This Christmas we chatted to Nottingham's most opinionated grocers about Wollaton Hall (in particular, George the Gorilla), Drones, and the Lord Mayor's Rolls Royce.
Wollaton Hall
What about the giraffe, they have one of those as well. With a hole in it! The hall was bought by the Willoughby family wasn’t it, with the profits from coal, then the Council bought it in 1925. We spoke to a man doing a PHD on it - God knows why you’d do a PHD on Wollaton Hall - anyway, it is almost but not quite (and our father would have been livid) completely symmetrical. That is why Batman used it for the film, which is fantastic.
Drones
The Ministry of Defence is getting rid of a load of drones, they want to save half a billion. We went to a wedding in Leicestershire, and instead of the cameraman hanging out a window he had a drone. We know someone who wanted to have a look at their roof, so instead of a man they sent a drone up to have a look. Those sort of things are great, but not for spying on people. Then it gets a bit sinister.
The Lord Mayor’s Rolls Royce
We want to know what’s happened to the Lord Mayor’s and the Sheriff’s Rolls Royces. They were green and used to be parked outside of the Council House in the 70s and 80s. Because now if you’re the mayor or sheriff, you’ve got to go on the bus home. Why don’t they have a proper state car, that’s what we want to know. We went to St Mary’s on Armistice Day and they had to have a hired Mercedes. If they had their own Rolls Royce it would be much more stately.
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