THE PEDDARS WAY

In Norfolk and East Anglia, the Peddars Way is an immediately recognisible 'brand,' being a sinuous footpath, sometimes continuous, running from the Brecks to the north Norfolk coast. It smacks of walking and pedlars, and even sheep droving. What is more difficult to explain is where the name actually came from, or what it once meant.
If the Romans had a name for this road then, irritatingly, they did not leave behind any written record or inscription. Or if they did, it has not been found or recognised. In any event, the Peddars Way is not mentioned in the Tabula Peutingeriana (the Peutinger Table), or the Antonine Itineraries, both of which are listings of Roman highways which, regionally, tend to concentrate on London to Caistor St Edmund (Venta Icenorum) routes.
Because of this, and in terms of meaning, it has been all too easy to fall back on rather obvious ped/pedestrian or ped/pedlar connotations, and indeed, there may be a grain of truth here somewhere. But the situation is more complicated than this, as I discovered in the early 1980s while writing the first guidebook for the then proposed long-distance walking route from Knettishall to Cromer.
It soon became obvious that this was a trackway which has had many names, including Stretegate, Ridgerow Road, Ridge or Ridgeway Road, and Deal Row. But these, it became clear, were purely local names for particular stretches of the Way, and not names for the Way as a whole.
Then I came across a reference to the fact that CH Lewton-Brain, the West Norfolk historian, had discovered on a 1580 estate map of Flitcham a mention of a road named as 'Street Way alias Peddars Way.' Later, another researcher found various spelling variations of the same or similar names recorded in documents from 1423 to 1561.
What did it all mean? Might other routes aside from the Peddars Way road, and in different localities, have shared the same name? This is what seems to have happened. And when the matter was mentioned in the Eastern Daily Press several readers wrote to say they knew of roads or trackways in their area which also had the name Peddars Way. Places or localities as diverse as Beachamwell, Thurlton, Harpley, Christchurch Park (Suffolk), Lessingham, Cawston, Haddiscoe, Beccles, Fulmodeston, and even Mousehold Heath, on the Norwich fringe.
Even now the matter is not entirely clear. But what we can say is that the name Peddars Way is not Roman, and that in the past it was not exclusive to this particular route. Indeed, there is the possibility that it might even have been in fairly general use from, for example, circa AD1500s onwards.
The name seems to have described a route for foot traffic (pedlars, people selling or carrying goods or produce, or even sheep walks or sheep droving), and may have been in use for several hundred years. Gradually, however, it seems to have dropped out of fashion (except in one or two pockets) and then gradually retreated to become the only recognisible name on this one particular road.
The Peddars Way, I think, has much more than a Roman history.     

