40 Years Ago: 2005 - 1965

Some of the history of Loughborough which follows has been gleaned from the Official Guide to the Borough of Loughborough (not yet Charnwood) published by Ed. J. Burrow & Co. Ltd of Cheltenham and London by authority of the Borough Council. The guide is undated but talks about things that have happened in 1965 and will happen in 1966.

Loughborough in 1965

How times have changed
The Co-op store on Swan Street had just opened – advertised as a new walk round store. We wouldn’t expect anything else now than to be allowed to wander round a store. 40 years ago we would have waited to be served.
Epinal Way was still an idea. Although the land had been reserved for many years, for the whole length of the by-pass from north to south, only Ling Road was built and Grove Road, a short length at Ashby Road joining Haydon Road and Westfields Drive.
Loughborough College was yet to be built on the Brush Playing Fields. Loughborough University was still the College of Technology and most of the land was playing fields.
Valley Road didn’t exist.
John Storer House was being built - it would open in 1966.
Thorpe Acre was still recognisably a village.
The Great Central Railway (then called the Eastern Region) was just about to close.
The railway track to Shepshed and Coalville was still there.
You could drive from Market Place into the High Street.
Clemersons were the department store on Market Street.
Loughborough was "The Home of Ladybird Books".
Our multi-cultural town was just about to be created.
Then as now you could hear Carillon recitals in Queens Park on Thursdays and on Sunday afternoons in the summer.
Burleigh College was called Loughborough College School. Limehurst School was for girls and Garendon was the school for boys.
The Borough Council was proud of its achievement in the creation of Shelthorpe housing estate.
Electricity supply was sufficiently variable for the Official Guide to Loughborough to say that in the town the supply was 50 cycles at 240 volts. Something we just don’t think about any more.
There were 18,000 gas consumers both homes and industry in the town.
Already twinned with Epinal the first informal exchanges between Loughborough and Schwabisch Hall were taking place.
Wednesday was quite definitely Early Closing Day and nearly all the shops and banks would close for the afternoon.
There was a cattle market on Mondays.
The population was 39,270.
Telephones were sufficiently rare for the Official Guide to list all the public ‘kiosks’ – we call them telephone boxes now. And from some of the kiosks you had to dial the operator if you wanted to call someone outside the town. Subscriber Trunk Dialling was the modern invention. Telephone numbers in the town were only 4 digits.
We used pounds, shillings and pence.
The town was famous for its industry, Brush Electrical, Herbert Morris, William Cotton (called Nottingham Manufacturing Company) making hosiery and, of course, Taylors Bell Foundry. Hammonds were the only producers of bearded needles in the country - essential for the hosiery industry. Ladybird Books were famous all over the country and English speaking world. Fisons were making Sanatogen and pharmaceuticals. Tuckers were making bricks at both Beacon Road and Tuckers Road. William Davis were building houses.