Dave Clemo new book Kettering

New book about Kettering written and researched by Dave Clemo.  The book is called Every Picture Tells a Story.

Transcript

00:00 Hello, I'm Dave Clemo. I've lived in Kettering now since the mid-1980s and while I've walked around the town,

00:07 I often, certain things catch my eye, like this terracotta design on the wall behind me there.

00:13 And I just get intrigued. Why is that there? Where's it come from?

00:17 And over, by looking at photographs, by looking in old newspapers, by looking on the internet,

00:24 I've been able to put together quite a comprehensive story about little things you can see in Kettering that tells a story.

00:30 In fact, every picture tells a story.

00:33 I've chosen this particular picture on the cover. It's a picture of Kettering.

00:37 But if you, the Kettering street sign, this is up at the top of Rothwell Road,

00:42 and you'll notice from the picture, if you look closely, that the actual coat of arms has been removed.

00:48 And that's because the borough of Kettering no longer exists and we now have a Kettering Town Council.

00:55 So when the borough of Kettering was absorbed into North Ants Council, the coat of arms became obsolete.

01:06 So eventually we will get a new coat of arms and then it will take its place back on the sign.

01:12 Every now and then I find something which I didn't know.

01:17 And it's quite surprising sometimes to have walked past something for years and years and years

01:23 without actually realising what the significance of it was.

01:28 And so the book sets out some of the...

01:33 What I did, I set out a little trail around the outskirts of the old medieval Kettering,

01:39 starting at the top of Stamford Road and then working around and finishing back at the same place

01:44 at the end of Montague Street.

01:46 And so I look at a date stone or just a building, evidence of an earlier building in its place,

01:56 and I try to work out what the story is behind that.

01:59 This is Terracotta Arch.

02:01 If you were to go back 25 years, this building would have been...

02:06 is exactly on the footprint of the old Evening Telegraph building.

02:10 And at the top of the gable, this Terracotta Archway was featured right at the very, very top.

02:17 And when they demolished the building, they very carefully looked...

02:22 took it apart, conserved it, and when the new building went up, they put it in its place.