Julia Fea meets Mahria Amid, a 26-year-old journalist who has lived in Slough all her life.

"Having lived in Slough all my life, naturally it has become part of me. It is a fusion of many diverse ethnic groups and caters for all," she says. "As the era of high technology is upon us, Slough is by no means left behind. New international businesses are choosing to locate here as opposed to London, increasing employment opportunities for local residents. So, for all those who think there isn’t much to Slough, why don’t you come and see for yourself?"

Slough through the years

Looking at the industrial estates and traffic-filled roads, it is hard to believe that Slough began life back in the twelfth century as a quiet hamlet on the Bristol Road. It continued in this low-key fashion for several centuries until the coaching industry took off in the eighteenth century. Like other Berkshire towns, particularly Maidenhead, Slough was an important stage on the routes between London and Bath and Bristol. It was in fact the second stopover out of the capital. In 1718, an enterprising local man called Thomas Baldwin, owner of the Crown Inn, started providing a daily service along to Bath and Bristol.

Railway transformed Slough

The railway transformed Slough perhaps more than any other village in Berkshire. When it arrived in 1849, the farm that it cut off from the rest of the village was eventually lost altogether. The town meanwhile acted as the railway terminal for Windsor for thirteen years, before the royal town acquired its own station, and became a fashionable place to live.

Its population trebled in size before the end of the nineteenth century. Like other towns throughout Berkshire, indeed across the country, Slough underwent a "shopping revolution" in the late nineteenth century.

Almost every kind of grocery, clothing, toy or tool could be found in its dozens of shops. But this was the Victorian age of philanthropy and the new-found pastime was put to good use. Slough Co-op was established in the 1890s to ease families’ hardship suffered during a strike by local brick workers.

In 1920, the seal was set on Slough’s future with the construction of Slough Trading Estate. Originally built to repair thousands of vehicles damaged in the First World War, it held widely-advertised auctions and people came from all over the country to buy cars, lorries and even disused ambulances.

"Hardest working town in Britain"

By 1924, it had changed its name to "Slough Estates Limited" and became Britain’s first industrial estate. It provided factories with premises and leased units to manufacturers, together with the necessary labour and equipment.

The Mars Factory was one of more than a hundred tenants based there by 1930, with a total of eight thousand workers. With this thriving industrial heart, it’s hardly surprising that Slough remained largely immune to the Depression of the 1930s. One national newspaper dubbed it "the hardest working town in Britain". New housing went up and it acquired the status of a borough in 1938.

Today, Slough Estates Limited is still in use, though its premier position in the local economy has been superceded by the new technology companies that have moved in. The Mars Factory is still there, in to its seventh decade of making chocolate sold the world over, and the brick railway station is preserved as a Grade II listed building.

Surely John Betjeman, who lamented Slough in his oft-quoted poem ("Come, friendly bombs and fall on Slough") has been proved wrong?