Stowmarket As A Kid In The 70's!

A Memory of Stowmarket.

I grew up in Stowmarket (Combs Ford end!). I remember Milton Road, etc, before the Relief Road cut the town in half! Saturdays used to see the town centre heaving with people - cars came through the main street then. Us kids used to meet outside the Woolworths shop on a Saturday morning, and get inside Tooks Cafe (now still a cafe) in Ipswich Street. I can remember the Library being alongside the old Council Offices off Ipswich Road. It was a tiny little brick building then. High spot of the year was the Carnival. We were upset when some time ago the Carnival stopped coming through the Ford and continued along Needham Road and over Boulters Bridge. Us Combs lot were most put out!! When I was a kid in the 1970s we spent all our pocket money in the paper shop in the Ford. I had to walk to school at the High School this meant an early start, all the way from Poplar Hill to the School. We used to feel a bit sick in the winter, as the Battisford and Wattisham school buses used to pass us!! We had to pay a fare to go on them. If it was really wet, we would cough up and get on the bus at the Ford! My sister was one of the first pupils at the new Combs Middle School. When I went there, 7 years later, the houses around it were being built. They started at the top of the hill, and eventually spread down the other side to Needham Road. Everytime I drive past there I think of how we used to play there! Back then there was no internet and us kids spent all our time outside - we loved the open-air pool!! We would spend all day there - getting wet, then drying (and burning!) in the sun, then diving in again!! It was 10p to get in, double on a Sunday. Season tickets were £3 each (but you couldn't use them on a Sunday!) We always 'got our money back' on them, as I loved swimming. My mate from Poplar Hill would call round, and off we'd go! We had some money for the tuck-shop, a drink and crisps etc, and we'd sometimes take sandwiches and stay all Saturday. On really hot days, mid-afternoon they sometimes cleared the pool, and then everyone'd have to queue-up and pay again!! That was naughty!! But times were more innocent then, and us kids did as we were told!! I can remember boys being smacked at school for being naughty - and a lot of our class-rooms were 'huts' on the school meadow. Combs Ford Primary is now a community centre, but when I have visited it, I still know all the names of the Teachers Classrooms! The Head was Mr Stephenson - we were terrified of him! Mrs Hatfield taught in a 'hut' which housed the canteen, so at ten to twelve us kids had to lay all the cutlery!! Imagine kids doing that today!!