Speaker 1: Hello, this is producer Amy. You're hearing my voice not
Speaker 1: because anything terrible has happened, but because we have something
Speaker 1: a little bit different for you this week. What's going
Speaker 1: to follow this very short introduction is Richard Nigus speaking
Speaker 1: to his mum about growing up in rural Suffolk, particularly
Speaker 1: on the coast in Southwold, and talking about how things
Speaker 1: have changed, the surrounding villages have changed, and just I
Speaker 1: suppose giving us a glimpse of the past and what
Speaker 1: life was like. It was quite thought provoking for me
Speaker 1: when I listened to it, and I really hope that
Speaker 1: you enjoy it too.
Speaker 2: I suppose the most obvious question is being born bred
Speaker 2: in sag Or, what's your first memory of the town,
Speaker 2: first memory of it when you was thing that struck
Speaker 2: you that you realize that you lived in that place.
Speaker 2: First of all, memories are about your home, aren't they.
Speaker 2: I was born in a two up, two down blue outside,
Speaker 2: but all all these sort of shops and things were
Speaker 2: locally owned by people who lived work. They didn't earn
Speaker 2: huge amounts of money because there were so many of them.
Speaker 3: My first member. One of my first memories would probably
Speaker 3: be going across the road to the corner shop two
Speaker 3: ice sweetie. But my first memories really was a rationing
Speaker 3: because I can't remember buying sweeties when I was a
Speaker 3: little girled I had you had points for sweets and
Speaker 3: things like that. And one of my first memories was
Speaker 3: moving from of High Street to Hobson Road, where I
Speaker 3: then lived until I got married.
Speaker 2: So that thing when Granddad decided that you were going
Speaker 2: to move from High Street. I seem to remember you
Speaker 2: once telling me a story that someone offered to loan
Speaker 2: in the money to buy it.
Speaker 3: I know it was to buy at when the houses
Speaker 3: were being built in Peer Avenue, you know those semi
Speaker 3: detached ones. A friend of his I had a bit
Speaker 3: of money, I suppose said that he would loan in
Speaker 3: the mone eater buy My Dad wouldn't except because I mean,
Speaker 3: I suppose, still thinking to himself that he'd been wounded
Speaker 3: in the First World War, he still had a piece
Speaker 3: of trapanel in his head that he could go at
Speaker 3: any time, and he wouldn't want to leave I could.
Speaker 3: I think this is how it must have been. So
Speaker 3: we moved to accounts and run house and we had
Speaker 3: electricity for the first time, and I.
Speaker 4: Can remember how happy My mom was that.
Speaker 3: Gordon brought her an electric iron, I think for her
Speaker 3: Christmas because he thought that would do his shirts but.
Speaker 4: Be something to do with him as well. Yes, So
Speaker 4: how many people do you reckon that were of you know,
Speaker 4: your peer group.
Speaker 3: That were most houses rented or were they owned by
Speaker 3: I think I think that most. I think that probably
Speaker 3: the most stuff were rented. I wouldn't really know, as
Speaker 3: some of my friends their parents owned their houses, but
Speaker 3: the great majority of them I think probably rented either
Speaker 3: from private because of where I was born was privately rented,
Speaker 3: and then we moved to a council house. I mean,
Speaker 3: but all the houses were full of people. They weren't
Speaker 3: like they are now where they're holiday lets and things,
Speaker 3: and the majority of them we had loads of different
Speaker 3: I mean we had about three or four butchers in
Speaker 3: the house, hag and things like that. And after I
Speaker 3: mean when I went to school.
Speaker 4: That's because of the war, the.
Speaker 3: Local school was closed down because a lot of the
Speaker 3: children were evacuated. But when they came back and the fishing,
Speaker 3: there was one piece of the beach that wasn't.
Speaker 4: Sort of.
Speaker 3: Cut off with sort of those steel things that they
Speaker 3: put in just when they thought there was one totage,
Speaker 3: so the only part was right to the south of
Speaker 3: the pier, a pavilion you know, where they had their
Speaker 3: boats and they used to wind them up onto the
Speaker 3: beach when they'd been off fishing because they couldn't use
Speaker 3: I don't think they could uce the harbor. From what
Speaker 3: I can remember, I think it was.
Speaker 4: It was silted up. I believe the.
Speaker 3: Black show was like because they do have.
