Hello Badger Fans!
A very Happy New Year to you all!
2023 is well and truly underway and I’ve finally found the time and motivation to put pen to paper (well, finger to keyboard, but you get the point) for the first time since a few weeks before Christmas.
This time, I thought I’d talk less about Badgers Crossing itself and tell some interesting, spooky and fun folklore from where I grew up. After all, Badgers Crossing is largely built upon many of the experiences and people I encountered in and around my hometown.
Where’s that then?
I grew up in a medium-sized town in Northamptonshire called Corby. It’s roughly halfway between Sheffield and London, and its sits in the centre of a triangle, equidistant from Peterborough, Leicester and Northampton. If you were given a map of England and told to put your finger where you estimated the middle to be, you wouldn’t be far from Corby.
I lived there from the time I was born until I was 20 years old. That’s more than half of my life ago now, but the influence of the place is still very strong.
The main reasons most people have heard about Corby are the Scottish influence and that it was once the home of a major steel plant - and the two are linked. Corby’s extensive beds of ironstone had been known about and worked since at least Roman times, if not earlier. By the turn of the twentieth century, it was an important but modest source of iron ore for the burgeoning railway industry. In 1910 the village was only home to around 1,500 people.
Until 1932, that is, when the Glaswegian steel firm Stewarts & Lloyds decided to take advantage of the local geology and moved their entire operation to Corby. By 1934 construction was well underway, not just of the steelworks, but the housing needed to accommodate all the workers from west Scotland and Ireland who had been offered jobs by S&L. The works produced its first steel in 1935 and by 1939 the population had grown to over 10,000 and rising. When Corby was designated a New Town in 1950 it was 18,000. This prompted the construction of more housing, the expansion of the steelworks, and further Scots (many of whom were relatives of the first wave) travelling south for work. By the 1961 census, the population was 36,000 and the steelworks dwarfed the town. Wherever you were, you could see it.
This brings me to my first bit of folklore. It’s a fairly modern piece of local mythology regarding a chimney in the steelworks that came to be known as…
The Corby Candle
I was only four years old when the announcement was made that steel production in Corby would be halted. That was 1979. The last of the furnaces were turned off in 1980 and with it, a vast chimney for flaring harmful waste gasses. You could see the glow from miles around - as far as Peterborough (25 miles) on a clear night - and its orange-red hue in the sky became a comfort to Corby residents upon returning home.
My former English teacher, Mr Douglas (who inspired the character Mr Drummond in my story Cloakroom Duty) often spoke of the steelworks and how his father had walked all the way from Scotland for a job. That’s around 300 miles - a week’s worth of walking if you stopped only to eat and sleep! One night he asked his mother what the red glow in the sky meant and she replied “It means that daddy's got work.”
When I asked the same question once as we were driving back from nearby Kettering, I was told that it meant we were nearly home.
Mr Douglas is now involved in the local history scene, delivering talks and presentations on the town and the steelworks. In 1989 a memorial was built from the bleeder pipe (the section that actually burns the gas). In 2019 Mr Douglas with his friend Dougie Reid successfully campaigned for a plaque to be erected and for the monument to receive a fresh lick of paint.
There was a saying in Corby that became a slogan for striking steelworkers (who included my dad) as they fought in vain to keep their livelihoods:
“Keep the candle burning, keep the town alive.”
It was said that if Corby Candle was ever extinguished the town would die. To some extent it did - by the time operations were wound down, over 11,000 employees had been made redundant - a staggering 30% of the entire town’s working population at the time. Corby has fought back over the last four decades but that’s a story for another time.
That chant also became the basis of the chorus from Keep The Candle Burning, the first song on the charity protest EP Save Corby by folk singer Mike Carver. I’d love to play you a snippet, but there doesn't appear to be anything online. I have, however, managed to acquire a 7” single copy of it on eBay so when that arrives I’ll see what I can do to share it with anyone who is interested (copyright permitting of course).
Save Corby wasn’t the only music inspired by the town’s plight. The title track of Big Country’s 1984 album Steeltown told the story of the rise and fall of the works. James Dean Bradfield of Manic Street Preacher cites it as one of his favourite albums.
The Charter Confusion and The Pole Fair
It is believed that in 1568 Elizabeth I issued a charter to the people of Corby stating that landowners were exempt from road tolls and dues (income tax) and all men reserved the right to refuse to serve on a jury in Northampton or in a local militia. The reason she granted this charter - if it even ever existed - is now unknown. It may have been a gift to her alleged lover Sir Christopher Hatton, a resident of the village of Holdenby near Northampton. But a favourite local tale tells of how the Queen was riding and hunting in Rockingham Forest and either got lost, fell from her horse, or became mired in a bog (sometimes the story includes all three, and sometimes a wild boar is involved, spooking the horse into throwing its royal rider). The Queen was then supposedly happened upon by some Corby men who rescued her from the bog. In her gratitude, she promised that Corby would forever remain exempt from taxes. Hah! If only.
Corby also received a charter from Henry III in 1226, granting the village the right to hold two fairs a year and a regular market and again in 1670 or 1682 (like much of this story, very few people agree on all the details) from Charles II. Nobody has ever been able to find a copy of, or any records mentioning Elizabeth’s charter, but Charles II’s charter does appear to confirm that The Virgin Queen did indeed grant the village of Corby the right to hold a fair.
The first recorded instance of The Pole Fair was in 1821 and ever since it has been held roughly every twenty years (it was postponed from 1942 to 1947 due to the war). I have only been to it once, in 1982, a time in which the aftermath of the steelworks was still very keenly felt. An article in March 2022’s edition of local magazine NNPulse said of the 1982 Pole Fair that “there was still steel inside the hearts of the people of Corby to survive and thrive. The 1982 Pole Fair was a much-needed boost to the locals”.
It’s a celebration with events, live music, markets, and food and drink, but it all revolves around the Pole and, what do you know, there are conflicting accounts at odds here once again.
The Greasy Pole is the one most locals will tell you is where the fair gets its name. This was exactly what it sounds like; a greased, twenty-foot pole. At the top of the pole was a joint of ham and anyone who could climb all the way to the top went home with… well, a joint of ham. The 2022 fair was the first ever to not feature this competition, due to the organisers being unable to obtain liability insurance for what was deemed a fairly dangerous activity.
The second Pole ties in with Corby’s Nordic roots. Kori, the leader of a Viking expedition to East Anglia, settled in the area. The word by is Danish for town or settlement: therefore Kori’s By.
The Nordic tradition of Riding The Stang was also an integral part of The Pole Fair. Anyone refusing to pay entry would be forced to sit astride a pole and then carried on the shoulders of the fair’s wardens to the stocks, where they would be pelted with wet sponges by giggling children (seven-year-old me may very well have been among their number), or to the pub, where they would be made to buy everyone inside a drink.
It’s kind of ironic that a fair supposedly celebrating the town’s exemption from tolls, featured at its heart a lighthearted form of punishment for refusing to pay a toll.
That’s All For Now
I’ve been told that I’ve almost used up my word count allowance for the newsletter, so I’ll save more of the folklore and spooky stories from Corby and the surrounding area for another instalment next week.
Thank you to everyone who has subscribed or read my Letters From Badgers Crossing so far, and I’d like to give an extra-special welcome to any newcomers who have signed on in time for this latest edition.
Until next time, keep badgering on!
Paul