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To wander the fine streets of Bury St Edmunds is to stroll back 1,000 years in time. The Suffolk town’s medieval grid has changed little since pilgrims began flocking to the shrine of St Edmund, England’s first patron saint, who was buried in Bury’s enormous abbey. Although the abbey now lies in ruins, it remains the town’s focal point, with its great gate, glorious gardens – planted with 20,000 spring bulbs – and St Edmundsbury Cathedral, created from the old abbey church.

Bury is a flourishing modern market town, too, with huge civic pride and strong foodie scene that includes lovely cafés (such as No 5 Angel Hill); the county’s only Michelin-starred restaurant; and arguably Britain’s most striking Wetherspoons, in the Grade I listed old Corn Exchange.

Combine gems such as St Mary’s Church and the 13th-century Guildhall (also home to the only surviving Royal Observer Corps’ Second World War operations room) with enjoyable wanders and you will doubtless concur with Charles Dickens, who declared Bury a “thriving” and “handsome” little town.

Quick guide

• Nearest station: Greater Anglia trains run from London Liverpool Street to Bury via Ipswich and Cambridge; the total journey takes around two hours.
• Transport: The town is walkable, and the award-winning Bury St Edmunds Tour Guides team lead themed strolls, including a daily tour from April to October (£10pp). EcoCarriers offers pedicab tours (£10pp), which are great for those with limited mobility.
• Stay: Try Dickens’ favourite The Angel, which has 77 bedrooms an abbey views.
• Eat: No 5 Angel Hill, Pea Porridge, Maison Bleue
• Drink: Corn Exchange, Midgar, The Wine Cellar, The Nutshell, Greene King’s Westgate Brewery
• Shop: Buttermarket, Makers Market, Farmers’ Market, Smoking Monkey Antiques, Edis of Ely, Pocket Watch & Petticoats, Fullers Mill Garden
• Visit: Bury St Edmunds Abbey, St Edmundsbury Cathedral, St Mary’s Church, Bury St Edmunds Guildhalll, Lavenham Guildhall, Little Hall Museum, Kentwell Hall, Long Melford, Holy Trinity Church, Nowton Park, Theatre Royal 
• More: visit-burystedmunds.co.uk

Drop your bags

The town’s best address – and Dickens’s favourite – is The Angel, which used to have a tunnel running between the abbey opposite and the hotel’s 13th-century vaults (now an atmospheric underground bar), where monks traded with townsfolk.

Dating to the 18th century, the current building looks superb in spring, when the Virginia creeper clambering across its facade bursts into life. Low lighting, fun décor and excellent food make the bar and restaurant appealing hangouts, while the 77 bedrooms – across three floors and a courtyard – are spacious, warm and modern. Signature rooms have free-standing baths, and some have abbey views. Some courtyard rooms are fully accessible and there are dog-friendly rooms, too. Doubles from £178 B&B.

Browse the shops

Bury has hosted a market since 1202 – one of the oldest in the country. You can visit the Buttermarket twice a week (Weds and Sat) for fruit, flowers, clothes and street food. There is also a crafty Makers Market on the first Sunday of the month and a Suffolk-focused Farmers’ Market on the second.
St John’s Street is the main hub of indies, including Smoking Monkey Antiques, Edis of Ely butchers (known for its outstanding Scotch eggs) and the joyful Pocket Watch & Petticoats, purveyors of 50s-inspired dresses. Pop into Midgar for great coffee.

Spring days out

Thanks to the wool trade, Lavenham (35 minutes away by bus) was one of the wealthiest spots in Tudor England. It is now one of the prettiest, with a perfectly preserved core of colourful, half-timbered, half-crooked old buildings. Visit the 15th-century Guildhall and the Little Hall Museum, which has delightful walled and knot gardens. You could add on the easy 4.5-mile walk, via a disused railway and moated Kentwell Hall, to lovely Long Melford; browse its shops, tearooms and Holy Trinity Church’s unique medieval stained glass before catching the bus back to Bury.

