Daventry - iLiveHere: Best & Worst UK Towns Reviewed

If you are talking Northampton you are talking Abington Street to begin your visit, the once thriving and traditional main shopping thoroughfare having its teeth punched out, gaps filled with the perfunctory charity shops, pawn brokers, fast food restaurants and mobile phone repair shops (why is it only Afghans that work in those?) or simply […]

Daventry, the opposite of Hotel California

I went to school in Daventry and lived in a village nearby until I scarpered to London in 1997, aged 19. I couldn’t wait. Years later, I’m browsing Facebook and find out a school mate had made it to Australia, married and had kids. The other side of the planet! Desperate times. Others got to […]

Daventry, town of the zombie

This town doesn’t just bore the pants off me, it offends me. The locals don’t leave the town, have never lived, have no personality. Everything shuts at 5. Houses, charity shops, estate agents, repeat that 6 times and you get the gist…. Back in 2000 or 2001 I recall a woman starving her baby boy […]

Northampton: dangerous at night, unpleasant during the day

Northampton was apparently once a magnificent market town. But for as long as I lived there, there was nothing magnificent about it. I grew up in Duston, a village 3 miles away from the town centre. Between the stench of sewage, huge **** families lounging around on their front lawns with cans of cheap lager […]

Northampton: come one, come all and suck us dry

Northampton is a shining example of rapid post war expansion gone wrong. I’m certain the planners of the day were doing their best but it seems like the ‘ton was a Friday afternoon rush job. after spraying the town centre with concrete they then saw fit to build a shanty town encircling the main arena. […]