Wonderful Memories Of Kessingland

A Memory of Kessingland.

My father was born in Kessingland in 1915 and as little children my sister, brother and me would go regularly to visit my grandparents there. They ran a grocery shop in Chapel/Church Road, the first house from the High Street. The shop, H.J.Smith, was a wondrous place for us as it held so many fantastic and equally dangerous elements. We used to watch our grandparents slicing the bacon and hams, weighing out the sugar and cutting the big slabs of butter. We would go with Granddad in his car, to deliver boxes of groceries and every birthday and Christmas we would receive an Oxo tin full of chocolate!
We used to walk down to the beach and sit on the wall, on not so warm days hiding between the sea breaks on the steps. I have many photos of the village and my grandparents, father and family and remember the old house, then called Balham House, very well indeed. Although my father left Kessingland and made his life elsewhere, he often used to relate stories about the village and many a night he dreamt of Kessingland. On retirement my parents returned to Suffolk and my father is buried in the churchyard of St Edmunds Church.

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