Stepping Out In Style

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

Loughborough 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.

Today, 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”!