MAN OF THE TREES
Many describe him as one of the fathers of early environmentalism; others suggest that, to Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862), the whole of nature was a sort of religion, a welcoming place where he could learn what he saw as the essential facts of life. But he was also, like Benjamin Franklin, a bit of a polymath - poet, author, essayist, philosopher, naturalist, tax resister, surveyor, historian, transcendentalist, slavery abolitionist - and was thus difficult to label. Perhaps 'man of the natural world' is one way of trying to do it.
A number of his writings are now seen a classical works, including Walking, published in 1861, originally a lecture which subsequently became one of the seminal works of the American environmental movement, in which he sets out his case for individual freedom and natural wildness, and his desire to see people as inhabitants of nature rather than members of a society.
Walking is a tricky read nowadays because the bulk of the essay is not actually about walking, or sauntering as he defines it - from the Saint-Terre, the wanderer heading for the Holy Land, living on charity and the kindness of others. But he was honest about it. Thoreau said he spent at least four hours a day wandering in the woods and the countryside, the wilder the better, observing, enjoying his surroundings, and learning from the most basic sources. Unlike one group of friends who once lost themselves in the woods for a few minutes, frightened themselves, and thereafter kept to the safety and certainty of the highways.
Thoreau was an acquaintance of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Nathaniel Hawthorn and those famous fruitarians, the Alcott family, and it was because of Emerson he was able to create his best known work, Walden: or Life in the Woods, published in 1854, when in the spring of 1845 he built a wooden cabin on the shores of Walden Pool on land belonging to his friend and located just outside the town of Concord. There he lived a sort of Tolstoyan-like 'Good Life' existence for two years, observing nature, building fences, walking, and writing his journal.
At Walden he lived alone, but he was not lonely, walking almost daily into Concord, or receiving visitors. He reckoned that one of life's biggest bugbears was the financial burden introduced by the purchase of property, which meant the purchaser then had to spend the rest of his working life paying for it. Build your own home, he urged. Cheaply. Work only for yourself. He claimed he worked only six weeks a year and still found he could meet his living expenses. This in turn meant he had his winters and most of his summers free for study. And writing and walking.
And why this insatiable craving for news, he asked. And why not do away with post offices? He himself, he wrote, had never in his life received more than two letters worth the cost of postage. So get back to basics.
Then, while weeding, mostly his hoe rattled against stones and sometimes against shards of pottery, the remains of long-dead fires, and bits and pieces left behind by earlier, long-dead Indian folk who had lived there before him. He reflected long on this.
When they both left the area, Indian, and Thoreau himself, there was little to show that either had ever been there, and that pleased him greatly. On the other hand he did leave a mark. He had not lived a week beside Walden Pool before his feet had trodden a path from his cabin door to the pond side, and when he visited the site again some six years later the path was still visible. An early indication, perhaps, that Thoreau had in fact left behind something very important.
(Walking, by Henry David Thoreau, reprint, ARC Manor, 2007; Walden; or Life in the Woods, Henry David Thoreau, reprint, Dover Publications, 1995).
Thursday 26 June 2014
Monday 23 June 2014
GOING CLUBBING
Though aged in some respects, I'm still too young to have had anything to do with the infamous Hellfire Club - once based at the Bell Hotel in Norwich - or even the Everlasting Club (which used the Maid's Head, and of which people used to say that it was easier to be admitted to the club than to get home afterwards). Both of which scandalised the city and, no doubt, an even wider area. But I have been the guest of a couple of societies which, though lacking in actual hellfire, at least qualified to be filed under the category of 'Unusual.'
The first was the Lavender Club, which came into being in 1925 when Norwich auctioneer Sam Vincent, disappointed at the cancellation of an outing, assembled a group of his own and took them for a day trip by boat to Potter Heigham. On the way they saw a lavender field, and the name was adopted.
The Lavender Club was, and may still be for all I know, devoted entirely to the gentler pleasures. Members - usually about 30 businessmen, according to the size of boat - met once a year for the sole purpose of doing nothing and enjoying the Broads in the process. They simply spent the time eating, chatting, enjoying a glass or two, and gazing at the passing scenery.
Having been on one of these trips, I can confirm that the only official business of the day was to collect subscriptions, browse the minute book (complete with the 1925 entry, along with a group photograph), and listen to a brief speech by the retiring president whose only duty was to buy a round of drinks. They then faced the onerous task of deciding the date of the following year's trip. All of which amounted to five minutes' work, at most.
The second - the Reffley Society of King's Lynn - does have history behind it. Its origins are obscure, but the Sons of Reffley is thought to have been formed in 1650, supposedly as a dining club for Royalists. Membership was limited to 30, as a protest against a Parliamentarian edict forbidding larger gatherings. The Le Strange family of Hunstanton and the Ffolkes family of Hillington may have had something to do with it, but the Brethren (as they were sometimes called) did maintain a tradition for free speech.
The group seems to have lapsed and then to have re-formed in the 18th century when drinking and dining clubs were fashionable again. Anyway, members took over a site beside a spring in a wood on the Reffley estate at Wootton, and by 1788 owned a stone 'table.' A year later they built a 'temple,' while railings were erected to protect a chalybeate spring beside which was an obelisk dedicated to Bacchus and Venus. Some 20 years earlier, the composer Thomas Arne had written a cantata titled Reffley Spring.
In 1822 the temple was enlarged to become a small six-sided building guarded by two stone creatures, with a fireplace, tables, chairs, punchbowls, glasses, a rack of churchwardens' pipes, and other exotics, all guarded by inscribed Latin curses.
Members still met annually, enjoyed a meal, smoked a pipe of special tobacco, and imbided a brandy punch made from a 'secret' recipe including water from the spring. Indeed, the post of Brewer was one of the most important. They drank toasts, laid bets (one was that a member could drink a dozen glasses of punch in a minute; the bet, I believe, was won), argued (no-one was to be offended by any remark), and meetings ended when the President, noting the punchbowls were empty, would intone, 'Gentlemen, the tide has gone out.'
Of course, the Reffley gents have enjoyed their share of headlines. In 1895 the Prince of Wales was a visitor, and Fleet Street once descended on the wood looking for orgies. Later, the Reffley calendar evolved into a sports day, but by 1970 the temple had been vandalised and society meetings had retreated into rented accommodation. The last I heard was that the breath test had put paid to gatherings which, latterly, relied on wives collecting members at 10pm to drive them home.
Bacchanalia was surely never like this.
