Our old home

At the weekend Carole invited over my neighbours from our Suffolk years. Jenny had some old photos she’d acquired, some of which were of the Green Man Inn where Mr C and I lived with our 3 daughters. The bottom two photos are the pub interior. Jenny lived next door, the thatched cottage. When the top photo was taken the old pub was on the right with two cottages between it and what became Jenny’s house. By the time we moved there all the right hand building was one house, and the pub was gone. Most of the original features had been ripped out but not the windows which hadn’t changed and the fireplace was still there.

We lived there from 1984-2004. In the early years we’d occasionally have Americans knock on the door to ask if they could come in. They explained they’d been stationed at the nearby airfield during WWII and had come to drink in the pub.

When we were there there were still 3 huge US air bases in East Anglia. I met Carole, who lived in the next village then, on the CND bus going to demonstrate against nuclear weapons at one of the airbases. It turned out she taught English at the local high school which my daughters eventually attended.

Last night #2 daughter (who has Scottish parents but was born in England) had a little Burns Supper for Phil (Irish) and the boys (English). They had a proper sheep’s stomach haggis and she addressed the haggis. Her Papa (my dad) would have been proud of her as he used to get asked to recite Tam O’Shanter at suppers. No point in #3 doing one with Luke a vegan and Nathaniel a pescatarian……

Today I went to the Literature course. We had an excellent discussion on the play ‘Kindertransport’ by Diana Samuels. It focussed on the difficulties many of the children had due to the trauma of leaving their parents behind. Next week it’s a novel by a Palestinian woman, Hala Alyan, about a family displaced firstly from Jaffa, then Nablus after the 6 day war, then Kuwait after the invasion there. It’s based on her family.

The good news is - Mr C got sucked in to The Traitors last night. Please no spoilers as we are catching up!