Home Guard Parade

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1941: The Peterborough Group of the Home Guard consisted of two battalions - the city and the soke. On this Friday, the largest muster of the city battalion was present when it paraded past a saluting base set up in front of the Town Hall. Brigadier-General Sir Hereward Wake, Commandant of the Northamptonshire Group, was supposed to have taken the salute but he had been called away to see the king, so his deputy, Colonel Hobson, filled in. For some strange reason, the parade was led by a gramophone, with an amplifier mounted on a lorry. This was NOT a good idea as few could hear the music. (Gray, David, Peterborough at War 1939-1945, David Gray, 2011)

Taken from The Peterborough Book of Days by Brian Jones, The History Press, 2014.

The Peterborough Rat

1931

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In 1931 a small church museum was established by Canon Peel of the Cathedral of St John, Newfoundland, who wrote to 56 English Cathedrals requesting contributions for the collection in recognition of the ties between Newfoundland and the English Church. Among the objects donated was a copy of the 1699 deed establishing the parish, historic bibles, stonework, grave rubbings and a petrified rat. The rather unusual donation of the rat came from Peterborough Cathedral where the creature was found in the church rafters!

The rat may have been found during John Thompson’s roof works in 1925 where timbers were replaced due to an infestation of deathwatch beetles.