Though aged in some respects, I'm still too young to have had anything to do with the infamous Hellfire Club - once based at the Bell Hotel in Norwich - or even the Everlasting Club (which used the Maid's Head, and of which people used to say that it was easier to be admitted to the club than to get home afterwards). Both of which scandalised the city and, no doubt, an even wider area. But I have been the guest of a couple of societies which, though lacking in actual hellfire, at least qualified to be filed under the category of 'Unusual.'
The first was the Lavender Club, which came into being in 1925 when Norwich auctioneer Sam Vincent, disappointed at the cancellation of an outing, assembled a group of his own and took them for a day trip by boat to Potter Heigham. On the way they saw a lavender field, and the name was adopted.
The Lavender Club was, and may still be for all I know, devoted entirely to the gentler pleasures. Members - usually about 30 businessmen, according to the size of boat - met once a year for the sole purpose of doing nothing and enjoying the Broads in the process. They simply spent the time eating, chatting, enjoying a glass or two, and gazing at the passing scenery.
Having been on one of these trips, I can confirm that the only official business of the day was to collect subscriptions, browse the minute book (complete with the 1925 entry, along with a group photograph), and listen to a brief speech by the retiring president whose only duty was to buy a round of drinks. They then faced the onerous task of deciding the date of the following year's trip. All of which amounted to five minutes' work, at most.
The second - the Reffley Society of King's Lynn - does have history behind it. Its origins are obscure, but the Sons of Reffley is thought to have been formed in 1650, supposedly as a dining club for Royalists. Membership was limited to 30, as a protest against a Parliamentarian edict forbidding larger gatherings. The Le Strange family of Hunstanton and the Ffolkes family of Hillington may have had something to do with it, but the Brethren (as they were sometimes called) did maintain a tradition for free speech.
The group seems to have lapsed and then to have re-formed in the 18th century when drinking and dining clubs were fashionable again. Anyway, members took over a site beside a spring in a wood on the Reffley estate at Wootton, and by 1788 owned a stone 'table.' A year later they built a 'temple,' while railings were erected to protect a chalybeate spring beside which was an obelisk dedicated to Bacchus and Venus. Some 20 years earlier, the composer Thomas Arne had written a cantata titled Reffley Spring.
In 1822 the temple was enlarged to become a small six-sided building guarded by two stone creatures, with a fireplace, tables, chairs, punchbowls, glasses, a rack of churchwardens' pipes, and other exotics, all guarded by inscribed Latin curses.
Members still met annually, enjoyed a meal, smoked a pipe of special tobacco, and imbided a brandy punch made from a 'secret' recipe including water from the spring. Indeed, the post of Brewer was one of the most important. They drank toasts, laid bets (one was that a member could drink a dozen glasses of punch in a minute; the bet, I believe, was won), argued (no-one was to be offended by any remark), and meetings ended when the President, noting the punchbowls were empty, would intone, 'Gentlemen, the tide has gone out.'
Of course, the Reffley gents have enjoyed their share of headlines. In 1895 the Prince of Wales was a visitor, and Fleet Street once descended on the wood looking for orgies. Later, the Reffley calendar evolved into a sports day, but by 1970 the temple had been vandalised and society meetings had retreated into rented accommodation. The last I heard was that the breath test had put paid to gatherings which, latterly, relied on wives collecting members at 10pm to drive them home.
Bacchanalia was surely never like this.
Friday 20 June 2014
FOOTPRINTS
The north Norfolk coastline has received a jolly good Press recently, national surveys suggesting it is one of the healthiest places in Britain to live, and one of the most crime-free. Which is nice for me, as I live there. But another location further east around the same coastline inadvertently illustrates the swings and roundabouts of life by hosting not only severe coastal and cliff erosion, including the loss of land and homes, but also a beach of European archaeological importance. That place is Happisburgh (pronounced Hays-bruh), and the good/bad juxtaposition comes about because the latter has largely been brought about by the former.
To be fair, you can't really talk about these beach discoveries without mentioning the storm damage, and it is true to say that the North Sea has been unkind to Happisburgh. Successive lines of defences have, over the years, been battered into submission and cliffs nibbled away at an alarming rate. Again, destructive tides have scoured away more and more levels of beach sand, too, leaving deposits of the ancient and darkly mysterious Cromer Forest Bed exposed. And it was here that experts, working at low tide, found footprints, transient marks left as visual proof of the presence on these shores of ancient visitors in times distant, before the last Ice Age.
The current thinking is that they date to more than 850,000 BC, and possible as much as 950,000 years ago; but in any event, they are the oldest relics of human activity found in Britain.
There were five people in this particular group, possibly including children, and they had evidently ambled southwards across a floodplain or estuary (in what is now called Doggerland) formed by two rivers, one of which, thousands of years later, would become the Thames. It would seem that some of them occasionally wandered sideways, perhaps searching reedbeds or creeks for eggs or shellfish, but in any event most probably looking for food. A very human thing to do.
But who were they? Certainly not Homo Sapiens, and probably not Neanderthals. Heidelbergensis is a possibility, but the hot money at the moment is going on 'Pioneer Man,' otherwise Homo Antecessor, a species which may have been extinct in Europe by 600,000, being replaced by Heidelbergensis, and later, Neanderthalensis.
It is possible that only the discovery of a fossil skeletal bone or bones will clear up the matter, and one would like to think that it is only a matter of time before one is found. Six Palaeolithic sites have already been located in the Happisburgh coastal area, and these vast Cromer beds actually run from Weybourne to beyond Pakefield in Suffolk, so there is a very good chance something will turn up one day.
But whoever they were, these people were able to come here because of environmental conditions were right at the time and because Doggerland was teeming with game and fish. But in generational terms they were not able to stay long because very slowly temperatures were beginning to drop again. Visits such as this thus became just one more doomed and episodic attempt to populate this land. Indeed, there have been at least ten of these episodes and at least ten waves of human occupation, potentially by four different species. We are in the tenth occupation phase right now.
However, the devastating retribution of the sea is one thing, and the question of whether, in centuries to come, even Happisburgh itself will actually survive, another. What seems more certain, because it has already happened, is that because of those five distant, unknown people, and because of some of the things they and others left behind, Happisburgh is already written into the history books.
The north Norfolk coastline has received a jolly good Press recently, national surveys suggesting it is one of the healthiest places in Britain to live, and one of the most crime-free. Which is nice for me, as I live there. But another location further east around the same coastline inadvertently illustrates the swings and roundabouts of life by hosting not only severe coastal and cliff erosion, including the loss of land and homes, but also a beach of European archaeological importance. That place is Happisburgh (pronounced Hays-bruh), and the good/bad juxtaposition comes about because the latter has largely been brought about by the former.
