SPORTING DAZE
Two events combined recently to bring sporting gloom to the country, namely England's failure to progress beyond the first round in the World Cup, and an Ofsted report which hit out at a lack of sports provision at State schools. I dare say this latter statement, particularly, will have been met in many educational quarters with guffaws or even curled lips, because to my way of thinking sports provision in State schools has been tailing away since at least the 1970s.
In 1951, when I was 16, I left my Lincolnshire secondary modern school to enter the world of work having previously 'enjoyed,' on average, a gym period twice a week; regular football training and coaching (sometimes by former League players; I can remember two visiting ex-pros, one from QPR and another from Crystal Palace), plus matches during school time and on Saturday mornings; cricket nets at lunchtime and inter-house cricket matches during the afternoons with school cricket matches on Saturday mornings; a lunchtime inter-house rounders competition; and regular athletics coaching (running, high jump, long jump, javelin, etc) for those who wanted it, culminating in the inter-house school championships on a sports day held just before the end of the summer term. There was also an inter-house handball league played in the gym.
A few years ago, however, when I was invited back to hand out the end of term prizes - my first visit there for 50 years - I was astonished to learn that the house system had been dismantled in the intervening years and the houses abolished, and that no competitive sports were played at all. So tales of glory and past battles in football, cricket, rounders, handball and athletics between Byrd, Hatfield, Godric and Jonson, which so enriched our youth in the late 1940s and early 1950s, would really not have been understood at all by my audience.
How did this situation arise? Well, I can't speak for any school in particular because I really don't know the inside story of each school, but I'm guessing generally that, as the years rolled by, it went something like this.
In the 1970s many cash-strapped schools were offered a way out by being granted permission to cash in on the development potential of their playing fields. Then, of course, groundsmen came to be seen as something of a luxury, and cricket pitches in particular became too difficult to maintain. Parents who knew their 'rights' also knew how to get Wayne and Lisa out of games lessons if their little treasures didn't want to get muddy or sweaty. Then, overworked teachers began to question having to organise sports events in their own time, particularly on Saturday mornings. Also, there was the ever present threat of legal action if a pupil playing (for example) football at school bruised his knee, cut his finger, or worse, broke a bone. And for the pupils, there was also the persistent and persuasive distraction of the television screen and other digital bits of a similar ilk.
There was also a curious attempt by some schools to try to make sure that every pupil actually tried every sport. Just once. Whether they wanted to or not. It was doomed to failure.
And so in this manner, and in general, competitive sport slowly died.
How do we turn around this tide of sporting lethargy? Is it important to do so? Well, we regularly decide that it is important every time England fail in the World Cup, the cricket team loses the Ashes, or Ofsted produces another similar report highlighting the system's inefficiencies.
Cricket, it seems to me, has been particularly hard hit, and few youngsters seem to play the game nowadays. Which is a shame. And soccer may find itself running short of young players soon. But until a way is found to restore sport in State schools to at least its 1950s levels, matters will only get worse.
Sunday 31 August 2014
Thursday 28 August 2014
WILD IN WALES
Even today there is still a degree of pride in Norfolk literary circles engendered by the fact that George Borrow was a man of this fair county; and a certain degree of good fortune in the fact that this was so. Borrow's father was a Cornishman, a military man, and it was a matter of pure chance that when little George decided it was time to put in an appearance his dad's regiment was quartered at East Dereham.
But Norfolk, one would like to think, also made Borrow, and what is more, made him inquisitive, creative and active. Famous largely because of Lavengro and The Romany Rye, George seems to have approached his 1854 family excursion - which eventually lead to the writing of Wild Wales - with a degree of indifference, because it was scarcely a viable commercial undertaking.
Wales and its mysterious interiors was, at the time, hardly of much interest to the English reading mass, as no doubt his publisher would have told him. Then again, the book took a long time to write, so that he had to make a second visit to the land of the dragon in order to complete his literary journey. Even then, the manuscript languished at his publisher's office for a year or two and was not published until 1862, whereupon, and from a sales perspective, it performed only modestly.
