May Coote is a very active member of the village community, having retired from being the school cook. She feels the school used to be the centre of village life. Every child was well known and family problems were also shared. She, along with Kate Atherton and Margaret Ince, helped to set up the luncheon club for retired people; at one time they catered for 42 people, but this has now dwindled and only six attended the Christmas lunch last year. May is also very involved with the British Legion. This also had much more support in the past when there were meetings in the village, though now only a handful of people belong and meetings are held in Newmarket. Another interest of May’s is the “Forresters”, which has suffered from the same fate.

May feels strongly that new people coming to the village tend not to join in, as many of them are on short term rental and move on quickly. Public transport doesn’t get sufficient customers to sustain it and the travelling library, which she encouraged to come to “The Green” by collecting twelve names, now only has two or three customers.