Sunday 2 October 2011

Stepping Out In Style

sockman

Here’s the Sock Man – a wonderful sculpture from the Market Place in Loughborough, representing the town’s historic link with the hosiery industry.

thomas cookLoughborough was also the destination for the first Package Tour organised by Thomas Cook, 170 years ago. Thomas Cook was a local Baptist preacher, and organised an excursion, on the newly extended Midland Railway, for a group of passengers from Leicester. This proved so successful that he set up his Travel Agency.

The rest, as they say, is history.

loughboro bcToday, this local Baptist preacher will be travelling up to Loughborough [by car, not by train] to take the morning service at Loughborough Baptist Church.

I have not preached there before, so I’m looking forward to it.

Loughborough is a wonderful word – and shows how difficult it is to teach children to read using phonics – after all, it is correctly pronounced “Luffbro” – but just to confuse foreigners, many folk delight in calling it “Loogie-Boroogie”!

6 comments:

  1. Funny! I'm sure foreigners are quite confused enough!

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  2. Why does he only have one of these lovely socks?! Thank you for Jo's card- my personal favourite was Noah's dog- still laughing at that one!

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  3. My son-in-law went to university in Luffbro!

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  4. It's a place very dear to my darling husband's heart as he did a Transport Management and Planning degree at Loughborough Uni in the late 70s/early 80s. It was very amusing to hear his disquiet when we visited the university once more three years ago for Sarah to play rugby in the National Student Games - he couldn't believe how much it had changed - I just had to remind him that things move on especially after 30 years :)

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  5. Socks must have been very expensive in those days,I notice sock man literally has just the one!
    Jane x

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  6. Very interesting info! Thanks Angela!

    Sft x

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