Life in Great Britain – welcome to Retford

Welcome to Retford, a little town in England. Retford is two hours north of London, in Nottinghamshire. It’s a little town, but it has a big market square near the town hall. Retford is an old market town. Thursdays and Saturdays are the busiest days here, they are market days. 21,000 people live in Retford. It’s a little town but it has a pedestrian zone in the town centre. And here is the English flag, St. George’s cross. The cross is the middle part of the United Kingdom’s flag. There are two old churches in Retford. This is the one with the difficult name. St. Swithun. The river Idle flows through Retford. The name Retford has to do with this river. It’s one of the things the people learn about the town in school. Long ago, the water wasn’t very deep here. There was a shallow place where people and animals could walk across the river. Such a place was called a fort, when they crossed, they stirred up red clay. The clay turned the water red. So Retford means, the red fort. Retford is a pretty little town and it’s a nice place to go to school.