You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy.
I grew up, as most of my colleagues and friends don't believe because I have a Kentish accent (going to uni in Canterbury and living in Ashford with a man from Whitstable will do this to you), in the Midlands. Hinckley, to be precise.

Hinckley's chief exports are Una Stubbs, socks, tights, the hansom cab, Triumph motorbikes and chavs. The local activities include smashing things, glaring at anyone who is not locally born and bred with intent to look at them funny when they notice, getting pregnant, and incest. Friday nights in't town are overseen by a very powerful police presence through the rather grandly named "pedestrianised area" for when the inevitable fight between the natives and the knuckle-draggers from neighbouring (and equally shit) Nuneaton come kick-out time. The pubs will serve anyone who looks over 18 or is willing to flash her norks to get in, and the town's two clubs are where the ever-evolving strains of STDs are cultivated. For those too spotty or baby-faced to get stabbed drink in the pubs, there's always the park, the car park behind the theatre, the council gardens or the churchyard, after all. There is no cinema, no alternative nightlife, no bowling alley, nowhere for those whose ambitions in life are not to drink White Lightning and get fingered in an alleyway to hang around, hence the local propensity for smashing things for something to do. There is graffiti on the wall next to the theatre that reads "THATCHER OUT" that was there when I moved there in 1990, and was still there, although faded, when I moved away in 2006.

Hinckley is the same place where this happened, and the council did fuck all about it even though they knew it was going on.

Length? 16 years' worth of field notes.
( Maladicta, Fri 30 Oct 2009, 18:02, 12 replies)

Used to
Have a boyfriend from Hinckley. It's true about the getting pregnant bit. I'd thought that the Catholic Church had firebombed the Family Planning Clinic..

Edit- There's one apparently half-decent bar. But he owns it..

Its also known as "Fighttown" according to him...
(Beer Elf Thought this was like a campfire, anyhow, on, Sat 31 Oct 2009, 11:38, closed)

Do you mean that you found one with the right number of toes?
And people wondered why I saved my dating and sexy tiem for uni...

Which is the half-decent bar he owns? I've not been back since 2007 to go to the dentist so I may not know which one it is, but just out of curiosity?
( Maladicta, Sat 31 Oct 2009, 15:55, closed)

I lived in Hinckley for 2 years.
I agree with everything in the above post.

In all the time I lived there, I never once stayed in town for a night out.
(moogal has eggs, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 23:19, closed)

I was dragged out by Stalker Boy a couple of times "come on dear, it'll be fun!!"
and aside from Flares, which is full of dirty old men wanting a grope, it really is that horrendous. I got good GCSEs and good A-levels with the intention of getting the fuck out!
( Maladicta, Sun 1 Nov 2009, 23:43, closed)

I live there...
and I can say it's not an exciting or awe-inpiring place.
There are some decent areas "there," but most of the town is a pretty plain, often depressing place, with few redeeming features.

Above all the shite I put up with when I'm out of the protection of my house is the famous Hinckley anti-bike mentality. The only cycle path I've ever found is on the ring road (practically useless.)
Also recently, the council has seen fit to paint bike pictograms on the main road. Like that makes any difference - yeah, I knew I was entitled to ride there in the first place. Thanks for the sterling and pointless effort.
I have also had lumps of earth thrown at me [by the local tissue cultures] while cycling. Thank fuck one hit my front wheel and not my head.

And yes, I would never brave the town centre on a Friday or Saturday, but it's often eerily calm some nights. Too calm, if you ask me.

I don't despise Hinckley. I just hate bits of it, and a lot of what lives there. Seems to sum up what most people's definitions of crap towns hve been.
(Connor Lingus is running this monkey farm now, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 11:31, closed)

I hate what lives there almost without exception.
Swallows Green, where I used to live, plus out towards JCC were about the only nice bits of it, really. Whereabouts are you? (And I will be utterly shocked if it turns out I know you o.O)

I agree with you though - the cycle path is inherently useless when you're trying to be healthy and bike into town, to find instead of being able to go straight down Ashby Road and Bond Street, you have to go all the way down to the Milestone and along through Hollycroft. Pointless!
( Maladicta, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 17:51, closed)

Back in the days
before teh Interwebs, "alternative adult pursuits" were things you could search for, but maybe never find. It was arcane knowledge, someone would tip you the wink if you seemed a likely participant, finding out about filthy fun was not something you could simply tap into a PC and find out addresses, reviews, contact details, oh no, you generally had to be invited. You know, the sorts of filthy goings-on which you'd only become aware of when the News of the Screws had exposed them and therefore killed them stone dead, leaving you pissed off that such fun was going on under your nose and you had no idea.

