"But simple as the tale is there is hardly better historic training for a man than to set him frankly in the streets of a quiet little town like Bury St. Edmunds, and bid him work out the history of the men who lived and died there. In the quiet, quaintly-named streets, in the town-mead and the market-place, in the Lord’s mill beside the stream, in the ruffed and future brasses of its burghers in the church, lies the real life of England and Englishmen, this life of their home and their trade, their ceaseless, sober struggle with oppression, their steady, unwearied battle for self-government. It is just in the pettiness of its details, in its common place incidents, in the want of marked features and striking events, that the real lesson of the whole story lies. For two centuries this little town of Bury St. Edmunds was winning Liberty to itself, and yet we hardly note as we pass from one little step to another little step how surely that Liberty was being won."
John Richard Green (1837-1883), grandfather of British social and cultural history.
Green, J. R., (1876), Stray studies from England and Italy, Macmillan & Co., London p.218-9
Notes and Images
Here you can download our "There is more to life than shopping" poster. It's FREE, and you can put it up in your window. The poster is availbale as a JPG (604Kb) image or as a PDF (2.2Mb) document, and prints as an A4 page. Click either link to open the file, and then save it on your computer. You can also rightclick (Windows) either link and choose "Save Target As...", then choose where you want to save it to.
You can now also download our "Local Shops for Local People" here, again free, and put it up in the window if you like. The poster is availbale as a JPG (577Kb; A4) image or as a PDF (8.9Mb; A3) document. Click either link to open the file, and then save it on your computer. You can also rightclick (Windows) either link and choose "Save Target As...", then choose where you want to save it to. This poster needs to be printed with the page set to 'landscape' orientation.