Speaker 4: To m m.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So there wasn't as much. I mean, so all those
Speaker 2: houses were full, and so it wasn't just filled with
Speaker 2: fisher then.
Speaker 3: No, there was people who were it were just people
Speaker 3: who worked in the shops. No sort of people. People
Speaker 3: who had their businesses lived in the town. People didn't
Speaker 3: come from I mean they was suppose from Raid and
Speaker 3: perhaps they did because there were buses. There were buses
Speaker 3: that ran to Hilesworth.
Speaker 4: And lowest On. They used to go about, well the ones,
Speaker 4: the last a few too, by every hour.
Speaker 2: So most people though, who were around you though, were
Speaker 2: in businesses that kept the town going.
Speaker 3: Yes, right, I mean we had our own gas company,
Speaker 3: we had our own electricity company, you know, and.
Speaker 5: The water.
Speaker 3: Where the word was from, I mean the cinema was
Speaker 3: run privately. We had a cinema that changed its We
Speaker 3: had the same film Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then now
Speaker 3: on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and sort of like when I
Speaker 3: was a teenager, the pier with amusements at the top,
Speaker 3: but on a Saturday there was the dance hall like
Speaker 3: that west through the war as well. That was because
Speaker 3: that's where people used to.
Speaker 2: So things like now the brewery was that not as
Speaker 2: big a deal back then when you were younger.
Speaker 3: Well, yes they did, but they didn't sort of. I
Speaker 3: mean it's grown since there was. They did most of
Speaker 3: it in the one building now, so yeah, it grew
Speaker 3: a lot after or gradually, especially I think when John
Speaker 3: Adams from his father, because his father I think was
Speaker 3: more interested in the you know, because they were auctioneers
Speaker 3: and all that, and I think I think his father
Speaker 3: was more interested in that.
Speaker 2: But it was a family done thing and so there
Speaker 2: wasn't what you'd say, there one big employer.
Speaker 4: There was. They were spread across the board.
Speaker 3: Yes, there was more employment from different things. Yeah, the
Speaker 3: brewery was supposed quite but there was two capital the
Speaker 3: Biggish builders what we call builders.
Speaker 4: Well, I mean everything was in.
Speaker 3: Relatively small areas, weren't they because people didn't travelize and
Speaker 3: patch then.
Speaker 2: And you so like you said, okay, so you say
Speaker 2: you didn't travel that much. I seem to remember you
Speaker 2: telling me once that you went to the Festival of Britain. Yeah,
Speaker 2: then went Wales Tall and you went to Wales one.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, these were trips with the with the school and so.
Speaker 2: But until you got married, had you been out of
Speaker 2: Southwold much at all?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 3: I used to go to stay with my relations in
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, sorry. And I also had been up and
Speaker 3: visited called and Betty went up and stayed with them
Speaker 3: for a few you know, for a week's holiday.
Speaker 4: What they were in Corb? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I suppose so were they call a master? And
Speaker 3: I suppose I can't remember.
Speaker 4: I know we went.
Speaker 3: And stayed with them, but I can't remember too much.
Speaker 3: I remember going shopping.
Speaker 2: But would it mean something that you know how the
Speaker 2: town worked?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Would it be?
Speaker 2: Was it less common then that you would have people
Speaker 2: leave and go and work a long way away or
Speaker 2: do that? Was it usually a thing that you stuck
Speaker 2: around the local?
Speaker 4: I suppose it was.
Speaker 3: Some people would go to lower stuff because there was
Speaker 3: a lot of employment.
Speaker 4: There was a I mean.
Speaker 3: There was in south well, there was the Four Ducks Mills,
Speaker 3: if you've talked about that sort of like form things.
Speaker 3: That's now you know where the Four Ducks Nows were
Speaker 3: now just off the High Street and field of Style Road. Yeah, well,
Speaker 3: now there's a block of flat Surrey, you know. Well
Speaker 3: that was the Four Ducks Mills where they made Slumberland bactresses.
Speaker 3: And there was the home in it which was down
Speaker 3: where the telephone exchange place down on the corner of.
Speaker 4: Station row Alpier Avenue rather. Yeah, so you know there
Speaker 4: was that.