Well, I found the details of a very quiet, private and secluded Fetish Club when I stopped in Hinckley one day. On a flyer. In the chip-shop window. As you do. Bizarre (literally!). I still go there to this day, yay!
(Rsoles, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 13:31, closed)

You are fucking joking!
That would have made my time there infinitely more interesting, (being of a sexually interesting persuasion), but then as soon as I was 18 I was out of there and off to uni anyway... which chip shop, out of curiosity?
( Maladicta, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 17:49, closed)

No idea of the chip shop, it's the club I still visit, not the chippy!
But there's a pizza place next-door-but-one and a Yates' or Litten Tree or something across the road from it.

(Where I once met a girl who wanted to film me fucking her. Fair enough, jumped in the car and followed her to a bungalow somewhere. A bungalow absolutely, completely empty apart from a mattress on the floor and a vid cam on a stand. Apparently she was an estate agent, I had her down as a serial killer. And she wanted it bareback. So I did it. Sheesh. I blew the goo, she hopped up, pulled her pants on and it was thanks very much and goodnight, never heard from her again. Either her hubby liked chowing down on cream pie or I possibly am going to get a visit one day from someone with the video of their conception under their arm, who knows? Only in Hinckley)
(Rsoles, Tue 3 Nov 2009, 13:20, closed)

Ah, Regent Street.
I remember the Litten Tree well - we used to call it the Litter Tray (it was also the inspiration for the title of my post since it made Mos Eisley Cantina look like the Ritz). Down what is now the rather grandiose pedestrian precinct, or was the last time I dared set foot in the place!

How very bizarre; I've had dealings with most of the estate agents in Hinckley at one time or another as my parents moved twice and were with several agents during this time (start of the recession), so I'm trying to figure out who it could have been and the possibilities of some of them are rather unpleasant! I still can't quite believe that there is a thriving fetish scene in such a shit place, and I didn't know about it... I'd move and change your name if I were you, just in case. Although once eighteen years have passed, you're probably OK.
( Maladicta, Tue 3 Nov 2009, 17:40, closed)

She was pleasant enough
Mid-20s, redhead, not a fat bird, but no string-bean either - just right. No idea of her name, it was back in the days of Yahoo Groups (must be about 8 yrs ago) and I jumped in and answered one of those "Fuck me tonight" adverts, being sharp enough to spot a genuine ad amongst all the rubbish. She'd had no other applicants, bless her!

Hinckley is quite a den of filth (as well as being a filthy den), I've been to some "interesting" parties out that way, used to meet in the Knight pub or the one next to it (can't recall name) and then we'd all pile out into cars and off to wherever the action was going to take place. (Not that 12 cars suddenly descending on a quiet farmyard at dusk attracts much attention, oh no. And for the record, the farmyard had nothing to do with the activities, it was just a convenient place to park!!) I know of at least 2 fairly well-known lasses who do films and photo shoots (I hesitate to use the term "porn stars", they aren't exactly Jenna) who live in Hinckley, and there's lots of BDSM perves around there who like to party. You obviously didn't look closely enough!

Oh, but I must declare here and now that I DO NOT come from, live in, nor have ever lived in Hinckley. I hail from much further down the shit-stick scale.
(Rsoles, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 15:55, closed)

I'm relieved to hear you've been spared the horror of being from or actually living in Hinckley...
However, I must point out that the locals who don't want to admit they live in Hinckley will insist the Knight is in Burbage! She's not ringing a bell with me, I must say...

I am looking at the town in a very different light now since aesthetically and chav-wise where I live now is not entirely different... (it's for the cheap rent and closeness to work). It's like the love-child of Hinckley and Nuneaton with more trains.

I imagine though that the fact you can be in the middle of nowhere in a five-minute car journey does allow for lots of hidden nooks and crannies for such things to take place. I knew I should have passed my driving test while I was still living there (or, at all, for that matter). I stand by my point that I lived there from the age of 4 to 20 and have the world's most overprotective parents, though, so the likelihood of my having been allowed to leave the house, alone, without telling them where I was going, to go to fun things like BDSM parties was minimal anyway :( woe.

I'm really curious as to who's on the amateur circuit now, but am scared I went to school with them or something...
( Maladicta, Wed 4 Nov 2009, 18:43, closed)