Sunday Times Where Was I?

A little bit tricky this week, near as I can figure it, the answers are:

Q1. Ellesmere Port

Q2. St Oswald

From the clues given in the first paragraph, the second town they are in (mistakenly) is Ellesmere, in Shropshire. The first town, which they really wanted to be in, was Ellesmere Port, in Cheshire. The two towns are connected by the Shropshire union canal, which is around 66 miles in length. The footballer who was born in Ellesmere Port in 1914 and who was manager of England for seven matches, was Joe Mercer. The lake or mere at Ellesmere in Shropshire is thought to be glacial in origin and is around 48 hectares (or 120 acres) in area.

The town seven miles to the southwest of Ellesmere, is Oswestry. The war poet Wilfred Owen was born there in 1893 and some of his poems were used in Benjamin Britten's 'War Requiem' which was performed in 1962 at the reconsecration of Coventry cathedral, which had previously been bombed and flattened by Blue Meanies.

Oswestry is named after St Oswald, who was allegedly killed by Penda, son of Pybba, at the battle of Maserfield c642 AD. Legend has it that the corpse was dismembered and parts removed as holy relics to places far and wide, one story says that a crow dropped one of Oswald's arms into a tree and that this place subsequently became known as Oswald's tree or Oswestry.The body was for a time buried in Oswestry but later translated to Bardney. Oswald has more than one feast day, the list includes, the 5th, 8th and 9th of August and the 8th of October. The founder of the national youth theatre, Michael Croft, was born in Oswestry, in 1922.

The fourth town, where the composer of the 'Two Poets', Sir Edward German was born (c1862), is Whitchurch and the Hamlet, where the victor of the battle of Plassey, Robert Clive (of India) was born (c1725) was Market Drayton.