There and Back

Although I have been through Diss several times, I had never been into the town centre and was unaware of the Mere. So a visit today to rectify this! Diss acquired its name from the Saxon word 'Dic' or 'Disce' meaning a 'ditch of standing water' which I assume refers to what in now the mere. One of it`s famous residents was Sir John Betjeman, who loved Diss above all East Anglian towns, and often said he was more proud of being president of the Diss Society than he was of being Poet Laureate - some complement. So here follows some of the thing seen as I meandered around. The Diss sign is topped with a shield bearing the town’s coat of arms, two sets of blue and white wavy lines. The sign (below) is two sided, with both sides depicting stories related to royalty – though the stories are separated by nearly 300 years. “John Skelton Rector of Diss (1505-1529) Poet Laureate and tutor to the young Prince Henry (Later Henry VIII) give instruction to the prince and his...

Following Ipswich`s Artethon trail in 2011, I came across No 4 in my list, which was TAM. Honoria Surie, the artist who made Tam, was born in Hertfordshire in 1944. She trained at Watford School of Art and is now a painter and potter. The bronze of Tam, the artist's daughter, is Surie's first work in the field of sculpture and is sited on a short plinth on the grass triangle between Black Horse Lane and St Mary Elms Church. The statue is made of bronze and has a calm and serene feel to it in keeping with its location Sculpture of a teenage girl sitting cross-legged in dungarees molding a ball of clay.  Then, as if by magic, I found another piece of art nearby on the porch of the small church, St Mary Elms, popularly known by Ipswich people as simply the Elms. A return visit to the church had to the wait until 2019! The three small niches above the porch door of the Church, furnished with contemporary relief sculptures by Charles Gurrey in 2006. The...