Dialling Dilemma

Today's football writers operating 'across all platforms' might care to reflect that before the 1970s there were no computers and therefore no emailing or Tweeting, and no mobile phones. In terms of reporting matches, we scribes were utterly in thrall to the clunky black telephone. In other words, if the phone wasn't working the match report pages of the nation's Pink Uns and Green Uns were left depressingly empty.
I experienced this particular crisis once, though I cannot remember the match or the date, except that it was an away fixture and that I had travelled there on the team coach.
There had been warnings during the week that a strike by phone operators was scheduled for the weekend, but it failed to provoke alarm because even if the office was not able to ring me at the ground I could still ring them using automatic dialling. So plans for the coverage of this Saturday afternoon Norwich City fixture went on as usual, and the sub-editors on the Pink Un paper anticipated nothing more than the usual busy shift.
I recall getting to the ground, sorting out which phone I was to use, and writing a match intro based on team selections. I then prepared to phone the intro and a little 'background colour' through to the Pink Un office in Norwich, where a typist was waiting for my call.
Only I couldn't. The booked reverse-charge call did not materialise, so I resorted to automatic dialling, which did not work, either. Someone in the Press Box said cheerily, 'You won't get through today, mate. All the phones are down.' Meanwhile, as the match duly kicked off, I visualised ranks of sports subs gazing at silent phones and empty pages, and lighting up more Woodbines than usual.
After a couple of minutes I tried the automatic dial again, trying to raise Norwich, and this time was relieved to hear it ringing-out. When the phone was answered, however, it was to discover that for some technical reason it was an unknown and somewhat surprised lady who spoke up. Are you the Pink Un? No, she said. Are you in Norwich? No, she said. I live in Rickmansworth.
Throughout the entire first half I must have dialled the Norwich Pink Un number a dozen times, and each time it was this nice lady in Rickmansworth who answered. I must say she was jolly decent about it. After five calls I got beyond profuse apologies and we began a conversation. No, she said, she was not interested in football. She had never been to a football match. By the eleventh call she confessed she was not at all irritated but was sufficiently intrigued to ask the score. I, meanwhile, was desperately trying to watch and make notes as well as contact my office where, I could imagine, heart attacks were happening on a regular basis.
Half-time came and went and still no contact, and still the lady in Rickmansworth was patience and calmness personified as my frantic calls increased in intensity. Then, as the second half kicked off, and as my diallings reached about No. 15, I suddenly got through to the Pink Un. There was a lot of catching up to do.
As for the unknown lady in Rickmansworth, I did at the time and can only do so again, praise her patience and courtesy. So if she is still out there, and if she can still remember the incident, one harrassed football reporter, a bored copy typist, five frantic sports sub-editors, a deeply worried sports editor, and thousands of Norwich City supporters who were not actually at the game, owe you a big thank-you. 
  
 

James Stewart (1)

In the 1970s I got the idea that I would like to learn to fly a glider, a not-so-silly notion because at the time a gliding club based at the old Tibenham airfield in Norfolk was organising courses. I was taken up several times, went on a weather-affected course, and in consequence didn't complete the schedule or make the grade. But I did enjoy it, and subsequently three of my children were taken up to experience the thrill of engineless flight.
In early June, 1975, I took a phone call from a gliding club member who told me that film star James Stewart was planning a private visit to the base. A members'-only job, apparently. Very hush-hush. No fans, no Press. But  if I didn't let on how I knew, kept in the background, and didn't wave a notebook about, then I might be able to pass muster as a club member.
Stewart's visit was not a total surprise because during the Second World War he had been based at Tibenham (and elsewhere), from where he flew 20 bomber missions. He was a genuine war hero, and now, thirty years and many films later, he was appearing in the stage play Harvey in London, and was simply taking advantage of a day off. Though I didn't know it at the time, he was also planning to do a photoshoot with Terry Fincher for the Daily Express.
On the day in question I did my best to melt into the background and became a quiet bystander as James toured the base and the ruined control tower, and gazed at the runway. He clearly found it all very affecting. When they offered him a towed glider flight to RAF Coltishall and back, he jumped at the chance, and happily squeezed his lanky frame into the tiny cockpit. While he was away, Terry Fincher and I withdrew for a pub lunch. 
Back at Tibenham again, Mr Stewart was ushered into the clubroom for sandwiches and coffee, where he looked at more memorabilia and chatted freely with everyone. Every so often his gentle drawl, 'ahhh, well,' and 'kinda' and 'sorta' could be heard across the crowded room. Relaxed and affable, he was in his element.
I was sitting in a corner munching sandwiches when Stewart's agent came across. 'He knows who you are,' he said. 'He knows you're a local journalist.' I envisaged a firing squad. 'Would you like to meet him?' Yes, please.
Then James Stewart came across and sat down beside me, balancing a cup and saucer on his knee, and we talked for ten minutes. Deliberately, I ignored my notebook and later on had to struggle to remember some of the quotes. But in a way I was glad. It was not an interview, it was a neighbourly chat, freely offered and entered into.
James Stewart was like that. Aimable, interested, and at ease. He talked about Tibenham and how tough he had found it to remember his way around the base. 'The only thing I can really orientate on is the control tower,' he said. He talked about his glider flight, and I asked if he had taken the controls. 'Sure I flew it. Sure I did.' And then he talked about Norfolk and Norwich and how he hoped one day to visit the city's American Memorial Library.
Then his agent came back, and Stewart rose, shook hands, and wandered back towards the sandwiches.  
 

