We belong to a town
With a thousand years of history,
With traditions and a story
Which have made its people proud.
We belong to a town
Where the road could ford the river,
Where monks were given lands
And where priests could build their town.
Twenty-four years ago, I - along with probably every other primary-school-age child in the area - gathered to perform this stirring paean to Preston, as part of the town's 1992 Guild Year. (We were great, by the way.)
As the song proudly notes, Preston (or 'Priests' town') in Lancashire is a town with a distinguished Catholic history. Even for non-Catholics, this is all hard to miss. When Wetherspoon's, arguably our nation's greatest chronicler of local history, opened its first pub there in the 90s, it called it The Grey Friar: 'named after the Franciscan monks (known as Grey Friars from the colour of their habit) who founded a nearby friary in the early 13th century'.
