Twisted Pines

My previous post led me to thinking about times gone by in the small Suffolk town where I have lived virtually all my life. For the sake of anonymity I shall refer to it as Twisted Pines - it seems that the Brecks landscape that surrounds the town gives the pine trees a curious gnarled appearance that no-one can explain, apparently the exact same species in other parts of the country grow poker straight. Strange.

When I was a child there 3 supermarkets in town, at least 2 greengrocers, 2 butchers, 2 banks, a clothes shop, shoe shop, bakery, 2 fish & chip shops, a barbers cum fishing tackle shop, 2 dedicated sweetshops, a dry cleaners, an electrical store plus the Co-op sold furniture, household appliances as well as the usual grocery. There were 2 banks not including the Co-Op Handybank, a proper Post Office and approximately 13 pubs, even a betting shop and a wool shop. We even had a miniature department store of sorts. There was a market on Thursdays and Saturdays. Unless you needed a dentist or something really exotic there was no need to go out of town for anything, but despite this there was a great bus service to the surrounding area. There was a lot more to offer of course but I can't remember it all.

How strange that now, in the 21st Century we have 1 supermarket, 1 butcher, 1 baker, 1 bank, 11 pubs, a bowling alley, and approximately 12 junk food shops (3 Chinese, 3 chippies, 1 pizza/kebab place, 2 Indians, a Portuguese place, 2 fried chicken places), 5 estate agents, 2 charity shops and 2 "discount" goods type shops. The markets still set up on Thursday and Saturday but they are a shadow of their former selves.

I would love to blame it all on Tesco's but to be fair the rot set in sometime in the late 70's long before they ever rode into town like the 4 horsemen of Apocalypse. I think it must have something to do with Women's Lib - as more women went out to work they had less time to the shopping so the big one-stop supermarkets became more attractive. I know this is the case for me, I'm ashamed to admit it but it is true - I rarely shop in my home town. For one thing it doesn't have much to offer, for another I don't have time to mosey round and look at what we do have, and finally most things are more expensive.

I must sound like a pensioner - ooooooh thooooose were the days dear - but I'm actually relatively young at the tender age of 39. If it bothers me that so much has changed in the last 30 years what must it be like for the elderly? Pretty mind boggling I should think.

Which brings me back to where I was headed in the first place. Twisted Pines when I was a little girl was a small rural town with maybe 7,000 inhabitants (I need to look it up in the county records for an accurate figure, this is just a guesstimate). Then we started to receive what was referred to as London overspill. A large council housing estate was built on some arable land (asparagus as far as I can recall) and a great many Londoners were rehoused. A few years later a local builder started what can only be described a s a housing boom and suddenly pensioners from down south were selling up to come and retire in the country. We didn't even have a beige zip up jacket shop so I'm not sure what the attraction was. This went on for some years, people from the Home counties selling up at a huge profit and moving to East Anglia on the proceeds.

Latterly, we, like the rest of the country, are now home to European immigrants from a host of different countries, not to mention Indians, Chinese and South Africans. Let's not forget that close by Twisted Pines are 2 US Air Force Bases whose personnel mostly make their homes in the surrounding towns and villages. My street is about 40% American occupied, with another 20 or so percent European migrant workers. It's all quite cosmopolitan, and I don't, I stress, actually have a problem with it except Twisted Pines with all these extra souls on board simply does not have the infrastructure to cope with it all. Insufficient doctors & dentists (I had to wait 3 and a half weeks to see my GP and that was after I'd beaten the receptionist about the head with my chest catheter to prove the point that I really have a need to see the doctor), a poor public transport system and bugger all in the way of shopping.

What on Earth does the future hold for us I wonder?