Evening drinks

The Wine Cellar offers more than 80 wines by the glass, plus small plates. Beer drinkers may prefer The Nutshell; with a bar that measures 15ft by 7ft, it is Britain’s smallest pub – though the record number of people squeezed inside is 102, plus a dog.

Dinner reservation

Hidden down a quiet street, Pea Porridge looks unassuming, but holds Suffolk’s only Michelin star for its produce-led, charcoal-cooked, North African-Levantine-inspired menu. Inventive, flavour-packed dishes include muntjac kofte (£17), wild boar tagine (£36) and purebred Suffolk wagyu (£29). The fixed four-course lunch (£55pp) is a steal.

Or try Maison Bleue, where Pascal and Karine Canevet have been serving fine French cuisine for almost 30 years (set menu from £56.60pp). The perfect-glazed apple mousse and heaving cheeseboard are things of beauty.

Spring walks

Head to Nowton Park, on Bury’s southern outskirts. Trails loop via its arboretum, woods, wildflower meadows, maze (May-October) and lime avenue, lined with 100,000 daffodils.

Alternatively, head north on the 13-mile Lark Valley Path, which follows the river to Mildenhall. Stop en route for eye-opening archaeology at the Anglo Saxon Village at West Stow and the bursting flowerbeds at Fullers Mill Garden (April-October).

Three things you might not know about Bury St edmunds…

1) On 27 August 1645, 18 people were executed for witchcraft in the town, one of England’s biggest witch trials. 

2) The beautiful, bijou Theatre Royal is Britain’s only surviving Regency playhouse.   

3) Bury-based Greene King, the country’s largest independent brewer, makes up to five million pints a week. 

From as early as I can remember, visiting my grandparents meant treats and gifts. £10 pocket money here, the biggest cream cake from the bakery there.

Grandparents often carry that reputation. Over time, that generosity tends to scale up, with help with school fees, support at university, maybe even a contribution towards a house deposit.

It’s rarely something people formally rely on. You don’t build it into a spreadsheet, but mentally, it sits there. There is a sense that when the big milestones come along, there might be something to soften the edges.

Perhaps more interestingly, many grandparents seem to maintain that generosity while also enjoying a genuinely full retirement.

According to the latest Quilter retirement survey, holidays and home renovations are among the biggest areas of discretionary spending among those in their later years, while they are still spending thousands of pounds gifting to family members on top of this.

Although my generation can be grateful for what our grandparents have given us, my concern is that this trend of behavior isn’t one that we’ll be able to follow.

Thinking about my own grandparents’ retirement brings this clearly into view. After stopping working, they travelled the world – Singapore, Tahiti, New Orleans, Hong Kong, New Zealand. They funded it with their 25 per cent tax-free lump sum and turned it into the kind of trip that still gets talked about decades later.

At one point, their retired friends even met them in Graceland – the estate in Memphis, Tennessee which American singer Elvis Presley once owned – all of them being fans of the King of Rock n Roll who had, apparently in sync, decided this was their moment for a global tour.

I don’t remember it myself as I was too young in the early 2000s, but I’ve spent most of my life slightly jealous of it. It was their plan for years, something they worked towards, a clear, celebratory start to retirement.

It does feel like they got it exactly right – doing all this but still leaving enough to be generous to their family later. I struggle to imagine that same story playing out for me and my generation.

Part of that is straightforward economics because they bought their first home in south London in the 1970s for about £20,000. It is now worth close to £1m.

I, meanwhile, have just bought a one-bedroom flat just outside London for £200,000, with a 35-year mortgage attached. I’ll likely still be paying it off into my 60s, assuming everything goes to plan.

Layer in rising living costs and stubborn inflation – I recently spent nearly £3 for an 80g bag of Popchips – and the starting point looks very different. The idea of building both a comfortable retirement and a surplus to pass on starts to feel less straightforward.

