Home Truths

So, Derby. My new locus operandi. (When searching for a phrase, make one up.) Recently described on Sky Sports as ‘the most central city in the UK,’ it is very slightly more interesting than that makes it sound. Obviously I still know very little about it, but here are some little observations I have so far made.

Derby has two cinemas (they both showed Serenity quite adequately). It has the two ends of the supermarket spectrum, Morrisons and Sainsburys, but not much in between. The Oxfam in town sells Fairtrade tropical juice, which I adore. There is an acceptable number of charity shops, all with books for me to browse through. I don’t know if the library is any good, as I am putting off joining until I have a permanent address, but I do know where it is. Derby is an old-fashioned sort of town and still has an Assembly Rooms. I am fairly certain I have previously mentioned the Honda motorcycle dealership owned by Bob Minion, but I feel it could bear to be mentioned again. Derby thrived on the railways (it is a rail hub, much like Crewe) and hence is full of a) red brick terraced housing and b) decrepit ex-industry. It has an inner ring road and an outer ring road, neither of which quite complete a full ring. The river Derwent runs through Derby, but mostly the town turns its back on it and walls it in with concrete. I think there is a (possibly ex-)canal somewhere because I have seen cycle track signposts that mention one. Derby’s football team are Derby County, known as the Rams (wool was, I think, another staple industry in ye olden days), and they have one of those eternal rivalries that football teams from nearby towns so often develop with Notts Forest. The stadium is called Pride Park, which is a silly name. Derby has many little suburbs which are ex-villages…ones I know of include Alvaston, Wilmorton, Crewton, Sinfin, Allestree, Osmaston, Markeaton, Littleover, Mickleover, Peartree and Chester Green. There is a road called Traffic Street. The shops in the city centre are reasonable – an HMV, a Waterstones…what more do I need? On the way back into the city tonight I found out from a road sign that Derby is twinned with Osnabruck – I have no idea why, especially as Derby is one of those cities that doesn’t really feel city-sized…I seem to make a habit of living in them, as Oxford was another.

The M1 goes by a few miles to the east and, from what my car radio tells me, has an accident on every morning. Every weekday I drive from Derbyshire south-west into Staffordshire, down the A38 towards Birmingham, to go to work near Burton-upon-Trent, a singularly uninteresting town except that they make Coors and Marmite there. Next to Burton is Branston, where they make the pickle. This is the Midlands proper. Derby itself is slightly hilly, but to the north-west is what most people would think of as Derbyshire proper, with the peaks, Matlock, Mam Tor and Chatsworth all within reasonably easy reach by car. To the south-east is Nottingham, which turns out to be rather cooler than I thought it was (and has digital cameras for the purchasing), and then Leicester, near which my grandparents live. To the north-east…I haven’t been that way yet. But I know that up north somewhere are Sheffield and Leeds and eventually York…one weekend I’ll go a-driving up the M1 and find out.

There. Now you know about as much about Derby as I do.