Mystery of the missing blue plaque

There’s been a crime, something nearly as upsetting and distressing as a Posh 5-0 home defeat on a Saturday afternoon. Something mysterious. Something peculiar. Something dastardly. Let me start at the beginning.

Over the past five years Peterborough Civic Society has installed thirty-six blue plaques in and around the city centre. There is a free 24-page brochure to accompany them (available at the Visitor Information Centre in the Museum) and there’s also loads of additional information on our website.

The plaques have gone down very well and, in my humble opinion, have enhanced the city centre, providing points of interest for residents and visitors alike.

But wait! One plaque is missing. It has vanished, disappeared, evaporated into thin air. It’s the plaque that commemorates the site of the original Deacon’s School and was placed in Cowgate, one of Peterborough’s oldest streets and home to many fine businesses many of which are independent. The plaque has gone. We are no longer any the wiser as to the plaque’s whereabouts. Its disappearance is a mystery.

Now, in Civic Society circles, this is serious and the mystery is causing much grief and many sleepless nights. One of our most senior undercover agents, a man who, for the purpose of this article I shall call ‘Clouseau’, has repeatedly trod the pavements of Cowgate but to no avail. No luck whatsoever. Despite our best efforts it is now time for us to seek assistance. But from whom???

It could be a case for Dixon of Dock Green although his ‘Evening All’ style may be rather old- fashioned and pedestrian. I could do for the ZCars approach or perhaps get more gritty – Morse or Sweeney – ‘leave it to me guv’! Crash, bang, wallop! We could go all ‘Sherlock Holmes sophisticated’ – The Sign of the Plaque or The Adventure of the Missing Thomas Deacon.

I don’t think it would be necessary to go transatlantic - The Wire, NYPD Blue, Hill Street Blues, Cagney & Lacey, Perry Mason or Ironside. No, a little ‘closer-to-home’ local knowledge is called for to solve the mystery.

We’re rapidly coming round to the view that we ought to do ‘modern British gritty’ – Luther, Line of Duty or Prime Suspect. However, we’ve finally settled on Happy Valley. We’re going to get Police Sergeant Catherine Cawood to stride along Cowgate and refuse to go home for a cup of Yorkshire tea until the truth is out.

Personally I would much prefer to solve this in a nice way, in a Death In Paradise sort of way, with more emphasis on the ‘Paradise’ than the ‘Death. This particular TV show has somehow become one of my favourites. Every Friday night there’s a suspicious murder on BBC1 at 9.05pm and, in the next few minutes, DI Neville Parker and his sunny crew of happy Caribbean rozzers solve the mystery. At 9.45pm all the suspects are rounded up, sat down and the culprit unmasked. Five minutes later, case solved, all the main protagonists are sitting in the beachside bar with a cold drink and lots of laughter. Now that’s the sort of world I want to live in.

So, people of Peterborough – please help us to solve The Mystery of the Disappearing Blue Plaque. It would be great we could all wake up one day and find that the plaque had been returned to its rightful position. No questions asked. That would make us all very happy. In Peterborough we could do with less Happy Valley, more happy ending.

• On 13 March the Civic Society’s monthly talk is ‘An update on latest projects of Burghley Estates’ by David Pennell, Estates Manager. It starts at 7.30pm at St Marks’ Church Hall, is free to members and costs £5 (suggested donation) for non-members. All welcome.

Now you see it, now you don’t! The Blue Plaque in place and the same spot pictured recently