This raises a broader question of what happens to that intergenerational support if the conditions that enabled it begin to disappear?

Because for many in Gen Z, the direction of travel already feels different with less certainty, less surplus, and in some cases, less expectation that retirement will be a period of abundance. That has implications beyond our own lives.

A lot of people today have, in small ways, benefited from the financial support of their grandparents. If that pattern weakens, the effects don’t stop with us, they carry forward.

If our generation is less able to support the next, then those future milestones – education, housing, financial stability – may become harder still. The quiet, informal system of family support that has helped smooth those transitions could begin to thin out, which leads to a slightly uncomfortable conclusion.

We still tend to talk about retirement as the point where people finally get to enjoy themselves. And for many of today’s retirees, that’s true – they’ve shown it’s possible to have both a fulfilling lifestyle and the capacity to give. But it’s not clear that this balance will hold.

Instead, we may be moving towards a version of retirement that is smaller, later, and less generous, not just in lifestyle terms, but in what it can offer the generations that follow.

And perhaps the biggest shift is that Gen Z won’t retire like our grandparents, but that we may also lose the ability to play the role they did for us.

Award-winning biologist, bestselling author, iconic broadcaster, owner of one of the world’s most recognisable voices, and – as of today – a centenarian. The vast majority of us have never known life without Sir David Frederick Attenborough’s trademark awestruck narration emanating out of our televisions.

For decades, he’s been introducing us to wildlife wonders and passionately advocating for environmental preservation. In the process, his wise face and reassuring whisper have made him the nation’s surrogate grandfather. Few people in history have had such a powerful impact on how we view our planet.

Even at the grand old age of 100, the tireless hero continues to inspire, enlighten and entertain us. A prolific recent burst of activity has seen him broadcast three new projects already this year. And tonight (8.30pm, BBC One), Kirsty Wark will host a star-studded event live from the Royal Albert Hall celebrating Attenborough’s career, soundtracked by the BBC Concert Orchestra.

In birthday tribute to the great man, I’ve selected the most memorable moments from his mighty body of work – from greeting cannibals to being tickled by baby gorillas, from bonding with rhinos to walking with royals. This is Sir David Attenborough’s world. All we can do is sit back, marvel at it and try to preserve it for future generations. Happy 100th, Sir Dave, and thank you for everything.

Groomed by a gorilla

Life on Earth, 1979

The most famed Attenborough moment of all. In Rwanda, he came face-to-face with a female mountain gorilla. The next day, she remembered him and ventured over to groom and play with him. He was suppressing giggles because two baby gorillas were removing his shoes at the time.

It seems unbelievable now but the magical moment almost never saw the light of day. Not only was the cameraman worried about using up all his film but Attenborough’s producer was annoyed he’d gone off-script and threatened to drop it from the final cut. Happily he saw sense. Besides, the presenter’s ad-libbed line was unforgettable: “There is more meaning and mutual understanding in exchanging a glance with a gorilla than any other animal I know.”

Face-to-face with a fox cub

Wild London, 2026

Attenborough focused his attention closer to home this year, with BBC series Wild London and Secret Garden. This magical moment saw him get up close to a family of playful urban foxes on a Tottenham allotment. “Even though there are more wild foxes in London than in almost any other big city,” he said, “it’s still a huge thrill to see one suddenly emerging from the bushes. A totally wild creature.” As a pointy-eared, wide-eyed cub came within feet of his folding chair, Attenborough’s face lit up and he greeted it with a gentle “Hello”.

Greeting a cannibal tribe 

Zoo Quest, 1957

It doesn’t get much more British – or more fearless. In this early wildlife film, a baby-faced Attenborough ventured into the jungle of Papua New Guinea, where he chanced across a tribe of reclusive cannibals. On Michael Parkinson’s chat show, he recalled a hair-raising moment when he saw the glint of a knife and the tribesmen rushing towards him. “To say I was alarmed is putting it mildly,” he chuckled. “But I walked towards this screaming horde of men, stuck out my hand and heard myself say ‘Good afternoon!’” Thankfully, the tribe greeted the relieved presenter warmly.

