Trust God and Sally Forth!

Kettering: Progress and Concord

At Weaving Words this week, we learnt that the town motto of Newark in Nottinghamshire is Deo Fretus Erumpe, meaning Trust God and Sally Forth. Isn't that splendid?

Of course, there was a round of jokes about who this Sally Forth woman was and why she was so trustworthy; but isn't erumpe a fabulous word? It sounds a bit Carry On, Councillor to me, as though it should be the root of 'rumpus', but it is actually the word from which 'erupt' is derived.

Needless to say, we used this as a prompt to devise some town mottoes of our own. We only had a couple of minutes on this, but I came up with:

Kettering (where the local football team plays in red and black): Look to the Poppies
Northampton (home of the shoe-making industry): Put Your Best Foot Forward
Corby (famous for its steel works): Steel Yourself and Forge Ahead
Uttoxeter (my home town in rural Staffordshire): Plough Your Own Furrow

It was great fun - and I'm sure you can come up with something for your own town. However, if you go to www.civicheraldry.co.uk you can discover, amongst other things, the genuine mottoes.