To be fair, you can't really talk about these beach discoveries without mentioning the storm damage, and it is true to say that the North Sea has been unkind to Happisburgh. Successive lines of defences have, over the years, been battered into submission and cliffs nibbled away at an alarming rate. Again, destructive tides have scoured away more and more levels of beach sand, too, leaving deposits of the ancient and darkly mysterious Cromer Forest Bed exposed. And it was here that experts, working at low tide, found footprints, transient marks left as visual proof of the presence on these shores of ancient visitors in times distant, before the last Ice Age.
The current thinking is that they date to more than 850,000 BC, and possible as much as 950,000 years ago; but in any event, they are the oldest relics of human activity found in Britain.
There were five people in this particular group, possibly including children, and they had evidently ambled southwards across a floodplain or estuary (in what is now called Doggerland) formed by two rivers, one of which, thousands of years later, would become the Thames. It would seem that some of them occasionally wandered sideways, perhaps searching reedbeds or creeks for eggs or shellfish, but in any event most probably looking for food. A very human thing to do.
But who were they? Certainly not Homo Sapiens, and probably not Neanderthals. Heidelbergensis is a possibility, but the hot money at the moment is going on 'Pioneer Man,' otherwise Homo Antecessor, a species which may have been extinct in Europe by 600,000, being replaced by Heidelbergensis, and later, Neanderthalensis.
It is possible that only the discovery of a fossil skeletal bone or bones will clear up the matter, and one would like to think that it is only a matter of time before one is found. Six Palaeolithic sites have already been located in the Happisburgh coastal area, and these vast Cromer beds actually run from Weybourne to beyond Pakefield in Suffolk, so there is a very good chance something will turn up one day.
But whoever they were, these people were able to come here because of environmental conditions were right at the time and because Doggerland was teeming with game and fish. But in generational terms they were not able to stay long because very slowly temperatures were beginning to drop again. Visits such as this thus became just one more doomed and episodic attempt to populate this land. Indeed, there have been at least ten of these episodes and at least ten waves of human occupation, potentially by four different species. We are in the tenth occupation phase right now.
However, the devastating retribution of the sea is one thing, and the question of whether, in centuries to come, even Happisburgh itself will actually survive, another. What seems more certain, because it has already happened, is that because of those five distant, unknown people, and because of some of the things they and others left behind, Happisburgh is already written into the history books.
Monday 16 June 2014
RARE PLANTS
Rare plants always excite a level of public interest, perhaps because, just for a moment, they lift life out of the ordinary. I can remember when specimens of fingered speedwell and smooth rupturewort were found, in different places I ought to add, in Thetford. And the concern, tinged with a modicum of fear, when giant hogweed plants began to sprout in various places in Norfolk, including along the verges of the newly constructed Cringleford bypass.
Another oddity, and much less threatening, was the famous Dilham oak, which in 1912 was judged to be about 70 years' old. Nothing unusual there, you might say, but the Dilham oak was and perhaps still is also famous for producing black-banded acorns, evidently the only tree in the county to do so. And I can confirm that this was so, because I once went to Dilham, found the tree, and picked up three or four of the rare black-banded acorns among the grass at its feet.
Now, I see, a rare violet has been discovered growing at Wicken Fen, which is a touch over the Norfolk border but well within our east of England orbit, and I wondered when I read the news if the authorities have had to take steps to protect it. Apparently there are people (just as there are rare birds' eggs collectors) who stump the country digging up rare plants. What they might do with them is beyond me, but one assumes they plant them in their own gardens for their own private viewing. If so, why don't they leave them to grow where they are? Very odd.
In the late 1970s (I think) I recall being sufficiently intrigued to track down one rare plant, this being orchis militaris, the military orchid. Not that I had a particular interest in the military orchid. It was simply curiousity, in this case added to the challenge of bypassing all the security.
For reasons of which I am uncertain, this particular cluster of military orchids was exceptionally well protected, and more, tucked away on a 'secret' site on the Norfolk/Suffolk border. I happened to have a rough idea of where they were, or at least, in which forest plantation they were being nurtured. But I had never seen them.
An unauthorised opportunity finally arose when a certain conservation society's annual handbook came into my possession. This, among other things, listed a members' only 'open day' at an unnamed site, the only day of the year the public would be allowed anywhere near the plants. It made the point that the site would not be signposted, but instructed members to park in a certain place and follow the guides.
On the appointed day I drove out there, parked among all the other cars, and tagged on to the end of a string of people making their way into the trees.
The pink or purple orchids - and there were lots of them, in full bloom - thrived on the grassy bottom of a depression among the trees. But it was the security that I found equally as impressive. The entire area was protected by a high fence topped by barbed wire, and a padlocked gate. Special wooden walkways had also been constructed, enabling visitors to walk above, but not on, the precious plants.
Throughout the visit, no-one challenged me or spoke to me, which in a way was useful because I was not a member and, strictly speaking, should not have been there. But it was nice to see that the military orchids were flourishing.
I hope they flourish still.
Rare plants always excite a level of public interest, perhaps because, just for a moment, they lift life out of the ordinary. I can remember when specimens of fingered speedwell and smooth rupturewort were found, in different places I ought to add, in Thetford. And the concern, tinged with a modicum of fear, when giant hogweed plants began to sprout in various places in Norfolk, including along the verges of the newly constructed Cringleford bypass.
Another oddity, and much less threatening, was the famous Dilham oak, which in 1912 was judged to be about 70 years' old. Nothing unusual there, you might say, but the Dilham oak was and perhaps still is also famous for producing black-banded acorns, evidently the only tree in the county to do so. And I can confirm that this was so, because I once went to Dilham, found the tree, and picked up three or four of the rare black-banded acorns among the grass at its feet.
Now, I see, a rare violet has been discovered growing at Wicken Fen, which is a touch over the Norfolk border but well within our east of England orbit, and I wondered when I read the news if the authorities have had to take steps to protect it. Apparently there are people (just as there are rare birds' eggs collectors) who stump the country digging up rare plants. What they might do with them is beyond me, but one assumes they plant them in their own gardens for their own private viewing. If so, why don't they leave them to grow where they are? Very odd.
In the late 1970s (I think) I recall being sufficiently intrigued to track down one rare plant, this being orchis militaris, the military orchid. Not that I had a particular interest in the military orchid. It was simply curiousity, in this case added to the challenge of bypassing all the security.