Speaker 3: They were the main employers, the home knit for women,
Speaker 3: but other ones sort of later on, sort of as
Speaker 3: and I always leaving school in lower stuff. There was
Speaker 3: the pie f which not even you know, making them
Speaker 3: radios and stuff from television. So I suppose they employed
Speaker 3: quite a lot of people. Oh there was that place
Speaker 3: that make caravans, wasn't there past They used to make buses, buses,
Speaker 3: I mean, and some of the boys used to go
Speaker 3: and work on the trailers and things like that, so.
Speaker 2: There was less need to go way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was more employment, so, I mean I don't
Speaker 3: remember many of my compatriots. They used to one until
Speaker 3: the boys were called up into the forces, you know,
Speaker 3: to do their national service. They sort of perhaps then
Speaker 3: got a someone stayed in the forces. But there wasn't
Speaker 3: the need to have to move. I mean perhaps there
Speaker 3: were for people who had more education. It wasn't usual
Speaker 3: for people to go to UNI.
Speaker 4: No no, no, I mean if you went to.
Speaker 3: What my teacher wanted me to do, but I think
Speaker 3: be en office worker or anything.
Speaker 4: So I.
Speaker 3: But people took what was going the town really, so
Speaker 3: it was always there was always work in the hotels
Speaker 3: and things, because there was a lot more hotels then.
Speaker 4: And so tourism.
Speaker 2: So tourism was still quite a bit thing when you remember, yes,
Speaker 2: but it was much more just sort of the three summer.
Speaker 3: Months, and people had them staying in their houses. There
Speaker 3: were houses that had been built by people of why,
Speaker 3: sort of like home my mom and dad met. Yes,
Speaker 3: it was the family had built. They built those houses
Speaker 3: along you know the green where the children play for
Speaker 3: your style road. And he kept the biggest one, which
Speaker 3: was over the arch, and for his own use or
Speaker 3: his family shoes, and he had some of the rest.
Speaker 3: So the others were privately owned. I don't know if
Speaker 3: he sold them straight away, but they obviously were when
Speaker 3: I knew about it, and there were garages. There were
Speaker 3: two or three garages. People didn't have to leave the
Speaker 3: tank have anything done. There were two or three filling stations.
Speaker 4: Much more self sufficient.
Speaker 3: It was self sufficient. That's the biggest difference. Now they
Speaker 3: have to rely on incomes the only sort. There's only
Speaker 3: really one big employer, and that's the that's still the brewery.
Speaker 4: That's the brewery. Yes, then build us.
Speaker 3: There's the because people when they have to keep the
Speaker 3: houses up together, don't make the old houses.
Speaker 2: The idea then of when you remember the c Santord
Speaker 2: was always a touristy place, but they were largely either
Speaker 2: staying in hotels because there were more then, or there.
Speaker 4: Were people had live in their houses.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I bed and breakfast type things, guest cases houses.
Speaker 4: Right, So you moved.
Speaker 2: Away when you were nineteen, Yes, that'd be nineteen fifty.
Speaker 2: What was that fifty six? So name obviously you kept
Speaker 2: going back because all your family were there. Yeah, when
Speaker 2: did you actually first go? Things are changing because the
Speaker 2: thing that I remember making big news in the town
Speaker 2: was when Frannie said that I think it was Kevin
Speaker 2: was driving an Adams lorry to London and they were
Speaker 2: delivering theer to London, frown stuff right.
Speaker 3: To where there was depots where when I you know,
Speaker 3: they went to I don't know quite what. I think
Speaker 3: they went to where people sort of had all different
Speaker 3: types of beer. And then he was the one who
Speaker 3: had the first big sort of like both ARTI but those.
Speaker 2: So when did you first start notice it things had
Speaker 2: changed from what you remembered of that self sufficient sort
Speaker 2: of town where I guess it was run by the
Speaker 2: people of the town rather than incomers coming in as
Speaker 2: I perceived it there. When did you first start noticing
Speaker 2: that change?
Speaker 4: Would you think? Well? I think when.
Speaker 3: Put a date on it, I mean things did gradually changed.
Speaker 3: Things gradually changed. I mean they would change and when.
Speaker 4: You know, by the.
Speaker 3: Time really, but I suppose it was when people started
Speaker 3: to be able to have holidays. I suppose people got
Speaker 3: a bit better off really after the war and things
Speaker 3: began to improve the whole time, gradually, very gradually. But
Speaker 3: you know, you would go and there'd be shops that
Speaker 3: had closed houses didn't have families living in them. They
Speaker 3: were and it was a gradual process because when we
Speaker 3: first and also things kept being built on or enlarged.
