Pamela Holmes describes the games of her childhood in the early years of the 20 th century:
"The earliest game of the season was hoop-bowling . girls often had wooden hoops, boys metal ones driving them with a wooden stick [or] a bent iron rod . Following hoops would come hop-scotch. Then came tops . This was all done in the village streets . every now and then a horse would come slowly trotting by, but this was our sports field . then skipping . then the early spring flowers. I can remember very clearly how little gangs of us girls go off down the lanes to find the earliest violets . later the most beautiful cowslips. the purple orchids. gorgeous wood anemones.
This spring [in the 1960s] I found to my utter amazement that the fields had all been turned into one. Even the pond had gone." (In Where Beards Wag All. )
"Mr Gladwyn is a very good man. He goo to church on Sunday and prays to God to give him strength to thrash the boys o' Monday." (A Westleton rhyme, quoted in Life and Tradition in Suffolk and NE Essex, by Norman Smedley)
The Maypole, at a Monks Eleigh fete.
A School outing, 1957.
A fete programme for 1814 - the year before the Battle of Waterloo .
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