Farewell to the Epps

Few who live for any length of time in Audlem ever leave but AudlemOnline must bid farewell to a local couple, Nigel and Pauline Epps, who are leaving the village after thirty years to be nearer their daughter and her family in Devon. We wish them well.

A regular reader, Nigel has also contributed feature articles to AudlemOnline about his experiences as a young officer in the Merchant Navy.

You may be puzzled by the map which shows not Devon but a section of the Mississippi River. When Nigel Epps visited AudlemOnline's Bob Cartwright before his departure, Bob was reading a giant tome on the American Civil War and was fascinated by the siege of Vicksburg in 1863 where attacking Union troops had to navigate their way through appalling snake-infested swamps to the west of the city.

While he and Nigel chatted, Nigel mentioned just before leaving that a visit to Delhi and other parts of India had been planned by him and Pauline.

Immediately after Nigel left, Bob resumed his book and wondered if the swamps in northern Louisiana were as extensive now as in the 1860s and checked on Google maps. Now, as regular readers will know, Bob loves coincidences but this one was doubly remarkable.

In the area in question, there were now two small towns – one called 'Epps' with a population of 843 and amazingly the only place in the world that goes by that name in The Times Comprehensive Atlas' index – and the is other 'Delhi', as seen on the left of the map above – click on the map to enlarge. You couldn't make it up!

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