses are shit? Ok we’ll knock them down and build them again.
All this building infrastructure obviously pales when compared to the 2 ½ million Kettering council are somehow managing to fritter away on the old market place, turning a slope into a slope with a few steps. That should get those empty shops filled!
In the interests of preparing a balanced piece, I have recently returned from a fact-finding mission to the much-heralded Willows Shopping Precinct in Corby to see what all the fuss is about. I first became aware of the Willows when I saw an advertising billboard for the shopping area on display in Kettering. Nice bit of quality control there from our elected officials. Obviously they were too busy presiding over the ghettoising of Kettering town centre that they didn’t notice they were advertising a rival town centre’s facilities!
Anyway I walked down the mighty thoroughfare that is the Willows Shopping Precinct. A minute later and I had walked out the far end of it. Sure it looks nice and clean. It also looks like it could be a wind tunnel shopping street from any newly built town centre in the whole of the country. Still, what it lacks in character it makes up in having the biggest Primark on the planet. And that says more about Corby than I could if I carried on tapping away on my keyboard for a week….
You will moan about the town of your birth to everyone you meet, right up until the moment they join in with your criticism, when you’ll punch them in the face.
You will stare into the sky (and possibly point) when you see passenger aircraft taking off and landing.
If you live to a ripe old age you will end up talking like the hideously ungodly offspring of Dave Tailby and Barry Frost.
You will play skittles at least once in your life.
And of course, you will despise the town of Corby until your dying day.
But why? Why do the people of Kettering and Corby not get along? Why does the song “Ebony and Ivory” mean nothing to the peoples of the two boroughs? They refer to us “sheep shaggers” during their occasional footballing lessons at the hands of the Poppies, but generally we gamely resist the urge to call them a chavvy bunch of fried Mars bar chomping, baby-murdering, lazy-taxi-taking, shell-suited, Irn Bru guzzling, pyromaniacs.
At least, we resisted the urge until just then.
We don’t get along as towns, but I, like most of you I guess, have invariably got on with Corby people on a one-to-one basis.
Again, until just then.
Is it because their town full of plastic Jocks has been horribly grafted onto our fair Northamptonshire County, thus giving us a taste of the border tensions which have afflicted the two countries for centuries?
Is it because public funding appears seems to be no problem for anything that the town of Corby wants, or even just has a passing fancy for? A new town centre every 25 years, just when they’ve buggered up the previous one. An Olympic sized swimming pool. As many football grounds as are needed until they finally build a decent one that a couple of hundred fans can rattle around in. More enterprise zones than you can shake a caber at. A new, practically empty train station. A strange, enormous Cube, the purpose of which is not entirely evident yet. Houses are shit? Ok we’ll knock them down and build them again.
All this building infrastructure obviously pales when compared to the 2 ½ million Kettering council are somehow managing to fritter away on the old market place, turning a slope into a slope with a few steps. That should get those empty shops filled!
In the interests of preparing a balanced piece, I have recently returned from a fact-finding mission to the much-heralded Willows Shopping Precinct in Corby to see what all the fuss is about. I first became aware of the Willows when I saw an advertising billboard for the shopping area on display in Kettering. Nice bit of quality control there from our elected officials. Obviously they were too busy presiding over the ghettoising of Kettering town centre that they didn’t notice they were advertising a rival town centre’s facilities!
Anyway I walked down the mighty thoroughfare that is the Willows Shopping Precinct. A minute later and I had walked out the far end of it. Sure it looks nice and clean. It also looks like it could be a wind tunnel shopping street from any newly built town centre in the whole of the country. Still, what it lacks in character it makes up in having the biggest Primark on the planet. And that says more about Corby than I could if I carried on tapping away on my keyboard for a week….
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