Iguanas vs racer snakes 

Planet Earth II, 2017

A classic predator vs prey clip, as thrilling as any Hollywood chase. A freshly hatched marine iguana emerged from the sand and was immediately forced to run for its little life as a sinister army of Galapagos racer snakes ambushed it on the rocks. Viewers were firmly on the iguanas’ side – even though, as Attenborough pointed out, “This is the best feeding opportunity the snakes will get all year”.

The Bafta-winning sequence later caused controversy after it emerged that it had been edited together from several takes of different iguanas, but that’s standard practice. Attenborough let the images speak for themselves, using narration sparingly as the slithery, scaly pursuit unfolded.

Saying ‘boo’ to a sloth

The Life of Mammals, 2002

Up a tree in the Costa Rican rainforest, Attenborough uttered a playful “boo” at an unsuspecting sloth, who was far too laid-back to be startled. After drawing in viewers with that comedy moment, he delivered a fascinating account of the sloth’s behaviour, calling it “a mobile compost heap”, comparing his own day to the sloth’s and explaining how the painfully slow mammal risks its safety to defecate in the same spot on the forest floor once a week. The drawn-out way he pronounced “slow-th” was the icing on a joyous cake.

Strolling with the Queen

The Queen’s Green Planet, 2018

Two much-loved nonagenarians, born just two weeks apart in 1926, taking a walk together and nattering about nature. What could be lovelier? This one-off BBC documentary about the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy – Elizabeth’s ambitious legacy project to create a global network of protected forests in all 53 Commonwealth countries – saw the late monarch and Attenborough strolling around Buckingham Palace gardens, chatting about her love of trees. She chuckled good-naturedly about noisy crows, even noisier Americans and James I’s horticultural mishaps.

Feathered impressionist

The Life of Birds, 1998 

Proof that even when you’ve travelled the globe and seen it all, you can still be wowed. Attenborough was truly astonished when this Australian lyrebird – which woos its mate by copying the calls of other birds – uncannily impersonated other everyday sounds it hears, including a camera shutter and a car alarm. Yet the merriment took a more serious turn when the forest-dwelling bird proceeded to mimic the sound of a chainsaw cutting down its threatened habitat. In 2008, this memorable moment won a viewer poll to choose the best Attenborough clip of all time.

Blue whale up close

The Life of Mammals, 2002

A memorable moment that’s often mistakenly assumed to feature in The Blue Planet but which actually aired a year later in Attenborough’s next epic series. The naturalist can hardly contain his delight as he rides on a tiny boat and the mightiest of all marine mammals surfaces right next to him, dwarfing his vessel. Awestruck, he explains how no animal of this size could survive on land because no bone is strong enough to support such huge bulk out of the water. Right on cue, the whale dives back down, its vast tail eventually disappearing beneath the waves into the dark depths below.

Watch on BBC iPlayer

Rugby-tackled by a capercaillie

The Life of Birds, 1998

The world’s largest variety of grouse – weighing in at up to 5kg – proved more than a match for Attenborough when its gander was up. When the presenter entered the capercaillie’s territory in the Highland pine forests, an amorous male mistook him for a romantic rival. Easy mistake to make. Defending its turf, the normally shy bird chased his around before charging straight into his knees, sending the amused Attenborough flying into the heather. One of the funniest moments of his broadcasting career.

Covered in red crabs

The Trials of Life, 1990

One essential skill of a wildlife presenter is not to be freaked out when animals crawl over you. Even when there’s millions of them. And they’ve got pincers.

On the moonlit beaches of Christmas Island, 100 million female red crabs were ready to spawn and crowded together so closely, the coral cliffs looked crimson. By torchlight, Attenborough gently tiptoed between them and casually sat on a rock as they swarmed past. Ever the consummate pro, he continued calmly addressing the camera as one crustacean scuttled up his leg.

