As the festive cheer spreads through Ipswich, reader Janice Poulson has been looking back at how the town used to be at Christmas, and other times of the year.

She shared this photos taken on a Sunday evening in 1985 adter the shoppers had all gone home.

It shows the traditional tree on the Cornhill, now replaced by a modern spherical centrepiece, and she points out that Grimwades is on the right, where many mums would have shopped for school uniforms.

It was at this time that the old Richards clothes shop in Tavern Street was demolished, something Mrs Poulson caught on film.

“It was almost next to the Tower Ramparts entrance and when you look at the picture you can see the Cricketers pub in the distance straight ahead.

“I bought a bright blue plastic-lined coat with white buttons from there when I was a lot younger.”

Between 1979 and 1987, Mrs Poulson worked for the Ipswich Typewriting Company, in the town centre.

Describing photos from this period, she said: “We typed letters, documents and specifications. It was a printing office and in my room I had an old computer, it was a massive great thing which took floppy disks and only had a capacity of 700k. It was called a ‘superbrain’ and next to it was the printer.

“The old typewriter was still used then, we had a state of the art photocopier which only did one colour and it had to be programmed to where you wanted the colour.”

She also had a photo of her boss, the late Mr Roe.

Mrs Poulson, of Kesgrave, also found photos of the nearly complete Buttermarket centre, taken in 1992.

“It was a major development then and people were excited to see a big mall arriving at Ipswich. It is a pity it is now going to be made into a cinema on the top floor. There are not many ‘good’ shops in Ipswich apart from three major department stores.”

One of Mrs Poulson’s photos shows very dramatically how the cityscape of Ipswich has changed in recent history.

The images was taken from St Francis Tower and shows St Peters Church.

She said: “How the landscape has changed in 32 years. People who left Ipswich 32 years ago and came back today would not recognise it.”

Have you got old photos of Ipswich? Do you want to share your memories? Email us today