For reasons of which I am uncertain, this particular cluster of military orchids was exceptionally well protected, and more, tucked away on a 'secret' site on the Norfolk/Suffolk border. I happened to have a rough idea of where they were, or at least, in which forest plantation they were being nurtured. But I had never seen them.
An unauthorised opportunity finally arose when a certain conservation society's annual handbook came into my possession. This, among other things, listed a members' only 'open day' at an unnamed site, the only day of the year the public would be allowed anywhere near the plants. It made the point that the site would not be signposted, but instructed members to park in a certain place and follow the guides.
On the appointed day I drove out there, parked among all the other cars, and tagged on to the end of a string of people making their way into the trees.
The pink or purple orchids - and there were lots of them, in full bloom - thrived on the grassy bottom of a depression among the trees. But it was the security that I found equally as impressive. The entire area was protected by a high fence topped by barbed wire, and a padlocked gate. Special wooden walkways had also been constructed, enabling visitors to walk above, but not on, the precious plants.
Throughout the visit, no-one challenged me or spoke to me, which in a way was useful because I was not a member and, strictly speaking, should not have been there. But it was nice to see that the military orchids were flourishing.
I hope they flourish still.
Thursday 12 June 2014
HELMOND'S WELCOME
Helmond is a busy municipal city in the Netherlands with a population of about 90,000. It is located just east of Eindhoven, and in 1945 it found itself in the path of the advancing British troops as they pushed on from the D-Day beaches towards Germany. Prior to the arrival of the Allies - and elements of the Royal Norfolk Regiment in particular - it was occupied by the enemy, and it was believed by Allied commanders right up to the last moment that a tough fight would ensue.
Thankfully, it didn't happen. The somewhat bewildered Norfolk men made their way carefully through the deserted streets, wary and ready for battle. But nothing happened until they had probed as far as the city centre, when doors suddenly opened and hundreds of jubilant Dutch men, women and children, who had been sheltering in cellars in readiness for the expected onslaught, poured into the open air. Very quickly, this meeting between the Dutch residents and the Norfolk troops turned into a joyous welcoming party. As for the enemy, they had departed earlier in order to regroup and reorganise elsewhere.
Helmond was re-occupied by the Allies in September, 1944, and 40 years' later, in September, 1984, I and two other EDP representatives - Dennis, our photographer, and Steve, another journalist - drove to Helmond to cover the 40th anniversary celebrations which were being attended by many of the Norfolk Regiment veterans who had been involved in the original advance.
'We took Helmond in '44 without a shot being fired,' one of the veterans told us. And for the second time in their lives they received a very public Dutch welcome. There were reunions with families they had met all those years before, church services, parades and speeches, a gathering in the city's social centre - named after the Norfolk Regiment - and a parade of restored War-time vehicles (on which were seated the veterans) through crowd-lined streets.
It was carnival time, and everyone loved it, for in the 40 years since the British advance the ties between the Norfolk troops and their Dutch hosts had become very close indeed. Many of the troops had been billeted with Helmond families, and life-time friendships were forged. There had even been peacetime weddings, too, we were told, which further strengthened Anglo-Dutch bonds. At the same time, it occurred to me that the trio of EDP Pressmen in our car were not actually the first to visit Helmond to see these links for themselves.
In January, 1945, EDP War Correspondent Ralph Gray, officially disguised in his writings by the initials R.G, caught a British troop train to the coast, then a troop ship to France and, after a roundabout journey by lorry and Jeep on icy roads through devastated towns and villages, and after visiting the locations of several desperate battles, he finally arrived in Helmond to discover that the Norfolk battalion, four months' before, had enjoyed a real home-from-home there from the moment the city had been relieved. And he was told many tales.
When the Allied tanks, trucks and carriers rolled into Helmond, he wrote, they ran into crowds of people who handed them fruit, wine and flags. There were scenes of wild celebration, many of the children were in orange fancy dress, and the troops, still wary of a possible counter-attack, were finally forced to give up their advance because of the size of the throng confronting them. All thoughts of military strategy evaporated as the soldiers were scooped up into Dutch homes and made as welcome as sparse supplies would allow. Had a counter-attack actually materialised, one officer opined later, then the position would have been hopeless.
Even today, the Royal Norfolk Regiment cap badge is still a prized possession in Helmond, and the bond between town and Regiment is as strong as ever. Ralph Gray wrote in 1945 that he had never seen anything like it before; and who can say, even now, that the real ties between Britain and Europe are not still secure.
(Western Front, January 1945; Impressions of an EDP War Correspondent with the Royal Norfolk Regiment, booklet, published in 1945 by Norfolk News Company).
Helmond is a busy municipal city in the Netherlands with a population of about 90,000. It is located just east of Eindhoven, and in 1945 it found itself in the path of the advancing British troops as they pushed on from the D-Day beaches towards Germany. Prior to the arrival of the Allies - and elements of the Royal Norfolk Regiment in particular - it was occupied by the enemy, and it was believed by Allied commanders right up to the last moment that a tough fight would ensue.
Thankfully, it didn't happen. The somewhat bewildered Norfolk men made their way carefully through the deserted streets, wary and ready for battle. But nothing happened until they had probed as far as the city centre, when doors suddenly opened and hundreds of jubilant Dutch men, women and children, who had been sheltering in cellars in readiness for the expected onslaught, poured into the open air. Very quickly, this meeting between the Dutch residents and the Norfolk troops turned into a joyous welcoming party. As for the enemy, they had departed earlier in order to regroup and reorganise elsewhere.
Helmond was re-occupied by the Allies in September, 1944, and 40 years' later, in September, 1984, I and two other EDP representatives - Dennis, our photographer, and Steve, another journalist - drove to Helmond to cover the 40th anniversary celebrations which were being attended by many of the Norfolk Regiment veterans who had been involved in the original advance.
'We took Helmond in '44 without a shot being fired,' one of the veterans told us. And for the second time in their lives they received a very public Dutch welcome. There were reunions with families they had met all those years before, church services, parades and speeches, a gathering in the city's social centre - named after the Norfolk Regiment - and a parade of restored War-time vehicles (on which were seated the veterans) through crowd-lined streets.
It was carnival time, and everyone loved it, for in the 40 years since the British advance the ties between the Norfolk troops and their Dutch hosts had become very close indeed. Many of the troops had been billeted with Helmond families, and life-time friendships were forged. There had even been peacetime weddings, too, we were told, which further strengthened Anglo-Dutch bonds. At the same time, it occurred to me that the trio of EDP Pressmen in our car were not actually the first to visit Helmond to see these links for themselves.
