This is the one place which we were determined to get to during our recent road trip to the south of England. We moved from the west of Scotland to Braintree over 33 years ago when Jack got a job as a research chemist. This is the first house that we ever bought but it was really too far away from his work in Hertford but house prices there had doubled the year before and were unaffordable. It was brand new when we moved in and Braintree was deep in snow, we had never seen anything like it in Scotland!

The amount of commuting involved to get to work was just ridiculous and what with that and my dad being terminally ill we ended up going back to Scotland after a couple of years so that I could help my mum to look after dad. But we had always wondered what the place was like after all these years, it hasn’t really changed very much but we were really surprised to discover that the rough ground in front of the house hadn’t been built on. In fact it has been turfed and there are nice trees there now and benches looking over to this view.

Of course the River Blackwater has always been there but the trees were much smaller then, you would never know that the village of Bocking is at the other side of them. It’s quite scenic really and we were lucky to be living right on the edge of the estate but we didn’t realise that at the time as we had always lived on the edge of the town and had a view of hills where we lived before. I wish we had that now!

Anyway, they always say – never go back – but we enjoyed our trip down memory lane and we’re hoping to go back to visit Essex again in the future.