Eileen and Brian Rooks live at 2 Mungo Lodge. Eileen was born at Gt. Thurlow and her parents and grandparents also lived here. Brian comes from Hundon but has been in the village for fifty years.

Eileen enjoys travelling, cooking and knitting and Brian likes his garden and visits to The Cock. Now retired, Brian has spent his working life on the land apart from a short spell road-mending.

Starting off as a pig boy on the estate of Charles Ryder at Hundon at the age of fourteen, Brian worked seven days a week for ten shillings and sixpence. He then did general farm work and took on the job of ploughing with two horses. Ryder then sold the estate to R. A. Vestey and Brian received a week’s notice as all the outlying farms on the estate were sold off and he was not wanted.

Then came the road mending round all the local villages, another farm job at Scotch Green and a five-year stint with Mr. Ullstein at Barnardiston. He then returned to the Vestey estate to work with the threshing tackle. These were replaced by the combines which made things a lot easier ­ “no eighteen stone sacks of corn to carry on one’s shoulders”. The first combines had no cabs and it was a very dusty job. New combines were purchased, this time with cabs, but to Brian’s disgust his job was taken from him. When a new manager arrived and wanted Brian to drive a combine Brian’s answer was a firm no. He said, “I’ll never drive a combine agin”, and he never did.

Both Eileen and Brian enjoy living in such an open, friendly and safe area.

Brian says the fox visits their property regularly. There are many more foxes about now but not so many sparrows. He has seen lots of changes on the land with the huge machinery now employed. Sugar beet is no longer chopped out and sprays are used instead.