In Praise of 8s & 10s

Inside-forwards - otherwise Nos. 8 and 10 in the WM formations favoured by almost every football club in the UK until Puskas and Hungary showed there was another way - were the craftsmen of their day. They supplied the ideas and the bullets, fired, sometimes by wingers who mostly hugged the touchlines, and generally by centre-forwards who ploughed a central furrow. Number 9 may have been the glamour-puss position of choice for most schoolboys, but inside-forwards, operating 'in the hole' (as they say nowadays) had a special elegance and importance all of their own.
Each generation has had its favourites, of course. One editor, hearing me proclaim to someone, 'Have you seen Keelan? He must be one of the best 'keepers Norwich City have ever had,' quietly interjected, 'Ah, but you never saw Ken Nethercott in his prime.' In much the same way the generation of soccer-watchers before me recalled with affection the artistry of Raich Carter, Billy Steel, Wilf Mannion, Ivor Allchurch and Peter Doherty. Alas, I never saw any of them in a League game, though a No. 10 I did see a great deal was that wily box of football trickery, Freddie Fox, little known nationally but the pride and joy of Holbeach United, in the Eastern Counties League in the 1950s.
I have a faint remembrance of having seen Len Shackleton play once, and Johnny Haynes once, though neither, I think, were at their best and played only peripheral roles in these particular games. With slightly more glimpses of Albert Quixall, Jackie Sewell and Ivor Broadis, there was still plenty of opportunity to thrill to the sight of a perfectly weighted defence-splitting pass.
Tommy Bryceland was perhaps the last 'proper' inside-forward at Carrow Road, retaining his place in the team and the crowd's affection until it became tactically fashionable to replace craftsmen with artisans. This happened after England won the World Cup in 1966 with Alf Ramsey's 4-3-3, when everyone jumped on to the 4-3-3 bandwaggon. In Division Two, and for several seasons afterwards, it had disastrous consequences, for many sides pressed unsuitable players into new roles or tried to convert inside-forwards into all-action utility men. It didn't work, of course. Not for a season or two, anyway, and football momentarily lost its way.
Change, of course, is inevitable. The old WM formation could not survive. And even today, the game is still evolving. For example, 1950s fans of the game will be perplexed to see today that the shoulder charge is evidently no longer deemed legitimate, whereas a player can jump with his elbows sticking out (once seen as highly dangerous) and yet evade punishment.
The last of the inside-forwards? I'm not certain, because Jonjo Shelvey sometimes looks like an inside-forward to me. But I think Trevor Brooking in his West Ham days probably ended the honourable history of this particular genre. Trevor, though a long way from being a play-anywhere workhorse, could always surprise you (and the opposition) with an angled pass no-one else would have thought of.
That's one of the things missing from some games at the moment. The unexpected. It doesn't happen that much any more.

