Since the Mattishall Village website has been running I have had quite a few emails from all over the world, as well as the UK. Unfortunately I have not kept the early ones but here are a few for you to view.
I am always happy to hear from you.

Just visited your Mattishall page. Wonderful! More, more! I have traced my family back to Mattishall (early 1800s) and I'm now in the process of planning a trip to the UK some time in 2001. Greatly anticipating my visit to my "hometown" of Mattishall!
Jack NEWMAN Burlington, New Jersey USA

As a Mattishall resident I am delighted to discover a site dedicated to the village. I shall add it to my favourites and look forward to seeing how the site develops. Good luck with the site,
Graham Wardle, Mattishall

Ten Years ago Iris Coe of St Peters sent me a splendid print out of all Webster birth and death records in Mattishall. I wondered if this lady (who then was so ahead of her generation) is researching genealogy. I do not have her E-address and I thought maybe you could get it for me. I once visited Mattishall and think it was very atmospheric.
Yvonne Rautenbach, Ely, Cambs

Thank you very much for the Mattishall & East Tuddenham walk. Wonderful! My husband and I must take the walk next trip. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to these two villages and several other villages in Norfolk in June 1999. My ancestors emigrated from East Tuddenham in 1836, so I have a special interest in the area.
Bonnie Ostler Ottawa, Canada

I had a look at your web site and I will definitely be watching its progress with interest. From what I've seen and read about Mattishall it sounds very nice. All the best, Regards
Peter Welsh, Victoria, Australia

Great to see the site and contents, I have yet to visit the village even though I only live in London. My family came from the area in the 1850's and it is nice to be able to put your pictures to my findings of all the places in my family history. I have corresponded with Iris Coe over the years and through her letters and emails have come to know the area very well!
Tom Beckham: London

Congraulations on a nice and interesting presented site, I love the old pictures that hold lots of info just by viewing them. Iam not from your area, but from Thompson nr Watton, I have just emailed a link to a friend from your village who I don't think knows of this site,and will be interested,Kind regards
Tony Brooks: Thompson nr Watton

I have enjoyed viewing your website - it brought back so many memories of my childhood growing up in Norfolk. When I lived there I did not know one day I would be researching an ancestor from Mattishall. If you know of anyone named LAING I'm looking for David LAING's parents. He was born in Mattishall 1854. Thanks again for a beautiful presentation. Cheers,
Patricia in sunny San Diego.

I enjoyed your site. My Mum grew up in Mattishall, and several generations of DACKs before her! I wish we lived in a village rather than busy London!
Paul Featherstone: London

It has been lovely looking at your web site. I am very keen to persue any slight detail which includes anything to do with the surname ALLENDEN from any period in time. Thank you for an interesting and informative site. Best wishes
Tina Sherwood Notts UK

I really loved this site. some of my ancestors come from Norfolk -- it gave me goose bumps ! Kind regards,
Elizabeth Thomson

Just wanted to say a big thank you for this wonderful site. I have been tracing my family for several years now & found my 2xgreat grandfather came from Mattishall. I am indebted to Iris Coe for all the work she has done in putting together the family trees of so many old residents. She was able to send me information on my HUBBARDS & VASSARS which date back to the early 1700's.My Great Grandfather John Howlett Hubbard emigrated here to Australia in 1879. I believe the HOWLETTS were also an old family from Mattishall. I may never be able to visit Mattishall personally but seeing all those photos old & new has certainly made it seem a lot closer. Keep up the good work! Sincerely
Jan Wood, Tuross Head, South Coast of NSW Australia

What a wonderful surprise to find the Mattishall Home page by a shear surfing fluke, on my part. The picture tour bought back so many warm memories of Mattishall and the people. Where are they all now I wonder? My family spent our late sixties and early seventies in this beautiful village. My parents, Vicky and Gerry moved from "the nurses house", Parker Road, back in the seventies, to E. Dereham after Dad retired. Sadly Dad died, of cancer, 3 years ago in Boston. Me (Mike) - I live in Wisconsin USA, having moved here six years ago.
Mike Cove: Wisconsin USA,

Such a terrific site, so many memories of hot summers and chilly winters in the seventies.. growing up in the village. When everbody walked to school, when the two old Cart horses down past the church were to be visited everyday with an apple or a carrot and as I grew older how we , the village gang of scruffy urchins, met outside the Swan pub (most of us too young to enter!) and dared each other to run around the churchyard at midnight! My mother, who was the Midwife and District Nurse during these years, recalls 3 a.m telephone calls from breathless , stuttering husbands as their wives began labour and starting an obstanate car in the chilly wee small hours to the only house in the village with the lights blazing. How many Mattishall born children were helped into the world by her I wonder? Thanks again for such a lovely site. Kind Regards
Geraldine Print (nee Cove), Stourport-On-Severn, Worcestershire

Sorry I don't have anything to share with you about the village, but I just wanted to say THANK YOU for a lovely tour of a typical village in Norfolk. Our brother retired to Sheringham Norfolk and we have been to visit him and his wife several times. So your trip brought back some memories of the countryside. All the very best to you,
John and Jean Palmer, Victoria, B.C. Canada.