This was a pity, but at this distance it seems at least possible that Borrow - writer, linguist, walker, and gypsy-lover - actually undertook the excursion to satisfy his own curiousity, anyway. Nevertheless, on July 27, 1854, Mr Borrow (then over 50 years' old), his wife Mary and their daughter Henrietta, boarded a train at East Dereham and travelled by Ely, Peterborough and Chester to Llangollen.
Here his plan of campaign became more apparent. Leaving his wife and daughter behind in various hotels and lodgings, he took off on foot to his next destination, where he would meet up with his family again. They, in the meantime, and in addition to playing catch-up on public transport in the wake of the rarely still George, also spent time looking at the flowers and the local natural history, or 'botanising.' They seemed to enjoy it. However, it was George's walking routines which really fascinated me.
Whatever the weather, Borrow walked. Indeed, he appeared indifferent to the weather. And if he did get wet, well, he simply sought a rural pub and steamed himself dry in front of the fire. By and large, he also ignored the time of day. If it was midnight when he wanted to set off, then it was midnight. After all, what better time is there to start a walk? And if he was uncertain of the route, over - for example - a mountain pass, he simply offered a few coins to a local to act as his guide.
So weather, time and the lack of a compass seemed to make little difference to George Borrow. He ploughed on regardless, covered what I would describe as prodigious distances, dried himself down and got up for more. And Wild Wales is all the more fascinating because of it.
I read it again recently and enjoyed it, and afterwards found myself wondering if today's greater ratio of timidity somehow runs, proportionally, hand in hand with the more kit, special clothing and equipment we have available today. We rarely adopt the philosophy that if it is raining, well, it is only rain and therefore hardly worth bothering about. But of course it is a very hard thing for an Englishman not to worry about the weather.
(Wild Wales, by George Borrow, Collins Library of Classics, undated but probably 1940s)
Even today there is still a degree of pride in Norfolk literary circles engendered by the fact that George Borrow was a man of this fair county; and a certain degree of good fortune in the fact that this was so. Borrow's father was a Cornishman, a military man, and it was a matter of pure chance that when little George decided it was time to put in an appearance his dad's regiment was quartered at East Dereham.
But Norfolk, one would like to think, also made Borrow, and what is more, made him inquisitive, creative and active. Famous largely because of Lavengro and The Romany Rye, George seems to have approached his 1854 family excursion - which eventually lead to the writing of Wild Wales - with a degree of indifference, because it was scarcely a viable commercial undertaking.
Wales and its mysterious interiors was, at the time, hardly of much interest to the English reading mass, as no doubt his publisher would have told him. Then again, the book took a long time to write, so that he had to make a second visit to the land of the dragon in order to complete his literary journey. Even then, the manuscript languished at his publisher's office for a year or two and was not published until 1862, whereupon, and from a sales perspective, it performed only modestly.
This was a pity, but at this distance it seems at least possible that Borrow - writer, linguist, walker, and gypsy-lover - actually undertook the excursion to satisfy his own curiousity, anyway. Nevertheless, on July 27, 1854, Mr Borrow (then over 50 years' old), his wife Mary and their daughter Henrietta, boarded a train at East Dereham and travelled by Ely, Peterborough and Chester to Llangollen.
Here his plan of campaign became more apparent. Leaving his wife and daughter behind in various hotels and lodgings, he took off on foot to his next destination, where he would meet up with his family again. They, in the meantime, and in addition to playing catch-up on public transport in the wake of the rarely still George, also spent time looking at the flowers and the local natural history, or 'botanising.' They seemed to enjoy it. However, it was George's walking routines which really fascinated me.