Buckenham Tofts

During a tour of Norfolk's Stanford Battle Area some years ago, laid on by the Army to demonstrate how well they were looking after this beautiful district - and not using tanks and shells simply to chew it to pieces - the official car pulled up in front of a grassy platform of raised ground and beside a short line of dilapidated stone steps. The raised ground made a sort of elevated lawn, large enough for a tennis court or two, and the steps went to the top of the platform, and then went nowhere. We clambered out of the vehicle and strolled around.
'Buckenham Tofts Hall, or all that remains of it,' said the Army officer by way of explanation. 'The Royal family nearly bought it. Instead of Sandringham, I mean.'
Now, I have no knowledge of whether he was correct about one-time Royalist interest in the place, but the notion raised some interesting points.
Buckenham Hall, before demolition, had presented a solid and respectable face to the world, and in the mid-19th century it sat squarely in a large park surrounded by about 650 acres of land. It was also only six miles from Brandon railway station.
Around 1860, Albert, the Prince Consort, was searching for a home, and some good shooting, for his eldest son, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, wanting him settled and well away from the unhealthy atmosphere of London. The Prince of Wales was nearly 20, and presumably in favour of the plan, for it is said - with what accuracy I do not know - that the Royal family looked at and considered several places in Norfolk in order to choose the most suitable.
Norfolk, of course, was stuffed with enormous sporting estates, some of them in various degrees of financial plight, which makes it at least feasible that Royal visitors, or their representatives, descended on Buckenham Tofts (also known as Buckenham Parva) as one of the places on their list.
Matters took a huge turn in 1861, however, when the Prince Consort, ill with typhoid, died in December of that year. Albert Edward's response was rapid. With his mother, Queen Victoria, in deep mourning, he rushed off to Norfolk, took a look at the available Sandringham estate, and decided to buy it. Two months' later, in February, 1862, the deal was done.
There is no need to say much about Sandringham, of course, as it is so well known. But what would have happened, or not happened, had the Prince of Wales bought Buckenham Tofts instead?
In all probability there would have been no railway line from King's Lynn to the North Norfolk coast, and possibly no New Hunstanton. There would certainly have been no Battle Area. At least, not in the vicinity of Thetford or Brandon. And possibly no Forestry Commission forests in Breckland.
Whether you feel disappointed at this I do not know, but there is some consolation for Breck Royalists in the knowledge that Buckenham Tofts Hall was, in the dim and distant past, once called Buckingham House.
So close. Oh, so close. 

The Quiet Season

My Sunday newspaper recently contained an article lamenting the fact that some football crowds, particularly in the Premiership, are becoming quieter. Quieter than a few seasons ago, presumably. One reason may be changed demographics, with the relatively well-heeled taking over the central blocks from the artisans. There are other reasons, though.
One is the cost of tickets. Up to the 1970s most Football League clubs had only two revenue streams, season ticket sales and turnstile takings, with - in Norwich, at least - the price of a standing ticket on the terrace largely staying in line with the cost of a seat at the Odeon.
Today, it boggles me how some families can afford to pay some of the fantastical seat prices, because football is not any more thrilling than it was. It always was thrilling. But I do believe that today's fans read of lorry loads of TV money being poured into Premiership coffers and then look at their tickets and see how much they are also being asked to contribute. Something, eventually, has to give, and it may be that the victim is spectator patience.
Nowadays many fans simply settle into their plastic seats and think to themselves: 'Go on then. Entertain me. I've done my bit, now you do yours.'
There are other reasons for the quietness, I am sure, and yet another is that many players are simply not playing the game. Time and again replay cameras starkly illuminate the fact that many participants are deliberately trying to influence the match officials. They feel a finger on their shoulder and crash to the turf squirming in agony. They 'roll' around the legs of a defender and stare appealingly at the ref even as they launch themselves into the air. And so, endlessly, on and on.
It used to be called cheating. So let's call it cheating again, because I am sure it has succeeded in breeding a level of cynicism among the watching fans.
Another culprit is that current tactical fad, the 'possession' game. It has its uses, but if overdone it can become a real passion killer. In a game I saw recently a forward made a run deep into his opponent's half. Near the penalty area, however, he turned, played the ball back to a midfielder who played it back to a defender who turned it back to his goalkeeper. The impetus died, and so did excitement.
No-one is thrilled by a pass back, or by the spectacle of the back four (or five) having a quiet little game among themselves. And so occasionally, just occasionally, I think Division One is beginning to emerge as the more exciting spectacle.
 

