40 years in Loughborough

On Friday 5th October, I had a most interesting day talking to a group of people about some of Loughborough's buildings. I felt this was a most appropriate time to be doing this as I was celebrating being in Loughborough for 40 years. I wasn't born, or brought up here, but nonetheless, I love Loughborough! What you will read below is how I ended up here!

For as long as can remember, as a child, I wanted to be a musician. When I was in Wales I played the piano, violin, clarinet, guitar and recorder, but it was a small school, and I was a big fish in a little pond. When I moved to Yorkshire I was stunned by the quality of the music-playing that happened in the school and realised I was oh so mediocre. I’m not sure how or why I ended up helping in the school library at lunchtime, but I did, and it was that that decided me that I would like to become a librarian. I investigated the options with the careers teacher, who said I should take the quickest route to qualification, and so it was that in early 1978 I found myself visiting Manchester, Newcastle, Aberystwyth and Loughborough.

Being Welsh, and missing Wales so much, I really wanted to study at Aberystwyth – that is, until I got there! Today, I look back and wonder why I took such an instant dislike to it! It’s a really beautiful place, near the sea, with plenty to do, and a great university. But no, I think it was something to do with the train ending there, and having to simply go back the way it had come that freaked me out a bit! Newcastle and Manchester were ok, but Loughborough … well …

The moment I got off the train and stepped onto the platform, and started the long walk alongside the derelict land, I was hooked!! I don’t know if there were buses running from the station in those days: I certainly didn’t see any, so it was quite a walk to the university. I remember passing a little garage and taxi rank at the end of Burder Street and the Duke of York pub at the end of Ratcliffe Road. Then there was the Clarence at the end of Clarence Street, and the big factory on the corner (Towles), then the Three Crowns and the Three Horseshoes the ghost of the Stag and Pheasant all on the same side, and the Greyhound on the other. I passed a fishing tackle and gun shop, and an electrical shop called Taurus, and then found the Royal George on the corner of Cradock Street and the Sunnyside Hotel next to it. I can’t for the life of me remember what was where the flats are now on the corner of Sparrow Hill. I remember Graypaul’s but that came much later.

Anyway, I carried on into town, passing the stunning bingo hall and the huge hospital and across the main road into the Market Place. I noticed the Charnwood Precinct opposite a Woolworths store, and made a note to leave myself enough time on the way back to the station to have a look around the town.

I honestly can’t remember what route I took from the Market Place, but suspect I walked all the way through town, along Forest Road and then across the quiet-ish road between the university and the Technical/Art College. Again, a hazy memory of the campus, but I do remember staying the night in Elvyn Richards Hall, which was only a year or so old at the time, and I remember being interviewed in Schofield Building. I’m guessing we must have visited the library too, although I don’t actually remember that.

Anyway, I loved Loughborough University and it seemed they were ok with me too as they offered me a place! To cut a long story short, I ended up coming to Loughborough on Thursday 5^th October 1978, and arrived at Towers Hall with my father in tow. We unloaded my small number of possessions into what ended up being my room for three years! We said our farewells and I waved him off, only for him to return an hour later with a Peanuts poster for me to stick on the window that was above the door of my room!

And so began my life in Loughborough - 3 years at the university! Alongside studying hard and playing in the orchestra, I used to regularly walk into town, crossing over what is now Epinal Way, walking alongside the Technical College, then across a field with a cricket pavilion and through some allotments, then along Forest Road. I loved the market, the fair, the restaurants! The first Indian restaurant I went into was Amber on High Street: this was really exciting, and none of my group really had much idea about what to expect, but it was lovely. This was a regular for a while, but later we used to go more often to the Koh-i-Noor. We only went to the Hong Kong Fountain (now Mr Chan’s) on rare occasions as it was a bit expensive for a student budget!! So we more likely to go to the Golden Orient on Swan Street or the Lotus House on Devonshire Square.

And, of course, as we were students, we did the expected thing and visited many pubs!! In the early days we went to pubs in Loughborough itself. Living in Towers, the Forest Gate was a regular when we used to be able to walk across the field (now the tennis court) along the little path next to the houses and onto the pub. It may seem like we tried all the pubs in town, but actually we didn’t, so those we did go to include: The Blacksmith’s Arms, The Wheatsheaf (now The Orange Tree), The Golden Fleece, The Barley Mow (now a café on one side and a microbrewery on the other), The Druid’s Arms (and it’s later incarnation as The Bitter End, now Skillen’s), The Albion, The Boat, The Generous Briton, The Blackbird, The Three Nuns, The Packe Horse, The White Horse, The Cross Keys, The Crown and Cushion, The Griffin, The Green Man, and a few others!! In our last year, one of our group had a car – a rarity in those days – so we used to go further afield, to places like Cotes Mill, Tur Langton, a pub called Jackson Stops at Stretton, Red Lion and Bluebell Inns at Rothley, and many more!   

At the end of those 3 years at the university, I gained my qualification and began the hunt for a job. But, never had I imagined I would still be living in Loughborough 40 years later!

In the library which is now the Herbert Manzoni Building

A group of friends

Another group of friends

Looking out from Towers, either 1978 or 1979 as Epinal Way was built in summer 1980

Graduations

Friends. This view would be interrupted today by the Business School

Towers!!!

Shortly after graduating!

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Dyer, Lynne (2018). 40 years in Loughborough. Available from: https://lynneaboutloughborough.blogspot.com/2018/10/40-years-in-loughborough.html  [Accessed 6 October 2018]

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Lynne