A travel writer from The Independent just fell for Ipswich – it's time more of us did the same
Claire Boobbyer did not come to Ipswich to be impressed. She came, as many do, without particularly high expectations – and left a convert. Her travel feature in The Independent, published this morning, is a love letter to a town that has spent too long being told it is not worth loving.
Boobbyer spent her time in Ipswich doing what anyone can do.
She took a boat trip on the Orwell. She ate well at the Bistro on the Quay, the Greyhound and Crafty Fox. She wandered through the Saints, browsing independent shops, got close to Constable at Christchurch Mansion, and found herself in The Church with a beer in hand, toasting England's oldest town's ability to surprise her.
None of this is secret. None of it is new. It has been here all along.
The waterfront that Boobbyer describes as feeling "like being on the Mediterranean" in summer is the same waterfront many residents write off as half-finished. The music scene that draws a journalist from a national newspaper is the same one that locals sometimes talk about as if it barely exists. The architecture — 600 listed buildings, Tudor gates, pargeted façades, a six-storey folly on the Orwell — is the same backdrop against which some choose to see only what is missing.
Sure, Ipswich has its challenges. No one who lives here is blind to them. The high street has its struggles, and not every corner of the town reflects the best of what it has to offer.
But there is a difference between honest acknowledgement and the habitual self-deprecation that some Ipswich residents have made a kind of identity. But while they have been busy shrugging their shoulders, shaking their heads and furiously typing away on Facebook, a travel writer from The Independent has been on the Orwell, soaked up the sun on the waterfront, enjoyed some of our brilliant pubs and restaurants, and can't wait to come back.
She saw what this town is. It is time more of us chose to see it too.
This is an opinion piece and reflects the views of the author, not the publication.
Don't forget: If you enjoy our content, please add Ipswich.co.uk as a "preferred source" on Google so you can easily find more of the content you value.
This article cost us ~£41 to produce
It's free for you to read thanks to the generous support of our partners. Please support us by supporting them.
Below the line