AN empty lorry turned up outside my house last week. When it left, a few hours later, it was filled with my neighbour's possessions and a little piece of life disappeared forever from my street.
I'm a newcomer to Long Melford – landing by chance after skidding about the globe in a rather frivolous manner. In contrast to Harvey – my neighbour until recently – who was born here, in his parents' bedroom in the early 1930s.
He walked to sc
hool along this street, then work and always church on Sunday. And when his old legs failed him he would be seen on his electric wheelchair, come rain or shine.
On numerous cold winter nights I have sat with him as he recalled days gone by.
He told me about the families that have lived in my house. They included parents who never recovered from the death of their young son, tragically in the Far East as he built the bridge over the River Kwai during the Second World War.
It's difficult not to feel a sense of others in your home when you hear stories like that.
But he's gone now. Moved on to sheltered accommodation. His house, a museum of pre-war Britain, lies empty, waiting for a property developer to gut it, decorate it and repackage it as a "desirable period cottage for a first-time buyer".
My street feels like a less interesting place to live now. The old boy who can remember the American bombers flying over the village – the influx of soldiers barracked at Melford and Kentwell Hall – the brutal winters of the 1940s and early-60s, when life literally froze to a standstill – has gone.
A writer once said: "Don't ignore the old grandfather or grandmother sitting at the kitchen table – they're the people who can tell you who you are."
So put the kettle on for the old neighbour and ask all the questions you can, before it's too late.