Speaker 3: A lot of that sort of thing happened.
Speaker 2: Do you think the prosperity that started grow affected the.
Speaker 3: The the ease with I mean more people start to
Speaker 3: get cars and things, and so you weren't relying on
Speaker 3: the the two buses really only you know the busses
Speaker 3: that just went to lure.
Speaker 4: Stuff and Halesworth.
Speaker 3: I mean, and people started to sell there if when
Speaker 3: they inherited these little cottages, they start to sell them
Speaker 3: because they wanted to have something more up to date,
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: So that so that is it's all those cute little
Speaker 2: cottages that you see about us.
Speaker 4: They were thought I was bloody pokey lit the whole
Speaker 4: dark things.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know people when they bought them then, I
Speaker 3: mean the local people really to blame if you went
Speaker 3: back club, but I mean some of them perhaps were
Speaker 3: finding work in lower stuff and so they perhaps up
Speaker 3: huf and can buy a much more modern house for
Speaker 3: about the same priceis what those stupid people.
Speaker 4: From the Phantoin area way for this whole place.
Speaker 6: And then the builders did all right because they would
Speaker 6: be updating.
Speaker 2: Them, you know, so I suppose I mean, did do
Speaker 2: you think that when the fishing really started to go.
Speaker 4: Was that.
Speaker 2: Was that an impact on Southwold or was that more
Speaker 2: of a thing that that killed most of them than.
Speaker 7: Well?
Speaker 4: I suppose it had a bigger impact on lower Stuff
Speaker 4: than Southwold in a way, because we were only sort
Speaker 4: of like the offshore once, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Although there were quite a.
Speaker 3: Few once the pit, once they could get back down
Speaker 3: the harbor, they were quite few people who fished most
Speaker 3: of the year and the rest of gad and painting
Speaker 3: and stuff like that, you know, but Lower Staff did
Speaker 3: get really so how.
Speaker 5: Do I mean that's what it was.
Speaker 2: One of the things that sticks in my mind is
Speaker 2: that every time you talk about loads of you go.
Speaker 4: Was the ploorol?
Speaker 2: So you saw that decay, So you saw it. Why
Speaker 2: do you think Southwark didn't go the way that loast
Speaker 2: of it?
Speaker 3: I think because it was smaller and Cooper Coot prettier, prettier,
Speaker 3: So it's prettiness helped it, Yes, I think so. I mean,
Speaker 3: and they had the lovely common that was on the
Speaker 3: doorstep for people to go walking. I mean, it was
Speaker 3: an ideal place to grow up in my day when
Speaker 3: there wasn't much traffic about things like that. Really you
Speaker 3: don't appreciate it at the times match, but we had
Speaker 3: everything that we needed tennis courts.
Speaker 2: Do you think so, I mean to say, loast of
Speaker 2: Us is still depressed horrible.
Speaker 4: Also, I don't really know much about Lowest Well, it's
Speaker 4: still a poor old place. It is it would need.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's got a lovely seafront, beautiful.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but you know it was always sort of well
Speaker 8: when there was a lot of different.
Speaker 4: Dad could probably remember more of some of the.
Speaker 3: Industry that was there. It wasn't just one induship. Weren't
Speaker 3: just the farming, but it was labor who decided to
Speaker 3: have when they nationalized things that they eastern counties bust
Speaker 3: things or went up to Lalen the summer.
Speaker 2: You know, because they centralize the making of that. So there, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: so do you think then?
Speaker 4: I mean, I mean there was a boat boat, so
Speaker 4: you do boat building and all sorts.
Speaker 2: Because one of the things I look at is that
Speaker 2: I see the difference between Southward and moast of and
Speaker 2: but I also look at Southward Mana from my memories
Speaker 2: of it, of like from the late eighties, early the
Speaker 2: late seventies, early eighties is a little boy is It's
Speaker 2: always somewhere that I think was still owned by wolves
Speaker 2: run by. There was a you had visitors going there,
Speaker 2: and the visitors were coming at the behest and the
Speaker 2: say so and at the invitation of people who lived
Speaker 2: in South Ork. Now it seems to be that basically
Speaker 2: it's a place that has got no local heart to
Speaker 2: it anymore, and it's full of this and they're almost
Speaker 2: looking at as a museum. There's no one actually there
Speaker 2: who they're saying.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: There just seems to be a complete change in the
Speaker 2: ethos of it.
