Toby Stephenson is one of The Lincolnite’s first generation Community Voices columnists. His business, TRS (trsdesign.com), is behind the new Stokes Tea & Coffee website, Lincoln’s Christmas Market guide, luxury Fairfax & Favor brand and The Great Ormond Street annual Christmas appeal, among hundreds of other local and global projects. He lives in the city with his young son and wife Leila, who works in the centre for diversity & inclusion at the University of Lincoln.
Ask a yellowbelly if they’re good at something, they‘ll be very humble – downplaying or masking their achievements with humour.
Ask a yellowbelly how they are, they’ll say “not bad, duck” – not good or great, just conservatively “not bad”.
But ask a yellowbelly what they think of Lincoln… it’s a different story. They’re a fiercely loyal and proud bunch – and so they should be (says this yellowbelly).
A new perspective
I left Lincoln aged 18, to study for an undergrad and then my MSc. I only came back briefly after university before heading off around the world for a year; visiting some very different places from ‘little old Lincoln’, many leaving me with a much greater appreciation of my hidden-away birthplace.
Mi casa es su casa
Young, without responsibility and with the confidence of travelling still in my sails, I was only back in Lincoln again briefly before I moved to Granada, Spain, taking intensive Spanish classes in the mornings and working as a web-developer in the afternoons (and partying at night).
Granada felt a bit like Lincoln – everything was walkable, the historic monument at the top of a hill (La Alhambra), a place steeped in history with lots of places to eat and drink – and the less positive similarities, lots of homeless and an unashamed view of ‘too many foreigners’ (I was one of those foreigners, gulp). Somehow a year or two abroad turned into eight…
In 2012 I flew back into East Midlands airport on a one-way ticket. On the approach to Lincoln, through the darkness I glimpsed a familiar site – the Cathedral, lit up as beautifully as ever. I was really happy to be home.
I came back to a different city to when I left for university in 1999, and I had a very different perspective from everything I’d seen in my time away. I was soon to be a dad too, and would be viewing Lincoln through the eyes of being a parent.
What other people think of Lincoln
Whether in England or abroad, what always surprised me is the number of people that either didn’t know Lincoln exists or where it is. Absolutely everyone knew Nottingham. After a while I’d say, “it’s one hour from Nottingham” – this seemed to please people.
The numbers were so small that when someone said they had been to Lincoln, I was grinning ear to ear, because without exception it was always good feedback – “they weren’t kidding when they named it Steep Hill” and “Lincolnshire sausages are definitely the best sausages in England” (they’re not wrong, either).
The Yellow ‘belly-achers’
I admit you hear “the train barriers are always down, parking is expensive, students are taking over…”, we all like a grumble, it’s cathartic, but tickle those (Yellow)bellies and they soon warm up, spilling the beans they love the city they live in. It’s just a nice place to be, isn’t it.
Putting my money where my mouth is
I genuinely love Lincoln, as a resident, as a parent, a business owner and through the eyes of a visitor. I believe it’s one of the best cities in the UK to spend a few days or to live and work.
With equal enthusiasm, I love the world of digital. I have a fantastic team at TRS who design and build incredible cloud-sites, apps, eComms, websites and so much more – so it would be criminal not to combine these passions.
At TRS we love to demonstrate our expertise and lead the way in our industry, so what better opportunity to showcase our talent than to give Lincolnshire a fantastic new resource?
We crafted www.stayinlincoln.co.uk over the summer – one vibrant, easy-to-use place for things to see and do, for events and activities, ideas on where to eat and drink, where to stay and a whole lot more. And this is just the beginning – we have huge plans for the website’s growth.
In a testament to itself, instagram followers have built-up quickly in only a few weeks, just posting pictures of how beautiful Lincoln is – it sells itself!
Advertising is free to help the small businesses that define the city – the independent and family owned businesses we all love. We want to make a positive difference to Lincoln. We’re now looking for website sponsors to help us continue to make an impact and expand.