Call of the Wild

In 1973 it was not at all easy to plan a week's walking holiday on the Peddars Way. Jack and I poured over Ordnance Survey maps, read East Anglia by RR Clarke, and I asked around at the office, where I found someone who had walked it 20 years' before. But information was sketchy. We didn't even know where the path began, whether it was a continuous route, or how much of it ran over privately-owned land.
Equipment was also tricky. Neither of us had any lightweight gear - which at the time was impossibly expensive - though we could scrape together an ancient two-person tent, which was certainly not lightweight, and a couple of sleeping bags. Another problem was that neither of us had done any serious walking before, and thus had no real idea of what sort of task lay ahead.
In the end we started from Brandon, walked the Harling Drove and joined the Peddars Way north of the A11, and then spent seven days in a heatwave, tottering sweatily under impossible burdens, all the way to Holme next the Sea. That very night the heavens broke, and it was then we discovered the old blue tent was not actually waterproof. Hours later we were rescued by my wife, who bravely drove out to the coast from Norwich, and finally got back to our homes long after dark, wet, exhausted, and - after a decent spell for reflection - absolutely determined to do it again.
Nowdays, with the long distance route already in its 26th year, there are waymarks and guidebooks, duckboards and B&Bs. Forty years ago there were none of these. Not even a Coast Path. No signposts, no advice or guidance, no actual public route, no footbridges or safe means of crossing boggy areas, and no places to stay. Pubs? At least one of them did not welcome muddy-booted walkers. Rivers, such as the Little Ouse and the Thet, well, we had to take off our boots, put our rucksacks on our shoulders, and wade across. Camping? Where-ever you could find somewhere off the track and largely out of sight.
There were other problems, too. In 1973 the Army was still making use of Battle Area land on both sides of the path, and the route was closed for a short distance (there was a barrier, and a sentry box) at Stowbedon Plantation, south of Thompson Water, while military exercises spilled back and forth across the track near Sparrow Hill. There were other detours which had to be walked, too, such as the boundary of the Merton estate, and a section near Anmer which was blocked by brambles and vegetation.
As for water, I recall that aside from the occasional pub where we tried to persuade the landlord to refill our plastic canister, we came across one desperately needed supply thanks to a cattle trough (which had clean water inlet) near Harpley Dams, and a solitary public tap, at Holme.
But there were compensations. The freedom to wander, to invent a route, to carry all your possessions of your back. They were all high on the list. Fresh air, the sky, the sun, and the landscape, they contributed greatly, too. And sitting around a small fire in the evening, sipping scotch and listening to the owls, was memorable.
So despite the exhaustion and the blisters, we did walk it again. And again, and again.    

