| Ipswich - Chris Snuggs, Mark Frost & FB, November 2020 | Christchurch Park |
Well, if you're going to a boarding school and you can choose the city it is going to be in or near, Ipswich is a pretty good choice: ... a famous, long-established city in the heart of the prime farmland of East Anglia, a beautiful river with numerous marinas, interesting industry, an unspoilt pensinsula leading to the sea not so far away, loads of interesting villages and sights, close to Constable country, great pubs, a beautiful park, a bowling alley, cinema, a great football club whose manager won the World Cup in 1966 - and prestigious rubgy-playing schools within easy reach. I'd say we were lucky. For myself, I probably under-estimated the city while I was at school. Here are a few souvenirs:
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Mark Frost writes: "In the 1962 photo one of the cars trying to park is an early Porsche – if it survived to today it would be worth a small fortune. In the background is the Art Deco Electric House. In 1975 this was used by Radio Orwell as their new base. They were the first FM commercial radio station in the area. Their natty jingle was ‘Radio Orwell, out of Ipswich’ which hit my ears as I sunbathed on the Orwell Side terraces gently frying in the long hot summer of 1976. Whenever I hear Candi Staton’s ‘Young Hearts Run Free’ I am back there. Alan Partridge had yet to be discovered, but he was alive and well at Radio Orwell." (More about Radio Orwell here!)
"More importantly, Electric House was the rendezvous point for IHS, Northgate, St Josephs, Amberfield girls attending Woolverstone Hall House Discos. Hats off to Mr Bullard for giving up some of his Saturday evenings to drive out to Ipswich and back twice with the school bus. In my febrile imagination (as none of us went on that bus) the occupants would have been 7pm to Woolverstone : quiet, perfumed, apprehensive, well behaved. 11pm back to Ipswich: Loud, smeared make-up, tipsy, somewhat dishevelled. Makes me want to go back." (Radio Caroline mementos here!) (CS: In retrospect, Ken Bullard was a star, and probably an under-appreciated one by many.) |
