Corby Love It Or Hate It?

A Memory of Corby.

First impressions of Corby
We moved to Corby, then known as Corby New Town, in 1954, when I was 10. I hated it with a passion having been brought up in the country. Born in Suffolk, where my parents kept a pub in Elmswell, we had moved to the delightful medieval village of Barrowden in Rutland to keep The Exeter Arms, another old coaching inn. Then my dad was a forester in Fineshade Woods, still happiest memories of roaming the forest with my boxer dog, Georgie. Imagine my distress when we moved to the concrete jungle of the steel town of Corby. Even though my older sister lived on the other side of Bideford Square, with her husband & 2 daughters, I still felt disenchanted until we discovered a treasure on the other side of the railway line - a secret copse of trees & bushes where the 3 of us could build dens, pretend we were adventurers in the jungle or hunt out tiny wild strawberries to feast on. My dad worked for Lancashire & Corby Steel, driving a lorry, until he was in his 70s. My brother & brother in law worked for Stewart & Lloyds & the picture of the steel works looking down the railway line towards the furnaces is one of my first memories of Corby, like looking into the mouth of Hell when they opened the furnace to pour the molten steel. I eventually went to the Grammar School & sang in the choir, especially at Christmas when we led the service of Nine Lessons & Carols. One year I had the honour of singing the first verse of Once in Royal David's City in the candlelit parish church - scary but great. I never grew to really love Corby, still being a country girl at heart, but I would love to hear from any old grammar school pupils who might remember Vivienne Blaker as I was then. Happy days! I did meet Mr. Dennis Bott, my former Latin master at a village fete in Great Easton & he was still in touch with Mr Holmes, my favourite English master who was an inspirational teacher. He managed to instil a love of Dickens, Shakespeare & good English into teenagers whose minds were on other things. We were so lucky to have a wonderful group of dedicated & powerful teachers including Neville Dilkes, music master extraordinaire. We had a main school choir, 4 house choirs, and a 4 part Madrigal choir & many talented young musicians & Neville was the driving force behind it all. We did concerts, music competitions, Gilbert &Sullivan operettas, Shakespeare plays as well as Scottish dancing, Roman evenings & many other events. A brilliant school & I still consider myself so fortunate to have attended it.
Corby is very different now but driving through it brings back many memories of "little Scotland" as it was called.


Added 25 January 2013

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Comments & Feedback

My family moved to Corby in 1949- Dad had a job in Stewart's and Lloyds. I attended Our Lady of Walsingham's Infant and Primary School and passed the 11+ to go to the brand new Corby Grammar School in Sept 1955. John Kempe was the Headmaster. Donald Holmes was a great favourite and I saw him at the 50th re union for our year- in 2005. Mr. Bott was there as well. Mr Holmes died a few years later- he'd moved to near Nottingham where we lived for years. I remember Mr Dilkes who used to give me a lift to school in his sports car as he lived round the corner from me. I worked in the Westminster Bank on Corporation Street and got married in 1964 at St Brendan's on Beanfield Avenue. My husband was Assistant Manager at Woolworth's on Corporation Street and he was transferred to Harrogate in 1965. My sister was married at Our Lady's and my Dad's funeral was he'd there as well. I have mixed memories of Corby. Some good- some bad but that's life. It gave a large number of people work and homes after the War. After the Steel Works closed and thousands of people were made redundant it went through a hard time but the people of Corby were a tough breed and the town reinvented itself.

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