Laying with a leatherback turtle

Blue Planet II, 2017

His trademark whispery voice is known across the world but Attenborough’s physical appearances can be pretty iconic too. On a Trinidadian beach, a local hero called Len educated the public about the importance of conserving the endangered turtles. Attenborough sprawled on the beach next to a huge adult turtle, both looking equally wise, before tenderly placing a baby on the sand to start its perilous journey into the ocean. “Good luck, little leatherback,” he said.

Base-jumping baby geese

Life Story, 2014

Wait for me, mum! Attenborough’s documentaries make us gasp in wonder and giggle with laughter. However, they also possess the ability to break our hearts.

A downright devastating sequence found fluffy barnacle goslings in Greenland hurling themselves off 400ft-high rock ledges in a bid to reach their mother on their ground. Just two days old and still unable to fly, the newborns must jump or starve. As slo-mo footage captured every agonising bump off the jagged cliff face, the birds’ parents – and Attenborough – tried to work out which had miraculously made it. As Attenborough philosophically notes: “Luck will play its part.”

Catching a python 

Zoo Quest, 1956

In a throwback to the pre-health and safety era of natural history programming, a 30-year-old Attenborough tried to catch a 3.5-metre Burmese python. Spotting one up a tree, he climbed up, hacked down a branch, inexpertly threw a sack over its head, grabbed it and handed it to a local man, who thankfully appeared rather more skilled at this snake-catching business.

“It looked enormous,” he told viewers. “From its size and markings, I was quite sure it was a python and therefore non-poisonous, which was something of a relief.”

Summoning a woodpecker

The Life of Birds, 1998

A brilliant demonstration of territorial sounds in the animal kingdom. Cannily taking advantage of a male bird’s innate curiosity when he thinks a rival has encroached on his patch, Attenborough banged loudly on a resonant tree trunk on Patagonia’s Tierra del Fuego, mimicking the Magellanic woodpecker’s signature double knock. Sure enough, a large male responded immediately, popping its red head around the tree for a closer look, then perching right above the presenter’s head and banging the tree even harder.

A king among penguins

Life in the Freezer, 1993

“I am at the very centre of the great white continent.” For the opening episode of this Antarctica series, Attenborough was filmed nonchalantly sitting among a colony of 600,000 king penguin, complete with their crèche of 50,000 nesting chicks. Since they have no land predators, the waddling birds were supremely unbothered by his presence. In fact, he explained, they were intensely curious so gathered around for a closer look. Putting himself at the heart of the action lends extra immediacy to his typically effective narration.

Bonding with a blind baby rhino

Africa, 2013

“Hello little friend.” Attenborough’s series about the wildlife of Africa climaxed with an enchanting close encounter. When a blind baby rhinoceros called Nicki wandered into shot at the end of a day’s filming in Kenya, Attenborough got down on all fours, stroked Nicki’s snout and returned his inquisitive squeaks with similar noises of his own. He described how a cataract operation might save Nicki’s sight and give him a chance of survival in the wild. “There is hope for this little fellow,” he concluded. Touching and utterly adorable. No, you’re crying!

‘David Attenborough’s 100 Years on Planet Earth’ is on tonight at 8.30pm on BBC One

A few results of the local elections are starting to trickle in – but the majority won’t emerge until much later in the day.

Of the 136 local authorities in England holding elections, 46 were due to count and declare results overnight.

This gave us some early clues to how all the parties are faring – but the fuller picture won’t emerge until much later, when the future of councils in England, half a dozen mayoralties, Holyrood, and the Senedd are confirmed.

Counting won’t get under way in Scotland and Wales until 9am, when ballots will be checked in 86 local authorities in England – and six mayoral contests.

Follow The i Paper’s live blog for the latest updates.

