THE AUTHOR CHARLES Dickens visited the Suffolk town of Bury St Edmunds several times. In 1835, 1859, and 1861 he stayed at the Angel Hotel, whose ivy covered facade faces the ruins of an abbey. The hotel still exists.

In the 1960s,  my parents used to take me and my sibling to spend a night at the Angel Hotel in Bury St Edmunds.  In those days, it was an old-fashioned hotel. The only thing I can remember about it was that the rooms were equipped with a peculiar contraption to be used if fire broke out.

The device consisted of a belt, which the wearer fastened around the waist. The belt was attached to a cord that was wound around a spindle. In case of fire,  the wearer was to climb out of the bedroom window,  and drift down to the ground. The spindle was geared so that the rate of descent would have been sufficiently slow to prevent injury when the wearer reached the ground. Fortunately,  we never needed to use this potentially dangerous mechanism – something that would now never be sanctioned by health and safety authorities.

Now, almost 60 years later,  my wife and I visit Bury St Edmunds every now and then, and often park outside the Angel. Today, 13 July 2026, we entered the Angel, whose interior has been modernised so that it would have been unrecognisable to Charles Dickens,  and it evoked no memories for me.