Commercial photographer and film-maker Peter Boulton recorded Hadleigh and its people in the 1940s and ’50s. This thriving country town, ten miles west of Ipswich, gave him scope to photograph the activities that were typical of so many towns at that time.

During the Second World War Peter Boulton photographed the wartime sandbagging of major buildings, the work of the Royal Observer Corps and the celebrations of VE Day. His later photographs show the craftsmen of the town, including work at Brett Weavers where coconut matting was woven.

There are many evocative photographs of groups of people – at carnivals, fetes, school sports, dances, the Coronation celebrations and the Hadleigh Show. The Hunt winds its way through the town and there are accidents and incidents such as the disastrous fire at Toppesfield Mill in 1954, the cover picture.

David Kindred has also selected photographs from a dozen of the surrounding villages such as Kersey, Boxford and Monks Eleigh. He has based his captions on the log left by the photographer and has consulted the Hadleigh Town Archives and the Hadleigh Society for supporting information.

David Kindred worked for forty years as photographer and picture editor on Ipswich and East Anglian newspapers. He writes two popular weekly articles featuring local nostalgic photographs and is the author or co-author of ten books, three of which have been published by Old Pond