Wisbech fan takes love of UK hometown to the USA

Mike Barnes got as close as he was able to putting Wisbech on his USA licence plate

A man who grew up in a Fenland market town has shared his love of the place by having the name Wisbech on his car licence plate in the USA.

Mike Barnes, 56, lives in St Louis in Missouri but spent his "formative years as a teenager and into my 20s" in Wisbech in Cambridgeshire.

"It was a really good place to grow up, and I was remembering those days and wanted to do something," he said.

His car now proudly sports the W'SBECH sign - the closest he could get.

Mr Barnes explained that in the USA you are only allowed six letters and an apostrophe or a dash, when it comes to licence plates.

He paid $15 dollars to the state License Bureau and said: "You can have what you want, but you have to explain what the letters mean, so I just said this was the name of my hometown - and they let me have it."

Mike Barnes moved to the USA in 1999

Mr Barnes was so proud of his new plate that he posted a photograph of it in Facebook group, Wisbech Discussion Forum.

He recalled growing up in the town in the 80s and 90s and said it was "amazing".

His fond memories included the various houses he had lived in as well as "buying fresh veggies at the market, banger racing at the track, hanging out in the car park in the evenings... and going to the Saturday auction in the Old Market, pub crawling from Norfolk Street to the Market Place then on to North Brink".

"They were good times," he wrote.

Mr Barnes left Wisbech when the company he worked for closed down, and in 1999 ended up in St Louis, where he married his American wife and now works for an engineering company.

His parents still live in Wisbech and he last visited them in May.

The wonders of Wisbech

Wisbech is known for some of its striking architecture

• About 40 miles (64km) north of Cambridge, the market town is often referred to as the "capital of the Fens" and is renowned for its elegant Georgian architecture

• Thomas Clarkson, a leading campaigner against the slave trade and slavery in Britain and the British empire was born in the town in 1760 - with others, he was instrumental in bringing about the abolition of the slave trade in the British empire in 1807

• The town is also known as the birthplace of Octavia Hill - a Victorian social reformer she also co-founded the National Trust

• And it's big on its beer - the town is home to Elgood's Brewery which was established in 1795, and was one of the first classic Georgian breweries to be built outside London

• Wisbech might not have the kudos of today's O2 Arena, but the Rolling Stones rocked the market town back in July 1963 when the band headlined at the Corn Exchange's "dancing night" - they were billed as "the south's answer to Liverpool" and tickets cost the equivalent of about 32p

• It could be the watermelon capital of the UK... with a Oakley Farms in Wisbech claiming a UK record after growing 11,000 watermelons this year - and it's Tesco's largest supplier of the exotic fruit

Mr Barnes has put his new "Wisbech" plate on his Toyota Tacoma, but said in the USA the licence plate stays with whoever paid for it, so even if he swaps his car, his new vehicle will still remind him of his Fenland hometown.

As he only recently acquired the plate, he said so far no-one had commented on it.

"But there's a fairly large expat community here, so I don't think it'll be long before someone clocks it and makes the connection," he said.