What you do see in town, on a Saturday afternoon for example, are younger people meeting up with friends and enjoying the buzz of town life – either in or outside the fast-food outlets, the cinema, at the sports centre (pool and ice rink) or in one of the two shopping malls. There’s certainly plenty to entice them into town and they certainly seem to take advantage of it. Later on in the day younger adults (as well as people of my generation :-) will go in for the pubs, nightclubs, restaurants or theatre.

Actually, if you’re thinking of a vibrant place to live, only half an hour’s train journey to London, ten minute’s drive to some of Essex’s loveliest countryside, you could do worse than here (bit sparse on the ground when it comes to megaliths though ;-)