A busy show today as being a Tuesday I was joined as usual by Margaret Mills who’s historical item today concerned The Lion and the Unicorn – but no it had nothing to do with a pub – but more on that later.
But we did have news of a pub, but not a hostelry local to our area, but rather located in Linlithgow, Scotland.
And it seems that this 350 year old establishment has become the centre of a controversy over the name it has been trading under all this time – THE BLACK BITCH TAVERN.
Seemingly that name is now considered to be offensive!
The name “BLACK BITCH” has been associated with the town for over 700 years and there’s even a statue in the town to honour the name, and the rich history of the town.
A petition to stop the name change brought in more than 11,000 signatures, which is amazing in itself as the population of the town is just 13,000.
However plans to change the name of the pub to THE WILLOW TREE are now set to be discussed by the Scottish government after West Lothian Council deferred planning permission.
The Linlithgow Civic Trust has argued in a statement that there is ‘nothing racist’ about The Black Bitch and the name should not be changed.
It read: “It accurately describes a female canine with a black coat. We note that Greene King appear to have no plans to change the names of their public houses called The Black Horse or The Black Bull, although they have changed the name of some of its pubs which were deemed as too offensive, including The Black Boy in Suffolk and The Black’s Head in Derbyshire.
Well I never!
But back in Brentwood I was joined today by the managing director of our co-sponsor of BRENTWOOD in BUSINESS, Jane Bennett of BENNETTS FUNERAL DIRECTORS.
Having been founded here more than 130 years ago, could there be anyone better to advocate the benefits of basing a business right here in the town?
Listen here to the words of wisdom from Jane and learn how the company has developed and become deeply involved in the local community: –
Jane’s visit today was especially timely given that this coming Saturday marks SUICIDE PREVENTION DAY and given current conditions, Jane was keen to ask everyone to get involved and take just 20 minutes to take part in suicide prevention training.
You don’t have to go anywhere or attend any particular location to get involved, all you need to do is to visit the website – www.letstalkaboutsuicideessex.co.uk.
And then as mentioned earlier, Margaret Mills was back with me again to discuss THE LION AND THE UNICORN, which has nothing whatever to do with a pub but actually concerns the 1951 and the Festival of Britain.
In fact THE LION AND THE UNICORN were actually 7 ft high statues made of straw in Great Bardfield by Fred Mizen.
Listen again here to what Margaret had to say on this subject: –
See you again next week,
Scott
