Always My Home

A Memory of Kelsale.

I was born and grew up in Kelsale. We lived at Rectory Cottages, my brother Perry and my parents, Pam and Aubrey Mann. My grandparents lived at Carlton and the family go back in both church registers to the 1600s. I loved reading Bernard, Brian and Ann's memories and remember the same characters as they do: Alfie Bedwell carrying his riding crop, dressed in jodhpurs and still talking as you walked away, he always had a Polo mint for us kids. Sid and Iris Lawes at the shop, the Hunters at the post office and Jack and Sylvia Ford at the Eight Bells.
My memories are of growing up in Kelsale during the 1960s and early 1970s. I first went to school at the Guildhall and then to the new Primary on Carlton Rd. I remember the streetlight across from the shop being gas lit and how it hissed. I played with Ann's brothers up the lane from us and helped Elaine Denny to groom the pony in the field behind our house, in order to cadge a ride. the Ambridges lived at Kelsale Court and owned the pony and they had a swing that swung out over the Gull and what fun we had with that and roller skating on their flat roof. There was Sunday school when we were young and bingo at the village hall with our mothers when we were older. I remember sitting outside the pub's floodlit back entrance when we were too young to go in, so we could hear the latest hits on the jukebox and Jack never chased us away. He let Susan Kerridge and I tag along to the Westleton motorcycle scrambles and ride on the back of his WW11 Jeep. There were Rayners, Maynards, Pallants, Pulfords, Fords, Manns and other Suffolk names to play with and we had fun.
I live in the States now, but it's true that you can take the girl out of Suffolk, but not Suffolk out of the girl, it's who I am.

Deb Duke 2016.