A pilgrimage of sorts

The other day I visited the Tudor House on Needham Market High Street. Its where the writer George Ewart Evans lived from 1956 to 1962, and from where his wife Florence will have set off each morning to the primary school where she was headmistress and I from 1961, a pupil.

Suzanna and Mark, who bought the house last year, had purchased a copy of my book and kindly invited me over to see the house. In the 1950s, ancient houses were not seen as the assets they are today, and so perhaps it did not cost Evans as much to buy as one might think. But compared to their previous home, the school house at Blaxhall, it is palatial.

The house, which was once owned by the Alexanders, a Quaker banking family, is stunning inside. The frontage gives little hint of what lies behind. The house features in the 1980 BBC film A Writer’s Suffolk which Evans wrote and narrated, and I recognised the builders mark carved into a beam upstairs.

Over Earl Grey tea and cake, Mark told me that by coincidence they know the Evans’s daughter Sue and son in law David Gentleman, and Mark’s father had attended a Quaker school. The couple clearly felt a sense of connection to the house, and we had a fascinating conversation about Evans, the house and Needham Market. I was almost embarrassed to point out the modest bungalow a short walk from the High Street where I had lived as a child for seven years.

Perhaps deeper than my connection to Evans, and my lifelong interest in his work, I realised that I really do belong in Suffolk,and that now settled back here in my own newly built house, my innate curiosity and creativity has strengthened. That will make my future as a Suffolk writer all the more successful.