Speaker 4: But there are people in employment.
Speaker 2: It's still pretty, it's not depressed, there's no crime, there's
Speaker 2: still you know, you go out the holiday season, it's
Speaker 2: still a beautiful place and can be quite quiet and peaceful,
Speaker 2: and the beaches are still lovely. And then you go
Speaker 2: a few miles up the road to loast Of and
Speaker 2: it's a bloody hellhole. So is it losing its character
Speaker 2: and that nature that you remember it of as a
Speaker 2: self sufficient, quiet place. Was that a price you think
Speaker 2: worth paying losing that to at least retain it as
Speaker 2: a pretty place.
Speaker 4: Do you think it's worth the loss of that.
Speaker 3: That's difficult for me to say, because I go and
Speaker 3: enjoy there, and when we lived there, you know, when
Speaker 3: we retired, it was still it was all the things
Speaker 3: that I went back.
Speaker 4: For was still they were still there.
Speaker 3: Because you know, I went to enjoyed the beach and
Speaker 3: nice walks. But there were hardly anybody of my youth
Speaker 3: who actually lived and worked. There's very few. I mean
Speaker 3: there was Joan and Ron. There was one or two,
Speaker 3: but they their children, I mean Genn didn't have children.
Speaker 3: But the ones who did, most of their children.
Speaker 4: I have moved to by.
Speaker 3: There was a lot my age group that moved away
Speaker 3: to get work sort of later on, I mean like
Speaker 3: we did because when Dad and I was planning on
Speaker 3: getting married, was working in lower stuff and well they
Speaker 3: were putting in the sewerage and that they've done the
Speaker 3: water to put the water moons out of all the villagers,
Speaker 3: and he was they were then sort of doing the
Speaker 3: sewer chess. But then it was a time of boom
Speaker 3: and bust, as they sort of talk about, and then
Speaker 3: they decided, oh they couldn't afford to lay out anymore.
Speaker 3: You know, that was a government brands and stuff, and
Speaker 3: suddenly he was out of a job and that was
Speaker 3: why we moved, and we've always moved about where he
Speaker 3: could get work. That's not as easy now though, because
Speaker 3: there's not so many places that you can, you know,
Speaker 3: working people can afford to rent and stuff. So I
Speaker 3: suppose one.
Speaker 2: Of the biggest changes, if you actually look at it,
Speaker 2: is that it's lost its industries. So there isn't other
Speaker 2: than Adams. The only other industry in Southwold is really tourism.
Speaker 3: And bill and servicing tourism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I mean I would have said the building
Speaker 2: is a servicing of the tourist trade because all them
Speaker 2: houses that they're converting and fiddling about with, they're either
Speaker 2: for people who have bought them for second homes or
Speaker 2: they're actually adding their bedrooms because they want to fit
Speaker 2: as many people as they can because it sleeps six. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you can charge more than if it sleeps four. Yes,
Speaker 2: so the builders even.
Speaker 4: Doing the servicing tourists. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2: But you always have the tourist industry, but they used
Speaker 2: to be slightly I suppose pass The way that just
Speaker 2: tourism runs is that you either went to a hotel
Speaker 2: if you had quite a bit of money, if you
Speaker 2: had less money, you went into.
Speaker 4: A guest house.
Speaker 3: He went into a guest house. Yes, quite. I mean,
Speaker 3: going right back to when I was a child, people
Speaker 3: used to move out of their bedroom and some.
Speaker 4: Of them lifting their sheds or slept in their shed.
Speaker 7: But you have to remember that it was probably only
Speaker 7: from you know, when the schools were on holiday, or
Speaker 7: from June to say June to sort of the end
Speaker 7: of August. We didn't I mean, there was when you
Speaker 7: had just a bank holiday with hands.
Speaker 4: Really, I suppose.
Speaker 3: People didn't expect to have en suite. They didn't. There
Speaker 3: wasn't the same expectation of people. So I mean, I
Speaker 3: don't know people would go and stay in a house
Speaker 3: with people. They didn't know that.
Speaker 4: But they but people did. That was somewhere where they thought,
Speaker 4: well they could go to the season.
