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Syd Thurlow was born in 1919 in the old Fox in Honington, a thatched property that once stood endways to the road, where his grandfather was the publican. He was raised in a small timbered cottage in Sapiston where his mother ran a grocery shop. He had fond memories of weighing and bagging up loose sugar and of using butter pats to shape blocks of butter.
After service in the RAF, Syd set himself up as a builder, decorator and undertaker at North View, opposite Honington Church. To say Syd contributed to village life in both Honington and Sapiston would be an understatement. For many years he was one of the Managers at Honington School now known as a School Governor and a Parish Councillor for 65 years, which included being Chairman for several of those years. He went on to be a District Counsellor in what was then Thingoe Rural District Council. |
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As a boy, Syd always accompanied his mother to church at Sapiston where she was the organist. He soon gained a love of church-going and hymn-singing, a passion he maintained throughout his life. He became very involved at Honington Church serving as a Parochial Church Councillor and Church Warden for over 50 years.
Syd should have been a farmer! He was a great animal-lover and his extensive grounds at North View were host to breeding pigs, 26 sows in all, hens, calves, and a huge number of New Zealand White breeding rabbits. He could always be found at Bury’s Cattle Market on Wednesdays and rarely returned home without a purchase of perhaps goslings, ducks, bantams and chicks. Anything that caught his eye. The day the cattle market closed for good he remarked, ‘They’ve ripped the heart out of Bury.’ In later life Syd decided to have a flock of sheep. They grazed chiefly on the meadow adjoining his bungalow in Sapiston. He was a keen gardener and won many classes at the annual village hall flower show. In his spare time, at the age of 88, Syd wrote a book, Village Life and Folk Remembered, featured on this page. We hope you enjoy reading parts about our fathers life and a little history of Honington and Sapiston and the folk that lived there. Looking back on his life, Syds family wonder just how he juggled so many interests. There was the school, the church and his council work, rushing to and from building sites, his office to run, countless animals to feed and clean out, gardening. A life well lived! Sue Reeve & Bryan Thurlow |
VILLAGE LIFE AND FOLK REMEMBERED
by Syd Thurlow In his own words - click on the image below 
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