Whatever the weather, Borrow walked. Indeed, he appeared indifferent to the weather. And if he did get wet, well, he simply sought a rural pub and steamed himself dry in front of the fire. By and large, he also ignored the time of day. If it was midnight when he wanted to set off, then it was midnight. After all, what better time is there to start a walk? And if he was uncertain of the route, over - for example - a mountain pass, he simply offered a few coins to a local to act as his guide.
So weather, time and the lack of a compass seemed to make little difference to George Borrow. He ploughed on regardless, covered what I would describe as prodigious distances, dried himself down and got up for more. And Wild Wales is all the more fascinating because of it.
I read it again recently and enjoyed it, and afterwards found myself wondering if today's greater ratio of timidity somehow runs, proportionally, hand in hand with the more kit, special clothing and equipment we have available today. We rarely adopt the philosophy that if it is raining, well, it is only rain and therefore hardly worth bothering about. But of course it is a very hard thing for an Englishman not to worry about the weather.
(Wild Wales, by George Borrow, Collins Library of Classics, undated but probably 1940s)
Sunday 24 August 2014
CONCRETE EVIDENCE
I have a very clear recollection of a War-time defended gun position on a corner of the main road not so very far from our house. Or rather, the remains of it, for I would not have been allowed to go and see it during the War. I was too young, anyway. But afterwards, when we had the freedom of the roads thanks to our bikes, the structure was just the sort of place we liked to explore.
Memory tells me there was a pillbox - and probably a pole barrier beside the road, sometimes manned and operated at night by the Home Guard - and on the opposite side of the road some sort of false wooden bungalow set among a number of other bungalows, with a roof which slid back to reveal, presumably, although not during my visits, a gun which had a field of fire across the road. And next to the pillbox were heaped, in higgledy-piggledy profusion, a number of large concrete blocks.
I recall being told that, upon the invasion alert being given, these concrete blocks, or tank traps, would have been lifted and slithered across the highway by a local farmer and his tractor, to form a roadblock.
Decades later, and by now a dedicated walker living in Norfolk, one of our rambling routes took us somewhere in the east of the county when, beside a gentle river, we came across a little bridge. We decided to make it a coffee stop, and one of our number wandered into the nearby woods. He came back saying there were a lot of lumps of concrete laying around, so I went to look, and recognised them immediately. Tank traps, I said. Doubts were expressed by other of the walkers, but further exploration also brought into view the remains of another concrete pillbox, damp and ghostly and empty.
Alas, I can no longer recall where this bridge was, but for me there seemed enough evidence in the undergrowth to proclaim that this was indeed the remains of a defended river crossing. One of a number which would have been part of a defensive line, no doubt.
In more recent years we removed our place of abode from a village in south Norfolk to coastal Sheringham, in north Norfolk, and it was on one of our earliest visits to the town, when we were parking the car, that I looked across the car park - the one between the main roundabout and the steam railway station - and saw at once the familiar shape of a number of cubes of concrete. Six or seven, anyway, some of them used in the past to provide the setting for a row of public steps leading from the car park to the main road.
Tank traps, I thought. This was a defended position during the last War. But why put it there?
The matter rested quietly for some time until one day, after the bar and lounge at the town's Morley Club had been redecorated and fresh pictures placed along the walls, my attention was caught by a framed black and white photograph. An aerial photo of the area, taken in the early 1950s. There was the Morley Club, and there was the road junction and there, right in the corner, was the Station Road car park, completely surrounded by concrete blocks of a size I had seen before.
Suddenly the War-time sense of it became apparent. The car park had a field of fire across to the railway station, along and down the road to the beach, and across the main road junction. Whether the troops and Home Guard, behind their concrete tank traps, could have held up an enemy advance, I do not know. No doubt they would have tried. But the concrete blocks are a generally unacknowledged reminder of a very significant event over 60 years ago.
I have a very clear recollection of a War-time defended gun position on a corner of the main road not so very far from our house. Or rather, the remains of it, for I would not have been allowed to go and see it during the War. I was too young, anyway. But afterwards, when we had the freedom of the roads thanks to our bikes, the structure was just the sort of place we liked to explore.
