A BAND is notching up national radio airplay with a song dedicated to an East Lancs town’s engineering marvel.

English Teacher’s new single ‘The World’s Biggest Paving Slab’, now on the BBC Radio Six playlist, was inspired by the two-tonne stone outside Colne Town Hall.

Lead singer Lily Fontaine grew up in the Pendle town and name-checks several iconic figures in the release, which features a video shot in and around Colne.

John Simm and Lee Ingleby, from nearby Nelson, pop up in the first verse, as do the Pendle Witches and Colne’s famous R&B festival. And later she references the historic village of Wycoller and explores its links with Charlotte Bronte.

One repeated line insists: “I’m not the terrorist of Talbot Street”, which is located off Albert Road.

Interviewed about the song’s creation, Lily said: “I wrote and recorded the demo in my bedroom in one day, during my final year of university in 2018.

“Moving to a city for university forced me to reflect on how my experience of growing up in and around Pendle, how witnessing the social, economic and political issues that exist around there in juxtaposition with the beauty of the landscape and the characters that live within in it, has shaped me into the artist and person that I am.

“These semi-rural stories leak into most of my writing. In particular, this song tackles delusions of grandeur and inferiority from the perspective of a small town’s local celebrities. It’s split into two halves.”

The paving slab itself measures 10 feet by nine feet and is hewn from rock excavated from Clough Fold Quarry near Rawtenstall. Only the paving near St George’s Hall in Liverpool rivals it for surface area, according to an investigation by Heritage Lottery Fund experts several years ago.

In the video, directed by Claryn Chong, a Frank Sidebottom style character tours Albert Road and Market Street in Colne, as the band is filmed hanging out in the Arcade.

Further footage captures Colne Cemetery before the action moves to the stonework surrounding Wycoller village, down the road. Lily and the band are then shot performing the single in the shadow of the Atom, the giant panopticon artwork nearby.

Later this week the outfit is on the bill for a Hamburg music festival, before similar dates for the Leeds and Reading festivals, and an 11-date UK tour kicks off in Liverpool on October 8.