IN CONVOY

Some sixty years' ago my Uncle Jack, who lived in Nottingham and who would occasionally visit us in south Lincolnshire to take us for a motoring 'day trip' into Norfolk, became obsessed with that county's signposts, many of which pointed the way to Byroad, or as Jack used to call it, 'Byro-ad.' He said he wanted to find this mysterious place, which was not on any map that he possessed, before someone - possibly my father - pointed out the joke was on him.
Whereupon a chastened Uncle Jack changed tactics and wryly suggested 'off-piste' Norfolk forays following Byroad signs, just for the fun of it. The ploy took us to some lovely spots but, as family legend has it, we never did find Byro-ad. Truly, a lost village.
My own acquaintance with Norfolk properly began over 50 years ago when I moved to Norwich and we, as a couple and then as a family, began a fresh 'game' not looking for signposts marked Byroad, but searching for tiny lanes and roads which had grass growing down the middle. Norfolk has dozens of them, and they represent a wonderful pastime. Mind you, some of these grassy lanes can be very narrow indeed, which can lead to difficulties with the car, but by and large it was a relaxed diversion and a pastime which did not cost a penny, aside from the petrol.
However, being older and wiser, we now have a new game we sometimes play when driving in the county. We call it Tractors, and it is all about the number of vehicles each on-coming tractor has trailing behind it as it chunters majestically along the highway.
It is necessary to realise that the roads in many parts of Norfolk are single carriageway hemmed in by hedges, trees, verges or fields, and that they can be very twisty. Opportunities to overtake are therefore restricted and confined to occasional straight sections with a good view ahead, and on those few occasions when there is nothing approaching from the opposite direction. In other words, it is very easy to become 'trapped' behind a slower moving car or lorry or tractor, and quite common for convoys of following vehicles to form. Some residents have learned to be patient, or have acquired an outstanding knowledge of local short cuts. We, however, tend to turn these frequent long, slow moving convoys into another light distraction.
In our game, only tractors count. And it must be a tractor approaching on the opposite side of the road, otherwise you yourself simply become part of someone else's game. Sometimes there are only one or two vehicles in procession, in which case we dismiss the tractor driver as being a young chap still learning his trade. But you can count eight to ten vehicles in a queue, which is reasonable and average. A decent haul of vehicles following behind a tractor is therefore deemed to be a dozen to 20, which is a catch of some quality.
The absolute top record, as far as we are concerned, was achieved in early May this year when, driving from Norwich back to the north Norfolk coast, we encountered a tractor travelling in the opposite direction which had 69 - yes, 69 - vehicles trailing in its wake. I know the arithmatic is correct because on this occasion I was the passenger in the car and it was my job to count them. It was, without argument, a Premiership quality performance.
It actually reminded me of a conversation I once heard in a rural pub, when a farmer came in for a pint and one of the regulars said to him, 'What've you bin doing? I saw you out on the tractor and trailer with a load of manure, and half an hour later saw you driving back with the manure still aboard.' The farmer sipped his beer and put down his glass. 'I were just taking it out for an airing,' he said.