The Bartram Effect

As 12-year-olds, we played football on the edge of a field - later, the site of a garage - which most years grew broad beans. The farmer always left an uncultivated strip conveniently close to the road, where his tractors and lorries could manoeuvre, so at non-school times and at weekends we played on a rough 'pitch' with goals marked by piles of jackets.
The trend then - and may be now, though I suspect not nearly so many lads play football in fields today - was to 'adopt' the name of a famous player. Thus one of my mates was always Jackie Stamps; another Tom Finney or Stan Matthews; a third Tommy Lawton or Billy Steel, and so on. For me it was more difficult, for being always short of breath and largely unable to play outfield, I specialised in keeping goal, which restricted the choice somewhat. In the end, and with Frank Swift rejected, it boiled down to Ted Ditchburn of Spurs or Sam Bartram of Charlton, a club which had just won the FA Cup. So it was no contest, really. I 'became' Sam Bartram, and my mother even knitted a polo-necked jersey, as seen in the News Chronicle photographs.
The time came, of course, when I actually wanted to see Sam play. In the flesh. Dad did take me (by rail) to Filbert Street to see Leicester City play Fulham; but a trip to the Valley had to wait another two years until I was 14. Eventually, I saved enough pocket-money and got a nervous parental OK, and so very early one Saturday morning three or four of us went by rail from Long Sutton (Lincs) to Spalding, and then Peterborough to King's Cross, had a crash course in using the London Tube to get to Charing Cross, and then caught the surburban train to Charlton.
I remember the stations even now: London Bridge, Deptford, Greenwich, Maze Hill, Westcombe Park, then Charlton. Follow the mass of red and white scarves along the platform and up the steps, turn right over the bridge then left into Floyd Road by Sam Bartram's shop, and thence to the Valley, that monumental concrete bowl that held 50,000 fans with no trouble at all.
The trick was to be there before noon, to get a place in the queue, and the ambition was always to make use of the 'facilities,' the largest and longest open air gents' urinal I had ever seen. But it was a journey two or three of us managed four or five times. I still have the match programmes. And we saw Sam in action. He became my hero and I became hooked on football in a way that has never entirely left me. Despite Norwich City, and after 60-plus years, the Charlton result is still the first one I look for.
A decade or so after these outings I actually met the man himself. I was in the old wooden Press box at Carrow Road, and saw this giant of a man clumping slowly up the steps. He came in, said scarcely a word, sat down and watched the game. No-one else in the Press box, or in the surrounding seats, seemed to know who he was, and I thought: 'Isn't fame fickle! Here is a man who has played in two Cup Finals and over 620 games for his club, who was never dropped by his manager and was one of the greatest football showmen, and whose appearance could put hundreds on the gate. Then a decade later no-one knows who he is.'
It is possible Sam felt that, too. In the Press room under the iron beams of the old grandstand I got him a cup of tea and we exchanged pleasantries and a few words about the match. He was modest and even shy, and somehow it didn't seem right to tell him he was my boyhood hero. Anyway, Sam - who was representing a Sunday newspaper at the time - turned up for three or four more matches, and then I never saw him again.
But the magic stuck. 

Final Curtain

I went only once to the long-demolished Hippodrome theatre in Norwich, largely because in those days, in 1959, it was not the place to be seen in. Full of plaster statues and cupids and decorated boxes it may have been, it was still long past its best. The shine and showbiz glitz had gone, and it had become an empty, shabby place which was having to resort to showing films. I had gone to see Gone With the Wind, and there were only two or three other people there. A door somewhere in the bowels of the building banged regularly in the draught all the way through.
Despite its state, a residue of nostalgia for the honourable old Hippodrome hung around for a time rekindled, no doubt, by a decision by the City Fathers to bestow their blessings on the Theatre Royal (as the city's preferred theatre) rather than the Hippodrome.
When I joined the Norfolk & Norwich Amateur Operatic and Dramatic Society as a back-of-the-chorus baritone of exceeding modest talent, and completely unable to read music, the debate was still quite heated. The older generation in the society loved the Hippo, and could not understand why it had to be consigned to history's dustbin. They had staged Gilbert & Sullivan there for years, for goodness sake. A wonderful place.
Others shook their heads and muttered darkly. There were not enough dressing rooms, which meant they had to park a line of caravans outside in the street, and there was no space to bring in scenery. They would never be able to stage opera or musicals there, and because the Hippo was built up on all sides, there was little or no chance of expansion.
So the Theatre Royal it was, a plain utilitarian building (also showing films when I first arrived in Norwich), later modernised and refurbished to give it a touch of glamour. As for the Hippo, it disappeared under the wrecker's ball many decades ago, and despite its cupids and history and gilded tiddlybits, the space it once occupied is now filled by the St Giles multi-storey car park.
Do I miss it? No really, not in a sense that it might have become the city's No.1 theatre, because it couldn't. Despite the tradition, no elbow room, you see. The Theatre Royal was always a much better long term bet, and so it has proved itself to be.
The loss of the cupids and the gilded tiddlybits is another matter, of course. Very sad, and equally as sad as the loss of even more plaster and gilded bits when the old Savoy cinema in Prince of Wales Road was refurbished.
Mind you, I once knew a man who had a selection of buxom cupids from the Savoy in his garage. But that's another story.