In January, 1945, EDP War Correspondent Ralph Gray, officially disguised in his writings by the initials R.G, caught a British troop train to the coast, then a troop ship to France and, after a roundabout journey by lorry and Jeep on icy roads through devastated towns and villages, and after visiting the locations of several desperate battles, he finally arrived in Helmond to discover that the Norfolk battalion, four months' before, had enjoyed a real home-from-home there from the moment the city had been relieved. And he was told many tales.
When the Allied tanks, trucks and carriers rolled into Helmond, he wrote, they ran into crowds of people who handed them fruit, wine and flags. There were scenes of wild celebration, many of the children were in orange fancy dress, and the troops, still wary of a possible counter-attack, were finally forced to give up their advance because of the size of the throng confronting them. All thoughts of military strategy evaporated as the soldiers were scooped up into Dutch homes and made as welcome as sparse supplies would allow. Had a counter-attack actually materialised, one officer opined later, then the position would have been hopeless.
Even today, the Royal Norfolk Regiment cap badge is still a prized possession in Helmond, and the bond between town and Regiment is as strong as ever. Ralph Gray wrote in 1945 that he had never seen anything like it before; and who can say, even now, that the real ties between Britain and Europe are not still secure.
(Western Front, January 1945; Impressions of an EDP War Correspondent with the Royal Norfolk Regiment, booklet, published in 1945 by Norfolk News Company).
Monday 9 June 2014
FAMILY TREE
Dipping into that messy pot which is one's family tree, or family history, has not been one of my main hobbies, but I do have a fairly good idea of what went on for a few generations back, thanks to the sterling work of others. My cousin in the Cotswolds has done much good research work; but my late father started things going when he produced a file of family goings-on, written notes, newspaper cuttings, photographs, and so on, and in which he also attempted to produce a diagram showing how all these relationships fitted together in the grand Robinson scheme of things.
On my maternal side things were fairly straight-forward. My mother's parents kept a shop in Long Sutton (Lincs), which might have been described as an ironmongery business but in fact sold household goods as well. At the back of the shop was a one-storey wooden joinery workshop, built in the 1880s and currently scheduled, I believe, for demolition. Another branch of her family went into a different line of business in Nottingham, changing to babywear and nursery equipment. I recall that their shop basement, which they used as a stock store, flooded every time the Trent got slightly out of control.
The other side of her family were largely Lincolnshire (Holland district) marshland farmers. Indeed, I have a photograph somewhere of my mother, as a young girl, helping to deliver milk with a pony and cart; I also have a copy of a programme, from the early 1920s, in which she was a solo singer; and I remember just after the War cycling on a fortnightly basis to one of our relations' farms in Sutton St James, five or six miles away, and returning with eggs in my saddlebag.
My paternal side is slightly more complicated, for my father's father was a baker in Bloxham and later in Chipping Norton (both Oxfordshire). Prior to that, most of the family seem to have been small farmers (brewing their own beer, apparently) in Bloxham. So on the Robinson side I come from a line of good, sturdy, hard-working (today's obligatory buzzword) Cotswold small farmers and brewers. An academic gene was also injected into the family tree by another branch which included a former curator of Shakespeare's house in Stratford Upon Avon.
A disappointing facet is that neither my cousin nor my father managed to push the Robinson line back much further than around 1803. We know there were earlier Robinsons, possibly in Banbury, but no link has so far been found. No certificates, no records, no clues. Might they have been chapel people? Might their births, death and marriages (this was a generation before the Registration Act) not have been recorded? Family history is silent on the matter.
Now comes news that all might not have been lost. My cousin tells me she thinks she may have found an early Robinson link - unconfirmed, for there is much more work to be done - not with Chipping Norton, Banbury, or even Bloxham, but with Deddington, which is in the same neck of the woods.
The odd thing is - and I am not, I hope, counting chickens before the hatch - we have driven through Deddington several times on our way from Chipping Norton to Norfolk. Indeed, the last time we were there we stopped briefly to sniff the air. A nice place of honey-coloured houses, a village with a 'town' centre and a football team with Town in its title. A place with no rail or canal links, famed for a succession of 18th century clockmakers.
Not long ago I even came across an old guidebook which said that years ago the place was known as 'drunken Deddington.' Coincidence, or what?
Dipping into that messy pot which is one's family tree, or family history, has not been one of my main hobbies, but I do have a fairly good idea of what went on for a few generations back, thanks to the sterling work of others. My cousin in the Cotswolds has done much good research work; but my late father started things going when he produced a file of family goings-on, written notes, newspaper cuttings, photographs, and so on, and in which he also attempted to produce a diagram showing how all these relationships fitted together in the grand Robinson scheme of things.
On my maternal side things were fairly straight-forward. My mother's parents kept a shop in Long Sutton (Lincs), which might have been described as an ironmongery business but in fact sold household goods as well. At the back of the shop was a one-storey wooden joinery workshop, built in the 1880s and currently scheduled, I believe, for demolition. Another branch of her family went into a different line of business in Nottingham, changing to babywear and nursery equipment. I recall that their shop basement, which they used as a stock store, flooded every time the Trent got slightly out of control.
The other side of her family were largely Lincolnshire (Holland district) marshland farmers. Indeed, I have a photograph somewhere of my mother, as a young girl, helping to deliver milk with a pony and cart; I also have a copy of a programme, from the early 1920s, in which she was a solo singer; and I remember just after the War cycling on a fortnightly basis to one of our relations' farms in Sutton St James, five or six miles away, and returning with eggs in my saddlebag.
My paternal side is slightly more complicated, for my father's father was a baker in Bloxham and later in Chipping Norton (both Oxfordshire). Prior to that, most of the family seem to have been small farmers (brewing their own beer, apparently) in Bloxham. So on the Robinson side I come from a line of good, sturdy, hard-working (today's obligatory buzzword) Cotswold small farmers and brewers. An academic gene was also injected into the family tree by another branch which included a former curator of Shakespeare's house in Stratford Upon Avon.
A disappointing facet is that neither my cousin nor my father managed to push the Robinson line back much further than around 1803. We know there were earlier Robinsons, possibly in Banbury, but no link has so far been found. No certificates, no records, no clues. Might they have been chapel people? Might their births, death and marriages (this was a generation before the Registration Act) not have been recorded? Family history is silent on the matter.