Ray, great web site!! I grew up in Mattishall from 1971 to 1983 at 27 Burgh Lane then moved to Toronto, Canada. It is very nice to see the village again and it is nice to know I will be able to look in from time to time and see what's going on. I have alot of good memories from there and had lots of good friends (Richard Morris, Andrew Jackson, Kevin & Paul Norton, just to mention a few). I will have to send you some pictures of the snow storm we had their in 78 or 79, when I find them. I remember the village was cut off for a few days as it was so deep and they were using a back hoe to clear Dereham Road. Some people might remember me from my dad (Bob Allen) as he was a driving instructor for quite some time and taught alot of people in the village to drive. I could go on forever about things that happened there, like going to the apple orchard and having apple fights, playing badminton at the middle school, etc. Thanks for bringing back the memories.Regards,
Peter Allen. Toronto, Canada

I tripped over your web-site by accident, a very pleasant one.
My parents moved to Mattishall in 1952 when I was only 12 months old. We stayed until 1963 when we moved to Bury St. Edmunds. My father Alan was the local fieldman for the British Sugar Corporation so did a lot of work with AJ Farrow, indeed we lived over the road from Ron Farrow in South Green. Our house was called The Shrubbery. I spent much time as a child playing on the farm.
A bit of history I remember well was our second means of transport. My mum was a keen horsewoman and we had an old pony called Pickles rumoured to have been used to pull a milk cart at Shipdham. So mother decided we might get sorted out with a trap for the pony. She found a trap upside down in a field nearby, being lived in by Bob Leader the local tramp. Father was dispatched to negotiate a deal and the tub cart was bought for five shillings. The local carpenter Mr. Doy and blacksmith who operated next door to each other in Welbourn Road were contracted to make new shafts and straighten the axle. Father did a good paint job and sister and I used to go to and from school at North Tuddenham in the outfit. All the other kids were very jealous of us, but typical kids we felt we were being badly done by as we were not being conveyed by car!
Wonderful memories, there are many more.
Peter Gibbs. Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, UK

Hi, I am Lance Burkitt.
Me and My Partner Cheryle Allsopp managed the Swan in 1999. We miss the place very much. Just like to say hi to Ben Greenwood, Gavin Smith and all the regulars at the Swan. We are still up in Yorkshire, but hope to be back down there soon. Good Luck
Lance and Cheryle.

WHAT A GREAT SITE if only other villages could do the same, it shows what a lovely village Mattishall is. I married a Mattishall girl 23 years ago now. Brenda Cross as she was then and her family tree is very strong in the Mattishall area with Cross, Smalls, Meachen. Leeds, Dack, Osborn and Dunham and no doubt there will be more as our research continues and to see the old photos give character to the place. keep up the excellent work.
Tony Pitt, Hockering, Norfolk, UK

Dear Ray; I came to your village site quite by chance while looking at the Norfolk transcription Archive site. What an interesting site you have and lovely photos.
The photos of the old mills were of particular interest to me. I am resarching my husband's forebears, one of whom was a miller at Mattishall.
The person in question is Richard Egmore.
Very many thanks
Helen Riches, Somerset, UK

Hello Ray; I was really pleased to see the Mattishall website and all the familiar roads and houses. We have spent three wonderful weeks with our dear friends who are inhabitants of Mattishall.
For your understanding I will briefly tell you our mutual story as the grown friendship between our families is something very special to me:
My farther who lived in the German marginal area of Czechoslovakia was sent for exchange into the centre of the country in order to learn the Czechoslovakian language at the age of 7. He is convinced that his knowledge of the language saved his imprisonment at least or maybe even his life during the 2nd world war. When he was expelled from Czechoslovakia after the war he established his life in Germany and wanted his daughters to learn the English language in the same way as he did. Therefore he sent me to a London family at the age of 11. I loved my stay there and we met regularly in England or in Germany during the holidays and developed a deep friendship.
After retiring this family moved to Norfork and one of the twin-girls is married in Mattishall and has been living there for years. We still visit and exchange our news by phone and our children continue the friendship. I know all the roads and houses and shops shown on your website and this familiarity and intimacy caused me to write our story to you. Maybe it´s of interest as this friendship keeps going for more than 32 years now. And it´s not only a friendship between our families, it also extended to a friendship between the countries as we do love England and the very special English mentality.
Greetings from Germany and kind regards, Beate Buechele

