Letters to the Editor

Disagreeing with the Society's 2011 Awards

From James Empson

I have not seen all of the 2011 Ipswich Society Awards on foot I admit, but judging by the Newsletter photographs of them I wonder still where Council planners derive their training. Admittedly they may be functional constructions but with the exception of Handford House, Cumberland Street, which should stand the test of time, the rest add no aesthetic merit to our environment whatsoever. (In my opinion!)

Tydeman Close, Woodbridge Road, is harking back to "1960s brutalism". "Some bravery in design" is an overstatement, I think. I must go and see the garden sheds in little gardens, as mentioned though! I hesitate to criticise the Treehouse, but your photograph of it reminds me of a Fina filling station. Wolsey's statue reminds me of Canute at the Wash. Sorry, John! Coe's is so out of place in a Victorian street that words fail me. Sorry, David and William! The James Hehir Building is reminiscent of those awful painted flats which adorn Northern France and the outskirts of Moscow or Warsaw.

And the comments which attend your list of Awards in the January 2012 Newsletter brightened up a dull day in the way the writer tried not to offend!

Peter Bruff, the great civil engineer

From Dr Peter Boyden

During recent visits to the Record Office in Ipswich I have noticed with interest a number of articles in the Ipswich Society Newsletter about Peter Bruff. Having for more than thirty years researched and written about aspects of his life, chiefly with regard to railways and resort development at Walton-on-the-Naze and Frinton-on-Sea, I have now embarked on a more ambitious project to write a full biography of him.

I am encouraged that there are people in Ipswich who wish to see Peter Bruff commemorated in the town where he resided for much of his life. However, I was sorry to notice that the engraved glass panel in the station booking office, that since 2001 has celebrated him, appears to have been replaced with images of Ipswich Town footballers! [Editor: The Society is planning to install one of our Blue Plaques, reminding people of the man who designed the railway tunnel, some of the railway route and our Victorian sewers.]