Now comes news that all might not have been lost. My cousin tells me she thinks she may have found an early Robinson link - unconfirmed, for there is much more work to be done - not with Chipping Norton, Banbury, or even Bloxham, but with Deddington, which is in the same neck of the woods.
The odd thing is - and I am not, I hope, counting chickens before the hatch - we have driven through Deddington several times on our way from Chipping Norton to Norfolk. Indeed, the last time we were there we stopped briefly to sniff the air. A nice place of honey-coloured houses, a village with a 'town' centre and a football team with Town in its title. A place with no rail or canal links, famed for a succession of 18th century clockmakers.
Not long ago I even came across an old guidebook which said that years ago the place was known as 'drunken Deddington.' Coincidence, or what?
Wednesday 4 June 2014
UNDER MILK WOOD
At a time when I was fulfilling my National Service duties, the clever thing to do during your second year was save as much leave allocation as possible and arrange to go on as many courses as possible. You then called upon these benefits - or 'skives,' as they were called - during your last three months. The idea was that, with judicious use of the skives, you could manage to be away from base for much of your last few weeks of conscription.
My own attempt to follow the mantra was half-hearted, having already used up much of my second year annual leave. But I did eventually go to the camp's education centre to ask the resident Flight Lieutenant if he had anything suitable on his lists. The conversation went something like this:
What did you do in civvy street? Junior reporter on a weekly newspaper, sir. Are you going back to it? Hope to, sir. Well, what sort of course are you looking for? Anything to do with newspapers, sir. (He looks down his lists, and frowns). Don't seem to have anything like that, but there is something about radio. You interested in radio? Yes, sir.
And so it was that shortly afterwards I was in possession of a week's leave pass, a rail pass from Retford to Wiltshire, and a booking on a course called Writing for the Radio. I duly arrived at Devizes, caught a bus to Urchfont, and thus had my first sight of Urchfont Manor, an Elizabethan house converted since 1947 into a residential educational centre. The house was fascinating, the facilities basic, but the food was good and the rest of the people on the course, mainly trendy (or what passed for trendy in 1955) go-getters, older than me and very dramatic and poetic. The course tutor, if I remember correctly, was RD Smith, a BBC Third Programme producer, and very good he was, too.
The week ticked away in a haze of lectures - I lost all my course notes during a house move only a few years' ago - in aimless dramatic/poetic chatter, playing croquet on the front lawn (and what a vicious game that can be!), and imbibing largely non-alcoholic drinks in the bar. We even broke into groups at one point and wrote a number of short one act plays which were later recorded on one of those enormous Grundig machines with whirling spools, and played back and deftly criticised, in the evenings.
Up to this point it had never actually occurred to me to write a play for radio, books beuing more in my line, and the course changed nothing in that respect. But on the very final night, prior to dispersal the following day, we were all invited to attend the cellar (a sort of social area) that evening in order to hear 'something special.' We all settled into our chairs, and then RDS entered carrying the Grundig, plugged it in and switched it on and said, 'You are going to hear something very good.'
And we did, and it was spellbinding. It was a tape retording of the BBC version of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, which had been broadcast for the very first time in January, 1954, some months after Thomas's death in New York. It was ground breaking, and I have loved it ever since. What is more, I think it cast its spell on everyone else there, too, whether they had heard it before or not.
I shall always be grateful to the RAF for creating this opportunity, and grateful too, to Urchfont Manor, for providing the platform for such an experience. After the course, I never even tried to write a play for radio, but a measure of the course's success is that, ever since then, I have always owned a recording (tape, CD) of Under Milk Wood, and always the Richard Burton version.
At a time when I was fulfilling my National Service duties, the clever thing to do during your second year was save as much leave allocation as possible and arrange to go on as many courses as possible. You then called upon these benefits - or 'skives,' as they were called - during your last three months. The idea was that, with judicious use of the skives, you could manage to be away from base for much of your last few weeks of conscription.
My own attempt to follow the mantra was half-hearted, having already used up much of my second year annual leave. But I did eventually go to the camp's education centre to ask the resident Flight Lieutenant if he had anything suitable on his lists. The conversation went something like this:
What did you do in civvy street? Junior reporter on a weekly newspaper, sir. Are you going back to it? Hope to, sir. Well, what sort of course are you looking for? Anything to do with newspapers, sir. (He looks down his lists, and frowns). Don't seem to have anything like that, but there is something about radio. You interested in radio? Yes, sir.
And so it was that shortly afterwards I was in possession of a week's leave pass, a rail pass from Retford to Wiltshire, and a booking on a course called Writing for the Radio. I duly arrived at Devizes, caught a bus to Urchfont, and thus had my first sight of Urchfont Manor, an Elizabethan house converted since 1947 into a residential educational centre. The house was fascinating, the facilities basic, but the food was good and the rest of the people on the course, mainly trendy (or what passed for trendy in 1955) go-getters, older than me and very dramatic and poetic. The course tutor, if I remember correctly, was RD Smith, a BBC Third Programme producer, and very good he was, too.
The week ticked away in a haze of lectures - I lost all my course notes during a house move only a few years' ago - in aimless dramatic/poetic chatter, playing croquet on the front lawn (and what a vicious game that can be!), and imbibing largely non-alcoholic drinks in the bar. We even broke into groups at one point and wrote a number of short one act plays which were later recorded on one of those enormous Grundig machines with whirling spools, and played back and deftly criticised, in the evenings.
Up to this point it had never actually occurred to me to write a play for radio, books beuing more in my line, and the course changed nothing in that respect. But on the very final night, prior to dispersal the following day, we were all invited to attend the cellar (a sort of social area) that evening in order to hear 'something special.' We all settled into our chairs, and then RDS entered carrying the Grundig, plugged it in and switched it on and said, 'You are going to hear something very good.'
And we did, and it was spellbinding. It was a tape retording of the BBC version of Dylan Thomas's Under Milk Wood, which had been broadcast for the very first time in January, 1954, some months after Thomas's death in New York. It was ground breaking, and I have loved it ever since. What is more, I think it cast its spell on everyone else there, too, whether they had heard it before or not.
I shall always be grateful to the RAF for creating this opportunity, and grateful too, to Urchfont Manor, for providing the platform for such an experience. After the course, I never even tried to write a play for radio, but a measure of the course's success is that, ever since then, I have always owned a recording (tape, CD) of Under Milk Wood, and always the Richard Burton version.
