Writing for Hadleigh Nub News is a privilege. 

In fact, after the efforts of my earthly contemporary John Foxe, Father Derek's publication has provided me with my first opportunity in nearly 500 years to get a word in edgeways.

On the whole, to quote Margaret Thatcher, I am enjoying this! I am enjoying this!  Actually, that's not such a good comparison, as Thatch said that just after she chucked in the job of PM.

(And for the spiritual life of me, I don't ever recall bumping into her in the Heavenly realm. I do wonder where she got to?)

Hadleigh Armed Forces Day, example of good in town

But I am enjoying being able to highlight the good in our town and call to account the occasional act of impropriety, vested self-interest and out-and-out egomania among our elected brethren.

As a hyper local news site, or Father Derek's Revelations as I sometimes care to call it, HNN is firmly rooted in what makes Hadders special, or plain different, or, if you will, one of a kind. 

It would be inappropriate or impossible for any other scribbler working for HNN's sister, cousin or in-law titles to try to 'get' every single reference.

It might seem odd for, and let's use a totally random example, someone from Thurrock say, to appreciate the longstanding Hadleigh tradition of giving curious nicknames to its citizenry. For better or worse, many of the older generation are known more by these sobriquets than they are the names accorded to them at their christenings by my hard-pressed successors.

I am merely, almost humbly, trying to revive this fine tradition in my references to various personages of note both in God's own town and those doomed to live slightly further afield.

Talking of Thurrock, have you taken a look at that place's Nub News site? For those of a sensitive disposition, I'd caution at glancing through more than one news item in any given week.

It all looks rather grey and grim, with stories about stabbings in Grays (appropriate) Road, drugs raids, brutalist car park planning applications and a council close to actual, and not just moral (hello Hadleigh Town Council!), bankruptcy. 

How unlike home.

Thurrock, of course, may be dismissed by those of an anatomical disposition, as just another polyp in the bowel that is Essex. However, I reckon that that county is a little like the land of the dead where the Blessed Maggie resides – they just do things differently there. 

How many of us politely brought up Tractor Boys watched in horror earlier in this footballing season as some stormtroopers from Colchester, having imbibed too much mead in that city's Slag & Subaltern public house, proceeded to smash up a stand at Portman Road?

Which one of us Hadleigh folk doesn't give a little cheer of relief when we pass that faded (to grey?) 'Welcome to Suffolk' sign on the A12 just before the Stratford St. Mary turn?

Or which weary Suffolk rail passenger hasn't lifted their eyes from their despairing hands in new found hope as the train stutters out of Manningtree station and makes for the better bank of the Stour? 

And which one of us when coming home from a Ryan Air holiday to Venice (via Slovenia or maybe Slovakia) hasn't shaken the dust of Stansted off the soles of their feet as they cross over the Simon Barrett Boulevard and onto Sudbury's Ballingdon Bridge of hope?

Quite frankly, it's time that Cruella Braverperson, or whomsoever the Home Secretary currently is, stopped obsessing about migrant boats in the Channel and started stationing guards along Suffolk's southern flanks. 

The privileges we enjoy in Hadleigh must never be taken for granted!