Town crier Fred Ferris Picture Ref: 77626-85SWINDON...AND PROUD OF IT: SWINDON'S town crier wants to shout from the rooftops about how great the town is.

Fred Ferris, 73, has given a big thumbs up to our Swindon And Proud of It campaign and has filled in his pledge card.

He was born and brought up in Swindon.

He now lives in Penhill with wife Gwyneth, 50, and has four children and six grandchildren.

Fred said: "I think it's an old adage that anyone's home is the best place for them.

"I have lived here all my life except for when I was in the forces and I would not feel right living anywhere else.

"It's not perfect but then nowhere is.

"But the inhabitants generally are very good people and it's a nice place to be.

"We have an abundance of parks there's something like 35 grassed areas around which people can walk on.

"And that's a dickens of a lot of green spaces."

One of Fred's jobs as a town crier is to shout about how great Swindon is.

He said: "In every competition I enter I have to do two shouts and one of them involves putting forward my home town and inviting people to come and visit. Because that is my job.

"I get a very, very good reaction from people when I say I've come from Swindon and a lot of them are surprisingly knowledgeable about Swindon's heritage."

He is angry about the comments made by designer Wayne Hemingway in which he criticised Swindon's housing estates.

"I don't like these people who come off the motorway take a look at Swindon then criticise it."