Submitted by johnh on April 20, 2006 - 15:48.
Between the ages of 8 and 15, we lived in a town just outside London called Epping, known to all Londoners as the farthest-flung station on the Central Line.
Apparently Epping's famous if you went to school in Germany because the canned family in the learning-English text books lived there.
My mother, and her entire extended family, all live in a town six miles from Edinburgh City Centre called Musselburgh. I spent at least two months every year there throughout my formative years, which is why I can turn on a solid East End of Edinburgh accent at will - something which freaks people out in a pleasing manner.
My Latin teacher, who not only taught then-Captain Muammar Khadafi to speak English while in the British Army (yes, Khadafi speaks very good English, and that's how I know), also previously worked in France teaching English to secondary school students. He informed me long ago that the reason he'd heard of Musselburgh was that it was where the family in their text books lived.
I'm expecting any year now to find out that Italians learn English from text books which feature a family who live round the back of Ned Kelly's in Willesden. Or maybe that Spanish textbooks go on at length about the Mardyke.
Meanwhile, I find this all mildly unsettling for reasons I can't quite put my finger on.