Speaker 3: That was before people went abroad for hot exactly cheap
Speaker 3: package holidays changed things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I mean do you think really then Southwold
Speaker 2: still employs a lot of people. The only real major
Speaker 2: change is there aren't people like your father who sort
Speaker 2: of will rule the roost slightly in again, because they
Speaker 2: were not only forceful characters, but they had a pedigree
Speaker 2: dating back of being there.
Speaker 4: They were a part of this as much.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's are still people, aren't that some, Yeah,
Speaker 3: but not many do they. They don't seem to have
Speaker 3: the big families that were used to.
Speaker 2: No true, And I suppose as well is because sometimes
Speaker 2: strength in numbers and it's used to local people, but
Speaker 2: you don't have generations of family. You know, when we
Speaker 2: used to go back there on holiday, we used to
Speaker 2: go and think, well, we can go and see about
Speaker 2: five or six family members by just walking down the
Speaker 2: road from one to the next.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and generations.
Speaker 2: You'd see three generations in one day because you would
Speaker 2: see you know, Nana. You then go and see Uncle
Speaker 2: Herbert and Uncle Fran, and then you'd go and see
Speaker 2: Stephen or John or Morris because they were playing football
Speaker 2: on the common and swear at them. And then you
Speaker 2: might go and by pass Kevin, and then you'd see
Speaker 2: missus Tolly and all these various people who were all
Speaker 2: you know, your family members. And I suppose that's one
Speaker 2: of the things is that although there are still locals there,
Speaker 2: there aren't that generational family staying within the town because
Speaker 2: they sold up.
Speaker 3: Yeah cash well, of course they didn't all live in
Speaker 3: the south Old or Raid and you're talking about mainly
Speaker 3: I mean missus Tolly until her you know, because she
Speaker 3: is wins. Yeah, she won't really my relations showers. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean until so very very late in her life
Speaker 3: she didn't live in South Thought. She just used to
Speaker 3: come and stay and see when and that. And then
Speaker 3: when her sister came back from South Africa or from
Speaker 3: Sierra Lene rather when her husband retired and they bought
Speaker 3: a place swill and oh yeah, she she went and
Speaker 3: lived with them because she her husband died.
Speaker 7: So what.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think the biggest difference in the town
Speaker 3: is that now there's very few what I call local
Speaker 3: run shops.
Speaker 4: There's so many change changes.
Speaker 3: I mean there were change because there was the International
Speaker 3: studs and but I mean where the co op is
Speaker 3: where used to be where the tesco is now And
Speaker 3: the biggest sort of where groceries was Denny and Joan Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: which is the one on the corner of Church Street
Speaker 3: and Street there where the coverup is.
Speaker 2: So I suppose really the long and the short of
Speaker 2: it is that the way that Southwold has survived it
Speaker 2: has changed because like you say, there's lots of change.
Speaker 4: It is tourism that's sort of saved.
Speaker 2: That's either saved it and changed it. So it's it's
Speaker 2: and also the fact that it is pretty and that
Speaker 2: prettiness has been recognized for donkeys years because of the
Speaker 2: hell they visitors have been going.
Speaker 4: Then is why they.
Speaker 3: Built sort of the big hotels like that which is
Speaker 3: no longer the Grand hot.
Speaker 2: Grows and had posh houses on you know, Gum Hill
Speaker 2: and all that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they were tourists at the end of the day.
Speaker 4: They weren't local people.
Speaker 7: They were.
Speaker 4: They were they they lived there. They did live there, Okay,
Speaker 4: most of them did.
Speaker 3: I mean the husbands might travel to London for some
Speaker 3: of the things or something, but or else and some
Speaker 3: of them owned there different things. I mean mister Adams,
Speaker 3: Arthur and mother they had lived on that big house and.
Speaker 4: I'm on so green there he did.
Speaker 3: Now his son were sold because when he died, I
Speaker 3: suppose his son and daughter either Rob would have a
Speaker 3: want to live because there were some big old places.
Speaker 3: Unless you've got family, they yeah, you know.
Speaker 4: But it's so therefore it's.
Speaker 2: Not really changed for the worst. It's just it's survived,
Speaker 2: but it's adapted.
Speaker 3: If you live there full time, it's changed for the
Speaker 3: worst because a.
Speaker 4: It's not ran to match by local people.
Speaker 3: I don't think, I don't think. I don't think it's
Speaker 3: so good because small firms, businesses, they can't they wouldn't survive,
Speaker 3: not the small firms, because it's not sufficient out of
Speaker 3: season people there.
