I had the dubious pleasure of being a resident of Dereham for 18 long years. In that time, Dereham went from being a bog standard market town to something akin to a rotting corpse full of apathy and yearning. The town slogan should be, “Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here”. Driving through the town play the following game – spot a happy person. Its almost impossible. The town creates this emotional malaise that seems to embody all who visit or live there. In fact Silent Hill has more going for it.
The town is surrounded by fabulous trading and industrial estates, a massive Tesco and the **** wipe of an area which is Toftwood. Let me tell you about Toftwood. Blighted by a massive housing estate, Toftwood is basically like a big bowel movement that Dereham has strained out. It’s crowded, has anti-social behaviour problems and shouldn’t exist. Then you have the “locals”. It was if the word insular was created for them……
Yes, the locals. In the 1990’s it was the mousse heads who **** around Big Fry, shell suited and Kappa booted into the oblivion which was Dereham on a Saturday Night. Now it’s the misery of living in such an area, all happiness is masked by a veneer of isolation and gloom. Word of warning, don’t wear anything, say anything, do anything that may be considered to be alternative or quirky because they don’t like it. See the Dereham Community Page on Facebook for this.
They hate non-conformists or anything that threatens their way of life. There are families who have lived in the town for generations and the threat of new influences, new attitudes or modern thinking scares them and they retreat into their little holes to troll on social media or talk in driveways as if it’s the 1950’s.
Poor Dereham, it’s so run down. Why visit? Go to Norwich it’s more cosmopolitan. It serves no purpose really. I almost feel sorry for it. I said almost……
