Our editor has had a letter on the above topics… she has asked us to publish it, un-redacted and in full…
Dear Sirs,
I boarded the train yesterday at Ipswich enroute to Wickham Market. An unruly mob of nare-do-wells were lurking about on the platform and, just my luck, they all get on “my” carriage. Not only did I have to stand all the way but then these three Youngsters next to me spontaneously broke into song as we left the station and I couldn’t hear the announcements by the ticket collector.
It got worse as some bloke with a melodeon who, apparently plays in a well-known pop band, sees a busking opportunity and starts playing in the aisle. It was a chaos of sea shanty’s and bawdy music hall dittys for the entire twenty six minute journey. The Community Rail Partnership needs to do something to control this sort of carry on.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, I get to Wickham Market for my onward bus journey to Glemham Hall where I was to meet my good friend Major Philip to talk about some little party he is hosting in August with some of his chums. Well, I hadn’t realised that rural bus services were so poor. The bus I had to board was at least fifty years old – it was like something you’d see in an old Ealing movie.
The hell continued on the road, yes, you guessed it – those bunch of rowdies had left the train and were all on the bus with me. How the driver could concentrate on navigating the lanes of Eastfolk with all that singing going on was beyond me. And who was that woman on the back seat improvising words to very dubious tunes?
Seeking sanctuary in the panelled hall at Glemham, I was met by Major Philip and one of these young whipper snappers from the bus just waltzes in and, without so much as a by your leave, sits down at the piano and starts playing.
Anyway, we finally got down to business with these party organiser types and had civilised conversations with artists, craft makers, stone masons, and purveyors of food from around the local area. The catering lacked a certain imagination I thought. Although Eastfolk’s Jackalope is far from being an endangered species there was quite a bit of it about – I mean, even the beer was Green Jack! These musical types never gave up, you’d be having a chat with someone and they would just spontaneously burst into song!
I was lucky enough to get a lift home. Well, I say lucky. One of these eastern foreigner chaps – from Cambridgeshire. He hadn’t a clue where we were going and when I did offer directions he just ignored me and went the other way.
We had to stop at a pub to ask for directions, a very pleasant place called the White Horse at Badingham, where we discovered that we heading in completely the wrong direction. We had to sit and ponder this over pints of Old Giggler no less.
By the time we finally neared home I rang my wife and suggested that we eat in our local pub to recover from the trauma of the day. Not knowing what was being served I asked my driver to stop as we were passing and collected a menu from the landlord.
We walked back with friends and our dog, a nice civilised end to a long day. Or so we thought. Four people came in and started to rearrange the tables next to us, then they take out guitars, accordions, fiddles and the like and started to play… it was traditional Irish music night at The Gladstone Arms! Is nowhere in Eastfolk free of this rampant spontaneous musical entertainment?
Yours etc….
PS, I enclose images and video of this despicable behavior…
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