(Continued)
The decades roll by and a depressingly modern note is struck in March 1936 when there are complaints about the dumping of refuse into the old gravel pit by Little Thurlow churchyard (that must be the uneven ground to the west of the church which is now grassed over). The Council obviously cared a lot about the environment (though they didn't call it that then), and they called an Extraordinary Meeting sometime in 1937 (the Minute Secretary must have been so excited that he forgot to record the exact date) to protest against the proposal to run the new electricity lines overhead on poles; the Council insisted in the end that they went underground. Good for them.

The care and upkeep of footpaths and bridges was a constant theme, then as now. All Parish Councils have the same staple diet of old chestnuts, it seems. And in November 1944 there is the first reference in these volumes to traffic accidents, which were on 'the dangerous corners down Temple End Lane'. In the same year there were requests that electric light be brought to the cottages on Little Thurlow Green. Sewage surfaces (if that's the right word) as a general problem too, though the discussion sometimes became rather personalised, as in June 1949 when an investigation was instigated into 'the horrible smells coming from Mungo Lodge'.

Village lighting was discussed several times in 1950. The Eastern Electricity Board had produced a plan to introduce two street lights to the village at an annual cost of £11.2.0. The Council lengthily, and no doubt passionately, discussed the merits and the exact positioning of these lights at different meetings and then in November of that year held a final meeting to decide the issue. The Council was split right down the middle, with two voting for and two against the proposals, and the Chairman, Captain F.C. Frink, dramatically gave his casting vote ­ against. This turned out in fact to be almost his last official deed, since at the very next meeting Captain Frink announced
his resignation as Chairman and Clerk, having served continuously on the Council for the 55 years since 1895. I don't think any of the present Councillors expect to complete an innings of quite that length.