By Justin
I was born in a small village in Suffolk, England. Suffolk, a county in East Anglia, is about one hour from London by train. The biggest town, Ipswich, has about 140,000 people. Probably the most famous person from Suffolk at the moment is the singer Ed Sheeran.
Suffolk isn’t really a sightseeing area of England and Ipswich doesn’t have much of interest. The area is mostly flat and has a lot of farmland and not much else. John Constable, a fairly famous British artist, often painted rural (countryside) scenes in the area. A famous one is the Hay Wain from 1821. The view hasn’t changed much!
My village has around 800 people. When I was young there were a total of 45 children in the primary (elementary) school, but I heard it has more students now because the village has become popular for families with young children. There used to be a post office/village shop, a hair salon, two pubs, and a sweet shop. Now there is a new village shop, the same hair salon and pubs, and a vets (veterinarian clinic). There used to be two churches – a Methodist one and a Church of England one – but about 20 years ago the Methodist one shut and became a house because not many people go to church anymore. The village has a mix of really old houses, some over 400 years old, and new ones. My parents bought a house which was one of 36 built in 1967.
Like many villages in England nowadays, new houses have to look similar to other houses in the same street. Most houses have front and back gardens.
There are four or five farms, but actually a lot of the land is owned by three or four old, rich families. They live in large mansions and the farmers rent the land. The fields have wheat, barley, potatoes, and various other vegetables.
When I was young I remember going ‘gleaning’. After the potatoes were harvested by the farmer, you could go around the field and pick up any potatoes the farmer missed. My mum and I would get 3 or 4 kilos every day for a week. It’s not common anymore, but it is still legal.
But when I was a teenager I spent a lot of time with friends cycling around the farmland. We all had bikes with no brakes or lights, and our bikes were all made from spare parts. It was so much fun! There wasn’t really anything else to do in a small village! The last bus into the town left at 6pm and the last bus back was at 6:30, so I couldn’t go to the cinema or bowling or anything unless my dad drove me (and he never did!). At that age my friends and I had small, cheap computers and if we weren’t on our bikes we spent many hours playing a computer game called Elite. And that was about all we did! Bicycles and Elite.
The village was a great place to grow up – quiet, safe, no stress. But when I got to 17 years old, I was so happy to pass my driver’s test and be able to go out at night sometimes!