Visiting Needham Market In The 1970s

A Memory of Needham Market.

My sister and I used to visit my three uncles each Sunday. They all were unmarried and lived in the family house in The Causeway. Not having children of their own, they doted on us girls and spoilt us rotten! We got away with murder! I can remember visiting Needham Lake when it was little more than a muddy puddle - it was man-made. Now it is a lovely, established area. There used to be a local superstition that if you were in the railway tunnel (a footpath under the track) off the Railway Yard, and a train went over, it was lucky and you could make a wish! I remember we waited in it until a train went over, and the noise was deafening! But I so wanted to do it! We used to walk up the Causeway before all the new houses were there, also The Drift, and one day we walked all the way to Badley Church. It was daylight, although dusk, and it was very creepy indeed! I found an old pottery inkwell in a pile of earth the builders had dug out of the new houses' footings. I have since lost it, which is a shame. We used to go and look at the building progress each week. My grandparents are buried in the cemetery on the hill. It is hard to find a tidier and better kept one. My uncles are sadly passed-away now, and they too are buried there. The house has long since been sold and modernised. It was an ex-council house. My sister and I had such fun on our weekly visits, and played tricks on our uncles, all of which they took in good part!! There were big fruit trees (apple and plum) in the back garden, which overlooked the school meadow. We played hide and seek one afternoon, and I kept moving and hiding, and they couldn't find me!! Now I am grown-up I can see how worried they were, but back then they thought I'd fallen into the Weir! My Uncles taught me how to skim stones on the flooded fields along the Drift. No matter how good we became, we couldn't beat them! I can remember choosing a pedal-car from the big toyshop at the Post Office when I was about 5! It was a dune-buggy, plastic, and I loved it so much!! My mum lived in Needham until she married, and moved to Stowmarket. But she always loved Needham.

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