Memory tells me there was a pillbox - and probably a pole barrier beside the road, sometimes manned and operated at night by the Home Guard - and on the opposite side of the road some sort of false wooden bungalow set among a number of other bungalows, with a roof which slid back to reveal, presumably, although not during my visits, a gun which had a field of fire across the road. And next to the pillbox were heaped, in higgledy-piggledy profusion, a number of large concrete blocks.
I recall being told that, upon the invasion alert being given, these concrete blocks, or tank traps, would have been lifted and slithered across the highway by a local farmer and his tractor, to form a roadblock.
Decades later, and by now a dedicated walker living in Norfolk, one of our rambling routes took us somewhere in the east of the county when, beside a gentle river, we came across a little bridge. We decided to make it a coffee stop, and one of our number wandered into the nearby woods. He came back saying there were a lot of lumps of concrete laying around, so I went to look, and recognised them immediately. Tank traps, I said. Doubts were expressed by other of the walkers, but further exploration also brought into view the remains of another concrete pillbox, damp and ghostly and empty.
Alas, I can no longer recall where this bridge was, but for me there seemed enough evidence in the undergrowth to proclaim that this was indeed the remains of a defended river crossing. One of a number which would have been part of a defensive line, no doubt.
In more recent years we removed our place of abode from a village in south Norfolk to coastal Sheringham, in north Norfolk, and it was on one of our earliest visits to the town, when we were parking the car, that I looked across the car park - the one between the main roundabout and the steam railway station - and saw at once the familiar shape of a number of cubes of concrete. Six or seven, anyway, some of them used in the past to provide the setting for a row of public steps leading from the car park to the main road.
Tank traps, I thought. This was a defended position during the last War. But why put it there?
The matter rested quietly for some time until one day, after the bar and lounge at the town's Morley Club had been redecorated and fresh pictures placed along the walls, my attention was caught by a framed black and white photograph. An aerial photo of the area, taken in the early 1950s. There was the Morley Club, and there was the road junction and there, right in the corner, was the Station Road car park, completely surrounded by concrete blocks of a size I had seen before.
Suddenly the War-time sense of it became apparent. The car park had a field of fire across to the railway station, along and down the road to the beach, and across the main road junction. Whether the troops and Home Guard, behind their concrete tank traps, could have held up an enemy advance, I do not know. No doubt they would have tried. But the concrete blocks are a generally unacknowledged reminder of a very significant event over 60 years ago.
Tuesday 19 August 2014
MR PEDDER
Throughout the years in which Norfolk's Peddars Way has been a particular interest of mine, the mystery surrounding its name has not been cleared up. (See also this blog: The Peddars Way, December 27, 2013). What seems clear is that this label is not Roman in origin and that it may have emerged several centuries later as one example of some sort of generic name for a footway, path, or even sheep walk. If the Roman did actually have a name for the road, then it has not been discovered or recognised.
One thing we can say about it, and with a tiny bit more certainty, is that the name Peddars Way was not, in times past, exclusive to the Roman road, which is merely the best-known surviving holder of the title. I have heard of over half a dozen other paths, tracks or roads, in other parts of the county which, at some point, have been given precisely the same name.
My own feeling over the years has been that the name may once have been applied fairly generally to any number of paths or tracks used by walkers, pedlars, or even sheep drovers. But there is no certainty in any of this. Uncertainties relating the name are simply more examples of the several mysteries which surround this famous old road.
Browsing through RW Ketton-Cremer's 1960s work on the Civil War in Norfolk recently, I have to say I came up with yet another possible explanation, or at least found another ingredient to toss into the pot for consideration. Perhaps the name of the Way does not commemorate drovers or pedlars but an actual person. Perhaps there was a Mr Peddar who deserved this epitaph. Or even a Mr Pedder. And indeed, and according to Mr Ketton-Cremer, there might have been. Meet Mr Toby Pedder.
