Slough launches charm offensive to prove 'it's fit for humans now'
By Michael Savage writing in The Independent,Wednesday, 13 August 2008

Slough's image as a concrete wasteland made it the butt of jokes for years. Poets have used its name as a byword for blandness and mediocrity. Now, after 71 years of slurs about its lack of joie de vivre, the beleaguered Berkshire town fights back.

The "Proud to be Slough" campaign has been designed to combat the negative opinions espoused by the likes of John Betjeman, Ted Hughes, Jimmy Carr and Ricky Gervais, giving the town a bright image as a diverse and peaceful location and a good place to do business.

Council leaders and pillars of local commerce considered a "rebranding" name change – Slough means a mud-filled hollow, a bog, or a dead layer of skin. Instead, T-shirts bearing a "Proud to be Slough" logo have been printed. Visitors will be met with a billboard campaign. A website celebrates Slough as the UK's "third most productive town outside London", and lauds the presence of Europe's largest privately-owned industrial estate.

Slough's struggle with its image dates back to 1937, when Betjeman penned: "Come, friendly bombs, and fall on Slough/It isn't fit for humans now."

Read the full piece at The Independent online.

Footnote:

In my Penguin Books days Penguin's huge UK distribution centre was located at Harmondsworth between Heathrow Airport and Slough and many of the staff lived in Slough. They found it a pretty agreeable sort of place.