Speaker 4: To And I think that when the.
Speaker 3: Big supermarkets nearby they also, you know, because I mean,
Speaker 3: the only reason why the ones keep going name that
Speaker 3: are there is because the tourist season is a lot longer,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 2: Well, it's also something we spoke to somebody who was
Speaker 2: something to do with either Jack Wills or one of
Speaker 2: those ones, and they were saying it was almost the
Speaker 2: fact that it's a lost leader having your shot there,
Speaker 2: because it's they do the same in Soulcomb and one
Speaker 2: or two or the other really swanky coastal resorts, but
Speaker 2: elis the same. Is almost having your brand there associates
Speaker 2: you with that place, so therefore people are more likely
Speaker 2: to buy it when they go home to remind them
Speaker 2: of that nice home buys in online, which I thought
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 5: Really quite funny. So Southward has almost become this either.
Speaker 2: Really go and see on the side of a van
Speaker 2: or or on a thing, you know, Paris, Milan, New York,
Speaker 2: scam Rye and Southwold has become iconic.
Speaker 6: What's the one in the or in Beckham, in in
Speaker 6: in in Norfolk?
Speaker 1: What it is?
Speaker 4: When nothing? We're Rancaster, No it isn't.
Speaker 3: It isn't a market, yeah burn a market or yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't think we're I don't think we're quite that bad.
Speaker 2: I don't think Southwold is quite descended into North Norfolk.
Speaker 2: Tween is quite.
Speaker 4: Yet, No, because I think that probably the.
Speaker 3: Having the help there is a people come in to
Speaker 3: work in there.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I was reassured.
Speaker 2: Cedric's son, Oh yeah, his youngest son.
Speaker 4: He lives at when I think, oh yeah, and him
Speaker 4: and his.
Speaker 2: Wife they live and work and he works more or
Speaker 2: less from home, I think.
Speaker 4: But it was quite interesting.
Speaker 2: I said, oh, come on, bang, we're hav't It was
Speaker 2: that day they were doing a big r and a
Speaker 2: lie and Coastguard.
Speaker 4: Joined up training excise. Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: I was speaking to a load of folks who I
Speaker 2: recognized from the cricket club and the rugby club there
Speaker 2: because obviously displays so he often and I recognized them
Speaker 2: and they were the guys who are the lifeboat crew,
Speaker 2: and they were the folk who were the coastguards. And
Speaker 2: the people who are in the yellow vests who on there.
Speaker 2: It's very interesting because they're suddenly, you know, there's no
Speaker 2: bloody locals and do you know there are yeah there, No,
Speaker 2: they're not they're not quite right. I mean, you know
Speaker 2: the person who a lot of the people who are
Speaker 2: on the lifeboat crew, they are charity workers, are retired
Speaker 2: hedge fund managers who got away early, or their.
Speaker 4: People who work out at size walk.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: And there socials done well. Of course that's a good exactly,
Speaker 3: so therefore there are people. It's just the traditional things,
Speaker 3: like you say of the South Wall that used to
Speaker 3: basically be a self sufficient entity and so it all
Speaker 3: made this little hardh where everyone worked together quite well.
Speaker 4: And all the people on the council well local business.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, so they were actually they would have never
Speaker 2: let it so change. So I think that's the biggest
Speaker 2: thing is that when people realize their houses were money,
Speaker 2: they sold up. You lost the idea.
Speaker 4: That you might have generations living there.
Speaker 2: You lost, uh, the independence when you lost the shops
Speaker 2: who were independent shops that were servicing all those individuals
Speaker 2: and the industry has changed in the fact that when
Speaker 2: tourism took over as the biggest industry, you've still got
Speaker 2: a lot of those things, but they're all servicing the
Speaker 2: tourists section, which is why when you do I can
Speaker 2: remember going there, like we'd sometimes go up in half terms,
Speaker 2: which wouldn't be usual touristy things, but it always was
Speaker 2: a bustling pat Then whereas now tell you, I grow
Speaker 2: and Claire and I walking back to yours.
Speaker 5: You know ten o'clock as no one by that show.
Speaker 5: It's like a ghost town.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just there in a nuclear bomb dropped and
Speaker 2: we missed it. It's it's quite funny.
Speaker 4: But yeah, okay, so I think that's that's cool.
Speaker 2: I got enough, I've got plenty.