GROUNDS FOR DELIGHT
Football grounds were different places in the days when queues at turnstiles were inevitable and brass bands played on the pitch. Old and out-of-date most of them certainly were, but each had characteristics and traditions of their own.
For example, it always seemed to be cold every time we - meaning Norwich City - were at Crystal Palace's Selhurst Park. I can recall trying to report on matches there when my fingers were so stiff I couldn't hold a pen, let alone dial a phone number. At St Mirren, though, if the game drifted into a less than interesting phase, you could always watch planes taking off from a nearby airport. At Carlisle, it was sheep, on the distant hillsides.
In the non-League world, a fascinating local tradition was invariably vocalised at the Carter's Park home of Holbeach United, where every time the ball was ballooned over the touchline the home fans, in unison, would bellow, 'Billingborough!' Quite why they did this was a mystery. Certainly at the time - in the 1950s - no-one could remember the reason. But it probably related to some long-forgotten pre-War match when Billingborough were the visitors.
I recall lots of other delights. At the old Wembley, with its rattling, roof-high Press gantry, it was the half-time cup of hot Bovril; and at Ashton Gate, for a Bristol City match, it was police horses at the pitch-side. Portsmouth's Fratton Park seemed to relish a constant shortage of Press telephones, while Charlton's Valley ground boasted the longest gents' outdoor urinal I had ever seen.
At Oxford, I watched as a giant, jovial and largely friendly policeman picked up a troublesome youngster by the scruff of his neck and the seat of his pants and casually, and really quite daintily, dropped him over a surrounding wall and on to the pavement outside.
Bramall Lane (Sheffield United) charmingly, had only three sides of stands/terraces, and they employed boys to fetch the ball back on the fourth open side. Rotherham had the noisiest loudspeakers I had ever heard, inevitably positioned close to the Pres benches, and the phones; while Hillsborough (Sheffield Wednesday) had the first floodlights I ever saw, and the first electronic scoreboard.
Walsall boasted a brick wall (the Laundry End) behind one of the goals; while Turf Moor (Burnley), which plainly did not like journalists, relegated the scribes to a Press box awkwardly positioned behind one of the goals. You needed good eyesight, or a pair of binoculars.
Another place I recall was Wolverhampton Wanderers' historic old ground, Molineux. Arriving at the Pressbox one was met by a charming elderly gentleman who, I assumed, was the Press steward. Anyway, he fussed around, checked my credentials, showed me to my seat, and sorted out a telephone. And he did this for all the arrivals. When the match kicked-off, however, he himself down, pulled out a notebook, and began to record incidents in the game. 'Who do you represent?' I asked during a quiet moment. 'The Smethwick Telephone,' he said by way of explanation.
Even the old wooden stands at Carrow Road, home of Norwich City, had distinguishing marks. In the main stand, which was fitted throughout with bench seats, a roaring trade was done with small, green cushions, whereby for a small fee fans could available themselves of a little additional comfort. Then it was discovered that the cushions, if flung with the correct wrist action, would float and glide gracefully on to the pitch. One particular match raised the ire of the fans to such an extent that hundreds of these cushions rained on to the pitch like a green cloud.
But Carrow Road had another great charm. In those days the nearby river Wensum was still very much a working river, and sea-going vessels were still plying their trade. If the omens and the tide were right on a Saturday, then 30,000 fans would pour out of the ground at the final whistle and move like a living flood towards the river and the city, only to find that the swing bridge was open and a boat was coming in to Read's mill. Sometimes it would take ten minutes for the masts of the slow and stately vessel to pass the bridge, but eventually the bridge would close, and the human tide would move once more.
Football grounds were different places in the days when queues at turnstiles were inevitable and brass bands played on the pitch. Old and out-of-date most of them certainly were, but each had characteristics and traditions of their own.
For example, it always seemed to be cold every time we - meaning Norwich City - were at Crystal Palace's Selhurst Park. I can recall trying to report on matches there when my fingers were so stiff I couldn't hold a pen, let alone dial a phone number. At St Mirren, though, if the game drifted into a less than interesting phase, you could always watch planes taking off from a nearby airport. At Carlisle, it was sheep, on the distant hillsides.
In the non-League world, a fascinating local tradition was invariably vocalised at the Carter's Park home of Holbeach United, where every time the ball was ballooned over the touchline the home fans, in unison, would bellow, 'Billingborough!' Quite why they did this was a mystery. Certainly at the time - in the 1950s - no-one could remember the reason. But it probably related to some long-forgotten pre-War match when Billingborough were the visitors.
I recall lots of other delights. At the old Wembley, with its rattling, roof-high Press gantry, it was the half-time cup of hot Bovril; and at Ashton Gate, for a Bristol City match, it was police horses at the pitch-side. Portsmouth's Fratton Park seemed to relish a constant shortage of Press telephones, while Charlton's Valley ground boasted the longest gents' outdoor urinal I had ever seen.
At Oxford, I watched as a giant, jovial and largely friendly policeman picked up a troublesome youngster by the scruff of his neck and the seat of his pants and casually, and really quite daintily, dropped him over a surrounding wall and on to the pavement outside.
Bramall Lane (Sheffield United) charmingly, had only three sides of stands/terraces, and they employed boys to fetch the ball back on the fourth open side. Rotherham had the noisiest loudspeakers I had ever heard, inevitably positioned close to the Pres benches, and the phones; while Hillsborough (Sheffield Wednesday) had the first floodlights I ever saw, and the first electronic scoreboard.
Walsall boasted a brick wall (the Laundry End) behind one of the goals; while Turf Moor (Burnley), which plainly did not like journalists, relegated the scribes to a Press box awkwardly positioned behind one of the goals. You needed good eyesight, or a pair of binoculars.
Another place I recall was Wolverhampton Wanderers' historic old ground, Molineux. Arriving at the Pressbox one was met by a charming elderly gentleman who, I assumed, was the Press steward. Anyway, he fussed around, checked my credentials, showed me to my seat, and sorted out a telephone. And he did this for all the arrivals. When the match kicked-off, however, he himself down, pulled out a notebook, and began to record incidents in the game. 'Who do you represent?' I asked during a quiet moment. 'The Smethwick Telephone,' he said by way of explanation.
Even the old wooden stands at Carrow Road, home of Norwich City, had distinguishing marks. In the main stand, which was fitted throughout with bench seats, a roaring trade was done with small, green cushions, whereby for a small fee fans could available themselves of a little additional comfort. Then it was discovered that the cushions, if flung with the correct wrist action, would float and glide gracefully on to the pitch. One particular match raised the ire of the fans to such an extent that hundreds of these cushions rained on to the pitch like a green cloud.
