FOUND WANTING

I am not overly familiar with the work of 1930s writer Paul Beard, and to be honest found it hard to find out anything about him other than the fact that he wrote walking and geographical guides, including one titled Land's End to the Wash. I also know that in 1936 he published English Byways: a Walking Guide to Southern England. But one big fact I do know about him is that, for whatever reason, he did not like Norfolk. Not at all.
For the sake of truthfulness I confess I have not had a complete copy of this latter book in my hands, but I have received, from a London acquaintance - who sent them knowing I would be interested - photocopies of a selection of several pages of his pre-War text. And my goodness, Norfolk did not come out of the experience with any pride. Indeed, and aside from a very few dribs and drabs of countryside, in Mr Beard's eyes the county scarcely warranted a visit at all, and at one stage he actually recommended the designation of a mid-Norfolk tourist 'don't bother to go' zone.
This would doubtless have pleased those Norfolk die-hards who, at the time, advocated and supported the county's rural isolation, and might still have the support of some readers today who rejoice in the fact that Norfolk does not have an inch of motorway. But the sections of the 1936 text which I have actually read seem unnecessarily dismissive.
A few examples, if I may. According to Mr Beard, King's Lynn was an 'odious' large town; the Broads were a 'flat no-man's land' ruined by the sound of gramophones and radios proceeding over the waters; the Dersingham and Snettisham area was 'disagreeable', while New Hunstanton was the 'Southend of Norfolk' with its 'pier and fish suppers'; Breckland's rabbit-scarred miles evidently suggested barrenness and thin poverty; and almost the entire coastline was spoiled by 'endlessly low mean cliffs or dunes.'
Worse was to come, however. Norfolk's medieval buildings had been spoiled by the 'crude reds, pinks and yellow of the local materials.' The North Sea was 'disagreeable,' its colour 'pallid grey or dirty brown,' and it was the meanest and most inhospitable of seas, 'sharp-toothed and grating' on sharp shingly beaches or mud-brown flats.
As for the centre of the county (roughly, the inside of a line drawn from Diss to Swaffham, and from Lynn through Burnham Market and Holt to North Walsham, and down to the Suffolk border at Bungay, well, it was best avoided completely.
The rest of the county landscape evidently displayed only sameness, according to Mr Beard. The same fields everywhere, the same strips of dark woodland, the same thin lines of trees, and the same uneventful parklands and undramatic manors. All this, and I possess only pages 92 to 97.
Of course, there are still people around today who wish the tourist season had never been invented and who advocate the county being left to its own quiet, leafy devices. At the same time, the casual reader of Mr Beard's book - even if they saw only pages 92 to 97 - might easily conclude that the author, deliberately or not, did display a degree of snobbishness.
Fortunately, Norfolk recovered from this 1936 slight, and wasn't too badly damaged by it. It doesn't seem to have deterred the tourists, either.