We went to Rugby the other day. It has changed a great deal since we lived in nearby Lutterworth, but I’ll get onto that shortly. There were one or two items we needed for our apartment that we could get from Rugby and we thought we would make a day of the visit.

We bought the essentials and motored from the retail outlet to a car park in Railway Terrace. I was reminded here of one of the changes to Rugby that is regrettable.
On the corner of Railway Terrace and a side road called Charlotte Street, there used to be a second-hand and antiquarian bookshop owned by a genteel lady who was probably in her late seventies at the time. That bookshop oozed atmosphere and the lady oozed charm. It is a great shame that its welcoming door no longer opens to book lovers.
I have done homage to both the lady and her bookshop and it has a place in my sci-fi/fantasy book, called Leofwin’s Hundred.

Sandra and I walked toward the town and went into a J D Wetherspoons pub called The Rupert Brooke, where we ordered drinks and food. Some plaques were on the wall near where we were sitting. On them were some words from a Great War poem written by Rupert Brooke;

If I should die, think only this of me:
That there’s some corner of a foreign field
That is forever England. . . .

Rupert Brooke was a local lad who went to Rugby school.
We finish our refreshments and walk further on into the town toward the high towers of Rugby School.
In 1857 Thomas Hughes, who was an English lawyer, published Tom Brown’s Schooldays, a semi-autobiographical novel about Tom Brown’s life at Rugby School.
With the impressive arched entrance of the school facing us the top of Sheep Street, we turned to the right, where there is another connection to Rugby School, the Webb Ellis Rugby Museum.
In 1823, pupil, William Webb Ellis, on one of the playing fields at said school, picked up a football and ran with it. I don’t know what time of day it was when young William ran, probably not at sunrise but when he ran, football faced a new dawn. A game of captivating strategy began with the lad’s dash up the field.

“Fancy another drink?” Sandra asked. It was a hot day and with temperature peaking I thought it was a great idea, so we headed back to Rupert Brooke’s Wetherspoon place.
What was painfully obvious on the way back was the decline of the high street shops in Rugby. Shop after shop that I remembered as thriving a short span of years ago had closed. Locked doors and dust behind glass had replaced window displays showing choice goods. But in Rugby there is a rising industry. Charity shops. On display are . . . you’ve got it, choice goods, but now at knock-down prices.

Maybe this is indicative of the way buying and selling is going. People are sick of being ripped off. Competition is on to supply what people need at a price they are prepared to pay and with internet buying and selling available too, the competition is fierce.

However, there is still a second hand and antiquarian bookshop in Rugby. It is not the shop I remember, the one on the corner of Railway Terrace and Charlotte Street. But guess what, I went in and bought a second hand book of Rupert Brooke’s poems . . . at a fraction of the original cost.

Until next time,
Keep well,
JJ

posted by J.J. Overton on July, 17