It was a cold January day in 1953 and I was a ten-year-old dreading what the future had in story. My father had transferred from the steelworks at Barrow in Furness to the Corby plant of Stewarts and Lloyds in October 1951. The family – my mother, seven-year-old sister and I were being reunited and swapping a Coronation Street –two-up, two-down terraced council house in Barrow-in-Furness and moving into a newly-built three-bedroom Corporation house 10, Cupar Crescent close to Corby’s rapidly developing town centre.

Even so, I was leaving all my pals behind, my school football team and my aunts and uncles and was hardly ready for such a life-changing move. Like most 10-year-olds I thought moving to a town I had never even heard of about 200 miles away was a bad idea.

But back then Cory was a town full of incomers. The population was about 13,000 I think, houses were going up faster than some tents and the town centre was in its first stage of development.

Memory can play tricks – especially in a 78-year-old – but one of my first recollections is finding a tortoise on a building site in what was to become Argyll Street on the way to school. The tortoise – who my sister claimed and named Bobby – is still wandering around her back garden up here in Cumbria some 70 years later.

Getting used to Scottish accents and learning the names of Celtic football team were my early introductions to school life at Our Lady of Walsingham junior school in Occupation Road but when I passed my 11-plus I had to learn another “foreign” language – Ketteringese or, as the Telegraph cartoonist told us daily in the Airada cartoon. Oo, megal where’s gooin nah?” English translation: Hello, girl, where are you going now?”

A year was spent at Kettering Grammar before I was among the pupils at the opening day of Corby Grammar School. Highlights of my three years there were largely sporting – first captain of the School cricket team – chosen, I later suspected, because I was English and therefore must know more about the game that Scots – and part of a “rebel” football team who played in the final of the local Coronation Shield at Corby Town’s Occupation Road ground, losing 4-3 to the “unbeatables” of Corby County Modern School. I say “rebel” because CGS was a rugby-only school and my friend and I (Dickie Rich) who formed the team were refused permission to call ourselves Corby Grammar School or wear the red and white colours of the school, having to play in borrowed kit. At 4 pm on the day of the final we were called into the headmaster’s office (then a Mr. Kempe who I believe went on to become head at Gordonstoun) to be told that we would not be allowed to bring the shield into the school should we win the final, to which my friend replied: Don’t worry, sir, we’ll all have it in our homes for a month each. You can have it for the last month if you want.”

We were sent packing but not before French master Ted Kimmons wished us a sly Good luck on the QT.
Having set my heart on a journalistic career from an early age, I left in August 1958 – to join Stewarts and Lloyds in their transport department. A bit of part time work on the now defunct Corby News, work as a freelance in the Northants Press Agency was followed by a job in the Corby office (Elizabeth Street next to the Corby Candle, as sports writer on the Evening Telegraph and Corby Leader).

Among the early reporting jobs was joining Tony Jacklin on the first tee at the opening of Priors Hall Golf Club.
After marrying we moved on to the new housing estate Shire Lodge – a flat at 12, Severn Walk (underfloor heating and all!) before moving into Wimborne Walk. I stayed there for ten years, working eventually as sports editor in the Dryland Street, Kettering office of the Telegraph before joining the Daily Express in their Manchester office.

Sadly, Corby as a town has a poor reputation – even topping some list as the worst place to live – but I have fond memories of the place that was my home for more than 20 years.

It began life as an out of the way village and developed into what is it? 70,000 population so it must have something going for it!

Peter Wilson