During the past twenty years there has been a great deal of publicity about the dawn of the leisure age. As the new technology was being developed there was a growing anticipation that people would have a great deal more leisure time as the job market decreased and more and more people took early retirement or were made redundant. To some extent that has happened in the village, with redundancy becoming part of the work experience of many, along with early retirement. For others, the rhetoric has not been recognised, with United Kingdom workers having longer working hours than any of their European neighbours. However, the leisure pursuits of the villagers of Little Thurlow reveal a fascinating variety of activities and what should be a very healthy population!

The most popular activities are shown in the table below: