Suffolk folk have long memories, passed down through generations. So the recollections of the late Sidney Rampling of the village of Brettenham, passed on through another local man, Alan Scrivenor, still inform the residents of nearby Lower Road, Rattlesden, about flooding. Scrivenor thought Rampling would not have let farmers use excuses about climate breakdown and heavier bursts of rain.
He believed the pub, the Brewers Arms, and other properties along the stream known as the River Rat, would have no need of sandbags to keep out the flash floods if farmers had kept up what Rampling regarded as the proper maintenance of their land.
Rampling had lived in Brettenham all his life, except while serving in the second world war, and remembered that farmers once edged all their fields with deep ditches. When the winter rains came the ditches filled with water removing the excess rain. The water level gradually sank in during the spring, keeping the fields moist for the wheat and sugar beet to thrive.
Gradually the farmers, with ever heavier machinery and using every inch of land to grow crops, filled in the ditches and ploughed to the edge of the fields. The result is compacted soil and nowhere for the water to run but downhill, causing the flash flooding along Lower Road.
