h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi,

While I agree Doncaster has gone a long way downhill I don't think it's quite as boring as you say. The USSR certainly didn't think so. (See below)

Doncaster has a very interesting history - for example:

Two of the most famous steam engines were built here; the Flying Scotsman and the Mallard. The latter is still officially the fastest steam loco ever built!

The St Ledger is held here - the worlds oldest classic horse race.

Doncaster held the UKs first air display in 1909 at the racecourse and interestingly Doncaster has a considerably history in aviation apart from the new Airport. Two of the UKs ten squadrons of Vulcan bombers operated out of Finningly. That's our "nuclear bomber" - unsurprisingly Finningly would have been a high priority target for the USSR had the cold war gone "hot".

Doncaster's other claim to fame - a Russian nuclear target! (You could argue that getting nuked would improve Doncaster slightly - but I wouldn't say that!)

The town itself has existed since Roman times and before. Before they were knocked down in the 1960s many of the shops along St Sepulchre Gate still had ancient gravestones in their cellars! (Sepulchre being a Roman word for grave or graveyard..)

Doncaster must have about the highest proportion of pubs and clubs per street of anywhere.. (If that's a good thing..)

Doncaster is also a very large "town" with a population of over 280,000 people and if you include the surrounding areas that goes up over 2 million! The UK has considerably smaller cities.

While most of the interesting and quality shops may have been replaced by "everything a pound" and charity shops there are still a few of us going. My own family business has been here for over 140 years dealing in high class and fashion leather goods among other things. (Look us up, we aren't hard to find and we stand out like a sore thumb in modern Doncaster!)

Doncaster may be a somewhat depressed and run down town after decades of council mismanagement and corruption but it certainly isn't dull.

Depressed is one way to describe it. I once spent a cold March afternoon waiting for a railway connection which was 4 hours late. I remember thinking the place was rubbish. But that was in the 90s when southern england was still cool and anything north of leicester was the preserve of the alcoholic dependant and the underpaid.

However times changed. As trains started started turning up at thier alloted times, films like the Full Monty and bands such as Pulp made South Yorkshire cool again. I burst out of my arrogant southern home counties bubble and realised that these people weren't alcoholics at all not by the the standards of my native sussex! Other traits such as wife beating and cousin dating which, thou rife in the southern regions, are very much regarded as the reserve the mentaly deranged
and toff classes in this town. Here, if you have a job, then you probably do an honest days work building something functional like a train or a tractor. Down south you sit on a vomit soaked train for an hour before catching a tube to a brief board meeting followed a quick line of charlie, handing out a huge bollocking to the one person in the company who actually does any work and then going getting completely twatted before staggering home via the late train and telling your wife you've had a long tiring day. Doncaster people are real people, a night out in this place will show you what it feels like to have a soul, to have a pulse, to have an identity and to be at one with the world and your place within it. Doncaster is still special in the way that Sheffield used to be.

Doncastrian Men are noble and honourable at every level. These Gentlemen are so accustomed to calling each other 'sir' and 'fellow' that they no longer need to mention it out loud.

Doncastrian Women are plain straight forward hard to get, take a lot of time and reward those patient few with a true feeling of Masculinity and of being a gentleman.

They say are other Yorkshiremen are entry level Doncastrians. Between chundering in the taxi and attemping to nut the arresting police officer I explained my southern routes and loosely based left wing principles. It was explained to me that there is no such thing as an honourary Doncastrian and that I was just Scum!