There was something strange about 5’s latest drama, Number One Fan. Something… uncanny. And no, I’m not talking about the staccato acting or the barely stitched together storyline (or the idea that a personal trainer might take a client out for a glass of post-workout wine, as happened in episode two). No, I mean the fact that it all felt a little too familiar… haven’t we heard the story of a stalked TV presenter before?

Ah yes, that’s right. It happened in real life. To Holly Willoughby.

The similarities between Willoughby and Lucy Logan (played by Jill Halfpenny) are obvious: they’re both known as smiley hosts of breakfast shows; both are the face of beauty brands; and – crucially to Number One Fan – they both have stalkers.

At the beginning of the four-episode series, it looked as though their stalkers were interchangeable too. We know that Willoughby’s would-be attacker, 37-year-old Gavin Plumb, currently serving life in prison for plotting to kidnap and murder the presenter, spent his days in a “rubbish-strewn” flat, surrounded by over 10,000 of pictures of the former This Morning presenter and surveilling her social media accounts.

Lucy Logan’s stalker (or at least the man we’re led to believe is sending her disturbing packages of chocolates made of cow poo) also lives alone in a comically dingy house, throwing darts at a photo of Lucy.

Willoughby left her job at This Morning five days after she was taken into protective custody, saying, “I have to make this decision for me and my family”. It is ghoulish and opportunistic if Number One Fan took unofficial inspiration from such a traumatic and terrifying experience to spin it into entertainment (though I use that word extremely lightly). But that was just the beginning of 5’s vulture-esque storytelling.

It turned out the miserable man watching Lucy on TV was just a red herring – her stalker was in fact Donna (Sally Lindsay), a woman who blamed the TV presenter for the suicide of her brother. Suddenly, another real-life story began to emerge – the death of Steve Dymond, a 63-year-old man who took his own life one week after appearing on The Jeremy Kyle Show.

Number One Fan eventually revealed that Lucy had been an assistant on a similarly derided TV programme, and that she had offered Donna’s gambling addict brother money to return to the show after he stormed off. When that didn’t work, she blackmailed him – he’d been falsely accused of being a paeodophile, and Lucy was prepared to air that fact (sans denial) on television. His subsequent suicide, according to Donna, was Lucy’s fault.

It was eventually ruled that there was “no causal link” between Dymond’s death and his appearance on The Jeremy Kyle Show, but the parallels between his story and the one told on Number One Fan were clear enough to make for very uncomfortable viewing.

There’s always a collective groan when TV execs hastily spin a real-life scandal or celebrity story into a sub-par series – 5 did it most recently with its dramatisation of Huw Edwards’ downfall. But at least with those, there is a sense of duty to reality – research, duty of care, even, as in the case of the Huw Edwards drama, conversations with victims.

I’d say sneakily using real life traumas to inspire such sub-par dramas as Number One Fan is 10 times worse – where is the thought for the real people who lived through such terrors, whether that be a famous TV presenter or an unknown bloke who once appeared on a chat show?

In the final episode, Number One Fan tried to turn Donna and Lucy into some sort of girl boss tag team on the path of righteousness, telling the world it was the host of the show – the man who created a hostile working environment – who was really to blame for the death. But by that point, it was far too late – the series had already convinced me it was parasitic. No amount of girl power was going to save it.

‘Number One Fan’ is streaming on 5

British holidaymakers have been warned to expect hundreds of last-minute flight cancellations this summer due to the ongoing jet fuel crisis.

At least 13,000 flights – representing two million fewer seats – have been cancelled worldwide by airlines already this month.

But only 120 flights from the UK to global destinations have been cancelled for the month of May and 36 in June so far, according to data shared with The i Paper by aviation analysts Cirium, with experts saying cuts are expected to grow.

Cirium said more flights are set to be culled in June and July as the conflict in Iran drags on, fuelling higher prices for jet fuel.

Flights to popular holiday destinations such as Spain and Italy, where airlines run several services a day, are thought to be particularly at risk as passengers can be moved onto alternative flights.