This is England Real People, Real Stories

Do you remember sweets like liquorice torpedoes, sherbet lemons and mint humbugs and thought they where a thing of the past. You'd be wrong, Goodies Sweetshop in Lincoln is perhaps the only shop where you can buy them.

Additional Information

Although Neil sold Goodies Sweetshop in 2013, its still in business and is owned today by a Mr Cottingham. 

Harry & Terri Boyce are both enthusiasts about Field Archery. Join them as they discuss their passion for a sport, which has led Terri to a world title and Harry to design courses for the upcoming European Field Archery Championships. Our host Liz Fawden then gets a lesson in how to shoot a bow and arrow. 

Additional Information:

In one of the most hair raising moments of Series One Liz is narrowly missed by the outstretched talons of a hawk as it comes into land over her head. Hear these wonderful birds as Neil Mumby the falconer flies them for their daily exercise and they soar and swoop overhead. Then join Liz and Neil as they visit the breeding rooms where captive birds are able to provide new youngsters to keep the species alive.

Additional Information:

As of 2020, after being in business for two decades, Neil continues to own and operate 

Woodside Falconry & Conservation Centre near Lincoln. 

As a young boy Alan Pell was fascinated by the steam fairground organs that accompanied the travelling showmen and their fairgrounds everywhere. With no books but only other old organs from which to learn how to make them, he set about building an organ of his own, and another and another.... so that today the whole family is involved in making these superb musical instruments.

Additional Information:

Alan has since retired from making fairground organs and now runs a mobile fish and chip shop from a converted iconic London Red Bus.

Dressed in a Lincoln green overcoat, with a yellow waistcoat. You couldn't miss Terry Stubbins in a crowd. Also wearing a tri-corn hat, he is Town Crier to the city of Lincoln. 

2020: Terry moved to Liverpool and has since retired.

Please Note: The link for more information given (by me) at the end of the end of the interview was recorded twenty years ago and is no longer valid.

Chris Frear Butterfield

So you want to make a light portable boat you can carry on your shoulder and you haven't any money or a workshop or even tools to do it with. Its no problem, help is at hand. Join Liz as she sits with Rick Taylor by the riverbank on a glorious Summers day and he describes how you can make yourself a coracle. First cut 19 poles of well coppiced willow on a dry Winters day...

2020: 

Additional Information:

Rick still builds coracles to commission and can be contacted thought his website at:-

Sid Tempest a.k.a. “Cesspool Sid” Sid, Horncastle's number one cesspool emptier, has been doing his somewhat unglamorous job for over thirty years. Today he tells Liz Fawden about life emptying cesspools and the characters and the hilarious stories of some of the characters he has met. Roll with laughter as Sid recounts the time he recovered a set of dentures for a man so they could be re-used.

This interview was recorded in 1999. Sadly Sid passed away in 2001.

Please Note: The link for more information given at the end of the end of the interview was recorded twenty years ago and is no longer valid.

Chris Frear Butterfield

chrisfrear@btinternet.com