But Carrow Road had another great charm. In those days the nearby river Wensum was still very much a working river, and sea-going vessels were still plying their trade. If the omens and the tide were right on a Saturday, then 30,000 fans would pour out of the ground at the final whistle and move like a living flood towards the river and the city, only to find that the swing bridge was open and a boat was coming in to Read's mill. Sometimes it would take ten minutes for the masts of the slow and stately vessel to pass the bridge, but eventually the bridge would close, and the human tide would move once more.
Sunday 1 June 2014
THE JOY OF MAPS
If I read the futurists right, then the long term usefulness of maps (in terms of folding sheets of paper) is not bright, for they are currently facing attacks on several fronts, mainly from car sat navs and from phone/pad hand-held thingies with sat navs. So if the nay-sayers are to be believed, then no more the joy of unfolding a crisp new sheet, spreading it on the wind-strewn grass, weighing down the corners with stones, and trying to work out where the devil I am and where I ought to be. And no more exploring by map, either, by which means you spot something interesting on your chart and immediately think, 'I'd like to go there.'
Mind you, the demise of books has also been forecast, and I am somewhat sceptical about that, so perhaps I ought to believe that maps, particularly OS maps, do still have a role to play.
I love the OS Explorer series, and the smaller sheets of the older Pathfinder series, and I am even fonder of William Faden's maps of Norfolk, published in 1797. In fact, I may even be contributing to the demise of printed mapping at large, for I have a digital version of Faden installed on my PC, a facility I use fairly regularly. Faden's sheets exude a cosy, even comforting, picture of what the county used to be like.
Actually, the two men largely responsible for the surveying for the Faden maps, and who were employed full-time on the project, were Thomas Donald and Thomas Milne; so by rights, I suppose, it ought to be known as the Donald-Milne map of Norfolk. Then, of course, surveyors were not always a welcome sight in the countryside, for they tended to be associated with rents and tithes and taxes, and with Parliamentary enclosures. Anyway, Donald and Milne had to establish a 'base' line and then select 'stations' in prominent places; and from that point on it was solid triangulation work, covering the entire county. It could not have been an easy task, bearing in mind the geographical difficulties they must have faced, and the public's scepticism.
Faden's map of Norfolk came quite late in this country's county series, but it drew an instructive line in the sand at a time when the countryside was changing quickly. Parliamentary enclosure acts had been appearing fairly regularly since the 1750s, and the numbers increased steadily as the century came to an end. Faden, therefore - as far as Norfolk is concerned - provided the very yardstick against which these changes could be measured.
In fact the busy years for enclosures in Norfolk were, post-Faden , from about 1800 through to about 1820, which is why a second map - Bryant's - published in 1826, helped 'bookend' this sequence of events, allowing vital 'before' and 'after' glimpses of the effects of the enclosures of open field arable land, and commons and 'wastes.'
Among all the changes were some in the Fens, while it was realised that other changes were being prepared. Bryant noted the New Cut or Eau Brink that realigned the Ouse river south of King's Lynn, and said a causeway and a new bridge at what later became Sutton Bridge, which would allow wheeled passage over the Wash estuary, were 'planned.' In fact, this particular Act was passed in 1827.
Maps store information. They also provide information and describe the landscape, and show it to the viewer in much the same way that a bird sees it. And they allow you to find your place in the world. Will maps disappear, to be put on the museum shelf alongside other useful items such as oil lamps, the electric telegraph, and paraffin stoves? It is possible, but the world will be a somewhat duller place if they do.
If I read the futurists right, then the long term usefulness of maps (in terms of folding sheets of paper) is not bright, for they are currently facing attacks on several fronts, mainly from car sat navs and from phone/pad hand-held thingies with sat navs. So if the nay-sayers are to be believed, then no more the joy of unfolding a crisp new sheet, spreading it on the wind-strewn grass, weighing down the corners with stones, and trying to work out where the devil I am and where I ought to be. And no more exploring by map, either, by which means you spot something interesting on your chart and immediately think, 'I'd like to go there.'
Mind you, the demise of books has also been forecast, and I am somewhat sceptical about that, so perhaps I ought to believe that maps, particularly OS maps, do still have a role to play.
I love the OS Explorer series, and the smaller sheets of the older Pathfinder series, and I am even fonder of William Faden's maps of Norfolk, published in 1797. In fact, I may even be contributing to the demise of printed mapping at large, for I have a digital version of Faden installed on my PC, a facility I use fairly regularly. Faden's sheets exude a cosy, even comforting, picture of what the county used to be like.
Actually, the two men largely responsible for the surveying for the Faden maps, and who were employed full-time on the project, were Thomas Donald and Thomas Milne; so by rights, I suppose, it ought to be known as the Donald-Milne map of Norfolk. Then, of course, surveyors were not always a welcome sight in the countryside, for they tended to be associated with rents and tithes and taxes, and with Parliamentary enclosures. Anyway, Donald and Milne had to establish a 'base' line and then select 'stations' in prominent places; and from that point on it was solid triangulation work, covering the entire county. It could not have been an easy task, bearing in mind the geographical difficulties they must have faced, and the public's scepticism.
Faden's map of Norfolk came quite late in this country's county series, but it drew an instructive line in the sand at a time when the countryside was changing quickly. Parliamentary enclosure acts had been appearing fairly regularly since the 1750s, and the numbers increased steadily as the century came to an end. Faden, therefore - as far as Norfolk is concerned - provided the very yardstick against which these changes could be measured.
In fact the busy years for enclosures in Norfolk were, post-Faden , from about 1800 through to about 1820, which is why a second map - Bryant's - published in 1826, helped 'bookend' this sequence of events, allowing vital 'before' and 'after' glimpses of the effects of the enclosures of open field arable land, and commons and 'wastes.'
Among all the changes were some in the Fens, while it was realised that other changes were being prepared. Bryant noted the New Cut or Eau Brink that realigned the Ouse river south of King's Lynn, and said a causeway and a new bridge at what later became Sutton Bridge, which would allow wheeled passage over the Wash estuary, were 'planned.' In fact, this particular Act was passed in 1827.
Maps store information. They also provide information and describe the landscape, and show it to the viewer in much the same way that a bird sees it. And they allow you to find your place in the world. Will maps disappear, to be put on the museum shelf alongside other useful items such as oil lamps, the electric telegraph, and paraffin stoves? It is possible, but the world will be a somewhat duller place if they do.
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