I personally cannot wait to see how Lincoln continues to grow and become even better, it’s great to be a pro-active part of it.
Toby Stephenson is one of The Lincolnite’s first generation Community Voices columnists. His business, TRS (trsdesign.com), is behind the new Stokes Tea & Coffee website, Lincoln’s Christmas Market guide, luxury Fairfax & Favor brand and The Great Ormond Street annual Christmas appeal, among hundreds of other local and global projects. He lives in the city with his young son and wife Leila, who works in the centre for diversity & inclusion at the University of Lincoln.
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A 38-year-old man from a North Lincolnshire village charged with murder will face an eight-day trial later this year.
Emergency services were called at 4.23am on Saturday, July 2 to reports that a man was seriously injured on South Parade in central Doncaster.
The 28-year-old victim was taken to hospital but was sadly pronounced dead a short time later.
A post-mortem examination found that he died of injuries to his head, chest and abdomen.
Formal identification of the victim is yet to take place, South Yorkshire Police said earlier this week.
Steven Ling, 38, of Park Drain, Westwoodside in North Lincolnshire, has been charged with murder and was remanded in custody to appear at Doncaster Magistrates Court on Monday, July 4.
Ling later appeared at Sheffield Crown Court on Tuesday, July 5 for a plea and trial preparation hearing.
No pleas were entered during the hearing, but an eight-day trial was set for November 28, 2022. Ling has now been remanded into custody until the next hearing.
The Lincolnite went on a ride-along with a Lincolnshire Police officer from the force’s Roads Policing Unit (RPU), which aims to disrupt criminals’ use of the roads and reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents.
The team will support the county response including local policing, neighbourhood policing and criminal investigation too.
Operations first began in Grantham in January this year and started in Louth earlier this week with a sergeant and nine PCs based in both locations.
The Lincolnite went out on a ride-along with PC Rich Precious from Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
PC Rich Precious has been a police officer for 22 years after joining the force in 2000 and he recently rejoined the Roads Policing Unit, working out of Louth.
PC Precious, who also previously worked as a family liaison officer for road deaths for 16 years, took The Lincolnite out in his police car to the A1 up to Colsteworth and then back to Grantham. He described that particular area as “one of the main arterial routes that goes through Lincolnshire”.
PC Rich Precious driving down the A1 up to Colsterworth. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Speaking about the new Roads Policing Unit, he said: “It’s intelligence led policing, it’s targeted policing in areas that have been underrepresented in terms of police presence, on the roads certainly, over a number of years.
“We’re hoping that the development of this unit will help address that balance, and look towards using the ANPR system to prevent criminals’ use of the road, and to identify key areas or routes where there’s a high percentage of people killed or seriously injured on the road, what we commonly refer to as KSI.
PC Precious is helping to keep the roads safer in Lincolnshire. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
When asked if he thinks the new team will help reduce the number of serious and fatal accidents in the county, he added: “That’s what the the unit designed for. Sadly, in Lincolnshire our road network does seem to incur a number of those KSI accidents year on year, and we need to reduce that.
“I’ve worked additionally in my roles as a family liaison officer on road death for 16 years, so I’ve seen first hand the impact that road death has on families and victims families.
“I know it’s important that we try and reduce those because, it’s very sad to see how a fatal road traffic collision can affect a family and the victims of that family.”
Marc Gee, Inspector for Lincolnshire Police’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
Marc Gee, Inspector for the Roads Policing Unit, told The Lincolnite: “Every day there will be officers on duty from both teams and they’ll cover the whole county or the county’s roads.
“Eventually, we’ll have nine police cars and we’ve got six motorbikes. We’ll be utilising them with as many officers as we can every day basically to make our roads safer and enforce against the criminals who feel like it’s okay to come into the county and use our road for criminal purposes.”
Lincolnshire’s Police and Crime Commissioner Marc Jones at the launch of the force’s Roads Policing Unit. | Photo: Steve Smailes for The Lincolnite
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