YESTERDAY IN MELTON MOWBRAY

The Long Journey. Ollie is our cat and he celebrated his tenth birthday this month when no doubt a few tantalising treats were once again placed before him to honour the momentous occasion.  Born in Peckham, S. E. London at some time during the third week of April in 2004, our much loved, chubby British Black with the 'cream' around his lips, is believed to have originated in that borough amongst a litter of five siblings. My daughter Mimi who has maintained a lifelong fascination for  'Felis cactus'   was resident in Peckham when she was offered first choice of a friend's unwanted and apparently increasingly intrusive litter. As we old folk here in the wilds of the English East Midlands had recently bid a fond last farewell to ' Archie ' - a very large and loveable tabby - and were still mourning his passing, Mimi carefully made the decision that we would just love a replacement. Having made her choice of the litter on offer, the chosen one was sub

FOREWORD     Tucked away in the grounds of St Peters C of E church at Kirby Bellars in Leicestershire stands a headstone which is a memorial to the tragic passing of three young men all from the same family some 85 years ago; each was in his youthful twenties and all three had apparently died within a matter of weeks of one another: The now-fading inscription poignantly records the sad testimony of what must have been an awful period in the life of their family: IN LOVING MEMORY OF THREE DEAR SONS OF  CHARLES AND ELIZABETH LITTLEWOOD OF THIS PARISH. HORACE, DIED AUGUST 9, 1927, AGED 29 YEARS. SIDNEY THOMAS , DEARLY LOVED HUSBAND OF  BEATRICE MAY LITTLEWOOD,  DIED OCTOBER 28, 1927 AGED 26 YEARS. CHARLES BERTRAM , DIED OCTOBER 28, 1927 AGED 21 YEARS. _________ ‘IN THE MIDST OF LIFE WE ARE IN DEATH’ _________ ‘God knows the way he holds the key He guides us with unerring hand. Sometime with tireless eyes we’ll see:  Yes, there

An Olympian Ordeal During my frequent browsing of the old newspapers which were once local to my home area, it is the occasional ' eureka ' moment, like the excitement of finding an elusive 'bargain' at a church fête jumble sale or Sunday street market, that so seems to make this whole thing of research so worthwhile. Such was the case recently when I stumbled across the following little gem, almost hidden at the bottom of column 2, page 8 of the Grantham Journal, a fastidious and serious broadsheet which served to cover its neighbouring market town of Melton Mowbray in some detail. My personal joy of the piece almost certainly relates to the fact that I was myself once a police officer and that I know that the astonishing accomplishment of village bobby, P.C Watson, of 100 years ago would certainly be recognised as an heroic feat by any serving officer of today's police service.  But there is also an irony, seemingly missed by the writer as he explains the