Hi Ray; As many of the comments show, I like others, found your wonderful site by pure chance whilst I was researching something else. I grew up in Welbourne and during the late 70's and through the 80's I was one of the "gang" that used to hang about on the church wall in front of the Swan pub (I am now 40 years old). I have many memorys of a youth spent in Mattishall, some bad but mostly good. I will always remember popping across to the chippy to buy a bag of "chrispy bits" and the friendly service and patience of Lez from "Lez's Locker". It all seems like a world away now and I guess compared to life now - it is.
At the time, it was a great place to grow up in - I think the worst we got up to in them days was a bit of "knock down ginger", nicking a few apples or plums and hoping to catch the attention of one of the pretty village girls (which I never seemed to do). My father was fairly "well known" locally as he was a painter and decorator, and many homes in the village and surounding area were given the "Ron" treatment.
I notice Tony Pitt and his wife Brenda have left you a comment here, I knew them both and their familys. I also knew The Jackson Family (I was friends with Sally), The Starling family (remember their P-Y-O farm), The McMillions and many more who's faces I can still remember but alas, their names escape me.
I remember only too well the "great" snowstorm that blocked the village off that someone else mentioned on your site and looking at the Village pictures, caused a bit of a "twang" to the old heartstrings.
After working all over the UK and abroad, I have been living in Nottinghamshire for over Ten years now but I still consider Mattishall to be my "home" village. As far as I am concerned, it is where the roots of my formative years are and it is so nice to see a WWW site dedicated to the "old" place.
Keep up the good work and I look forward to new additions to your site.Kind Regards,
Kenny Green.

Dear Ray; I recently spent a lovely week on holiday in Mattishall staying at The Old Mill in the garden of Margaret and Don Fisher's home. Before I left I went to the Mattishall website and was most impressed and indeed found it very helpful prior to our stay. The week was one of the loveliest in every way including the weather, apart from violent thunderstorms on the Thursday evening. We met several people in our short stay and will certainly be back.
Thanks for all the helpful material on this site.
Sheila Addison Northamptonshire

What a lovely surprise to see your website. My three sisters are still in the Norwich/Great Yarmouth area but I immigrated to the USA in the 60's and more recently moved to Adelaide Australia so I've been away a long time. My connection to Mattishall is that my mother was evacuated from Yarmouth during WWII and I was born there (and slept in a chest of drawers!) - she had many fond tales of it. But your site is the most and the best information I could have imagined - wish she was still here to see it. I am not sure which house I was born in although we drove by it in the 1970's. The nurse also named me! Thank you for the excellent site. Next time I'm "home" I plan to visit this special village. My mother was Doris (nee Boldra) Yarham and my dad was Leslie Yarham both from Great Yarmouth. Best regards
Patricia (Lesley) Yarham (kept my maiden name)

Thank you so much for all of the pictures and information on Mattishall. My mother, was a CRITOPH, a granddaughter of William CRITOPH, the owner of the Yaxham mill where she was born and a granddaughter of John MEALE, of the Victoria Store on Church Plain. I couldn't pass up the chance to thank you for all of your work so that we could all share in the history. I also wish to publicly thank Mrs. Coe for her generous help in supplying me with information on the MEALE and CRITOPH families. I particularly enjoyed Russell Smith's story of A. J. Farrow, my Great Uncle. We have visited Mattishall several times and expect to visit again.
Don Leak from New Jersey

Hi, I discovered your website sometime ago and frequently visit the site with great interest. I love the village and have so many happy memories of the time when I lived there. I moved to Mattishall in about 1976/77 when I would have been about 3 or 4 years old and we then moved to Dereham in 1988. So all of my main growing up years were spent in the Village and I was quite shocked and also sad when my parents said we were moving out of the village.We lived down Greg’s Close and I remember (like someone else has mentioned) when the village was cut off by the heavy snow that year,also I remember regularly going to the bakery for my Mum and how lovely everything they did was. I went to the old first school in the village and what used to be called Mattishall middle school after that. I did on occasions help Mr Fisher on his milk rounds and also did newspaper deliveries and also newspaper money collections for a while. These are just a handful of my memories but I have many many more and as I said I still really like the village alot. The good thing is that I am a van delivery driver and with this job I do get to drive through, and around the roads and streets of the village a few times most weeks. I always like it when I do because every time it reminds me again of something good or happy from my time living hear. It’s weird also, because it does feel in many ways that even 23 years after leaving Mattishall the village is still just the same and that’s nice.
Jonathan Atkins.