Bang in the Middle. Robert Shore

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СКАЧАТЬ they do manage to locate it, outsiders often find it hard to take Nottingham seriously; respect can be hard to come by when you used to be known by the name of ‘Snottingham’. That was in the Middle Ages, when it was settled by Saxons led by or descended from a chap named Snot. In more recent times, Nottingham has been no less unglamorously known to millions as ‘Dottingham’, the go-to railway destination for all cold-sufferers, thanks to that bloody ad for Tunes cough sweets. Condescension is thus the preferred mode when metropolitans deign to notice the Queen of the East Midlands. For instance, when another London-based publication, briefly warming to the charms of its chic Lace Market district (once the centre of the nation’s fashion industry – while we’re on the subject, Sir Paul Smith, the classic-with-a-twist design guru, is Nottingham born-and-bred and still has a flagship store in a beautiful Grade II-listed town house in the centre of town), recommended the city as a weekend getaway destination, it couldn’t help adding patronisingly: ‘Sales of tights can’t be high in Nottingham. Or coats, for that matter. This is the kind of town where outfits start low and end high, and the fine art of going out has been honed to perfection. Don’t knock it, they have a style of their own – it’s just not style as we know it.’ How we laughed.

      Still, at least the magazine’s assessors claim to have enjoyed themselves in Nottingham. One of the great heroes of the Golden Age of British detective fiction, Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard, hailed from the Midlands. But when, in the 1929 mystery The Man in the Queue, an investigation carries him from the metropolis to Nottingham, his heart sinks: ‘Grant came out of the station into the drone and clamour of trams. If he had been asked what represented the Midlands in his mind, he would unhesitatingly have said trams … Grant never heard the far-away peculiar sing of an approaching tramcar without finding himself back in the dead, airless atmosphere of the Midland town where he had been born.’ ‘Dead’, ‘airless’: sounds irresistible, doesn’t it? You’ll be glad to know that, after doing without one for several decades, Nottingham has recently reinstituted a tram service – you can catch it from the Forest Recreation Ground when Goose Fair isn’t on. Inspector Grant would be pleased.

      Anyway, if, despite the best efforts of journalists and that Tunes ad, you are planning a visit – and until the arrival of the gangs and guns and the Channel 4 programme The Best and Worst Places to Live in the UK, Nottingham was regularly cited as one of the nicest, most welcoming places in Britain – here are a few local highlights to look out for:

      1 The vast Market Square is the largest (about 22,000 m²) in the country. It’s also rather dull.

      2 The tallest freestanding work of art in the UK, Ken Shuttleworth’s Aspire, is here. You almost certainly won’t have heard of it before, although you will definitely have heard of the much-photographed, much-publicised – and much smaller – Angel of the North by Antony Gormley. Gormless’s Gateshead icon gets written about and photographed a lot more because it’s self-advertisingly Northern. By contrast, Shuttleworth’s much more ambitious structure has a lame pun for a title (it’s like a spire, see, and it’s on a university campus, where the students presumably aspire to reach new intellectual heights). It should have been called Midland Thrust or something like that instead, but, as we’ve already seen, the Midlands doesn’t go in for that kind of self-promotion.

      3 The castle. William the Conqueror was responsible for the original building, which quickly became the chief royal fortress in the Midlands. Crusading King Richard had to lay siege to it to reclaim it from his wicked, Robin Hood-bothering brother, John, in 1194. Most of the original structure has been destroyed; the Italianate building that has replaced it is rather anaemic.

      4 There’s a statue of Robin Hood – did I mention that he was a local? – at the foot of the castle. The most important ’Oodie-related site, however, is the Major Oak out in Edwinstowe. Robin’s paramour has her principal incarnation in the form of a ring road that encircles Nottingham city centre, Maid Marian Way. Romantic, like.

      5 The pubs. Like Mansfield, Nottingham takes its drinking seriously. You can tell because a lot of the local hostelries claim the distinction of age. The Bell Inn on Angel Row, running along the bottom side of the Market Square, says it’s the oldest in Nottingham, although its purported foundation date (c. 1437) pales besides that of Ye Olde Salutation Inn, which traces its origins to around 1240. Nestling in a half-timbered building beneath the castle, Ye Olde Trip to Jerusalem goes one better and claims to be the oldest inn in the whole of England. It’s said to date from 1189, the year Nottingham-loving monarch Richard the Lionheart ascended the throne. Legend has it that when old Dickie Coeur de Lion announced his intention to lead a crusade against the Saracens, the king’s followers had a swift one at the inn before setting off on their journey to Jerusalem – hence the name. So if you find Nottingham a bit characterless and try-hard, you can at least rest assured that it’s a great place to get smashed.

      After lunch with Elizabeth, I wander away from the city’s busy commercial centre, up past the curved Newton and Arkwright Building of Nottingham University – named for two Midlanders who helped shape the modern world, I note in passing – and plunge into the manicured calm of the Arboretum, the first public park to be opened in the city, back in 1852, when industrialisation had begun to impact on the environment and the authorities judged it politic to provide locals with a little green breathing space. Today leaves carpet the ground in a rich tapestry of autumnal colours, while the foliage overhead offers a rich mix – a symphony, no less – of russets and greens. I can see that lots of different types of tree are involved in creating this eye-catching effect – it’s obviously all been planned with loving care by the landscapers – but I’m a city boy and so am completely incapable of telling you what they are, for which I apologise. What I can tell you is that, in the heart of this green oasis, there’s a little bridge that lovers usually find romantic and under which they pause to kiss. Personally, as a schoolboy I always found it rather sinister and fully expected to be knifed to death whenever I had to pass through it after dusk. My fantasies of murder aside, this is a nice place. ‘Thank you for visiting the Arboretum,’ says a notice as you exit, extending various options to those who might like to leave feedback on their park experience. Yes, it’s a very polite place these days, is Nottingham.

      Not bland, though. Nottingham stands on the river Trent, which is often taken as the line separating North from South. Certainly, it’s often served as a national dividing line: this is where Charles I raised his standard on 22 August 1642 to signal the beginning of the Civil War. The award-winning Galleries of Justice Museum characterise Nottingham as a ‘rebel city’, and it’s a title the city well deserves. The spirit of Arthur Seaton – that emblematic Nottingham Man, pace Stuart Maconie – runs deep in the city’s history.

      Nottingham sport has had its fair share of nonconformist Seatons. The county’s cricketing history is full of rebels, eccentric individualists for whom conformity was never an option. ‘Clown prince’ Derek Randall is a classic example. When Dennis Lillee tossed a bouncer down at the Nottinghamshire and England batsman’s head in an Ashes Test in 1977, Randall whipped off his cap and reputedly called out: ‘No good hitting me there, mate. There’s nothing to damage.’ When he was finally out – for 174; Randall may have been a bit of a joker but he was no clown with the bat – he exited the playing area by the wrong gate and found himself climbing the steps towards the royal enclosure. ‘[The Queen] was very nice about it,’ Randall reported. ‘She smiled. Someone else quickly put me right.’ The spirit of Sir John Cockle lives on, it would appear.

      Randall is part of a fine tradition of local cricketing unorthodoxy. In May 1930 the whole of the Nottinghamshire side famously took to the field in lounge suits on the final day of their match against Hampshire in Southampton. The previous day’s play had ended with the home side requiring just a single run for victory. The Notts captain, Arthur Carr, didn’t think it was worth the trouble of putting on whites the following morning: opening bowler Bill Voce actually wore an overcoat. His second ball yielded the necessary run.

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