In 1648 or 1649, a party of Royalist prisoners being conveyed across the Wash from King's Lynn to Boston apparently managed to overpower their guards and force the keelman to land them at Heacham. They made their way to Hunstanton and to the residence of Sir Hamon L'Estrange, a noted Royalist, who declined to see them and instead sent for the chief constable of the Smithdon Hundred, one Toby Pedder, advising him to report the affair.
The escaped prisoners were duly recaptured, and back at Hunstanton once more with their guards asked Sir Hamon's butler for a drink on what was a hot summer's day. The butler gave them a drink, an act which Sir Hamon later endorsed, but the ungrateful Mr Pedder - ungrateful, because he had received his office largely through the influences of Sir Hamon - reported this little act of kindness to a higher authority. Sir Hamon was said to be livid, but nothing more seems to have happened.
Toby Pedder, however, went from strength to strength, and during the Commonwealth years received more promotions, becoming infamous in north-west Norfolk 'as an exceptionally active and officious Justice of the Peace.'
Now, I know of no valid reason why the name of this man might have been linked to our Roman road - if indeed it was - save that of the still surviving practice of naming roads after local bigwigs, but it is an interesting coincidence that a powerful man named Pedder should be at the height of his fame at around the time the name Peddars Way seems to have emerged.
It makes you think.
(Norfolk in the Civil War, by RW Ketton-Cremer, Gliddon Books reprint, 1985. Page 354).
Throughout the years in which Norfolk's Peddars Way has been a particular interest of mine, the mystery surrounding its name has not been cleared up. (See also this blog: The Peddars Way, December 27, 2013). What seems clear is that this label is not Roman in origin and that it may have emerged several centuries later as one example of some sort of generic name for a footway, path, or even sheep walk. If the Roman did actually have a name for the road, then it has not been discovered or recognised.
One thing we can say about it, and with a tiny bit more certainty, is that the name Peddars Way was not, in times past, exclusive to the Roman road, which is merely the best-known surviving holder of the title. I have heard of over half a dozen other paths, tracks or roads, in other parts of the county which, at some point, have been given precisely the same name.
My own feeling over the years has been that the name may once have been applied fairly generally to any number of paths or tracks used by walkers, pedlars, or even sheep drovers. But there is no certainty in any of this. Uncertainties relating the name are simply more examples of the several mysteries which surround this famous old road.
Browsing through RW Ketton-Cremer's 1960s work on the Civil War in Norfolk recently, I have to say I came up with yet another possible explanation, or at least found another ingredient to toss into the pot for consideration. Perhaps the name of the Way does not commemorate drovers or pedlars but an actual person. Perhaps there was a Mr Peddar who deserved this epitaph. Or even a Mr Pedder. And indeed, and according to Mr Ketton-Cremer, there might have been. Meet Mr Toby Pedder.
In 1648 or 1649, a party of Royalist prisoners being conveyed across the Wash from King's Lynn to Boston apparently managed to overpower their guards and force the keelman to land them at Heacham. They made their way to Hunstanton and to the residence of Sir Hamon L'Estrange, a noted Royalist, who declined to see them and instead sent for the chief constable of the Smithdon Hundred, one Toby Pedder, advising him to report the affair.
The escaped prisoners were duly recaptured, and back at Hunstanton once more with their guards asked Sir Hamon's butler for a drink on what was a hot summer's day. The butler gave them a drink, an act which Sir Hamon later endorsed, but the ungrateful Mr Pedder - ungrateful, because he had received his office largely through the influences of Sir Hamon - reported this little act of kindness to a higher authority. Sir Hamon was said to be livid, but nothing more seems to have happened.
Toby Pedder, however, went from strength to strength, and during the Commonwealth years received more promotions, becoming infamous in north-west Norfolk 'as an exceptionally active and officious Justice of the Peace.'
Now, I know of no valid reason why the name of this man might have been linked to our Roman road - if indeed it was - save that of the still surviving practice of naming roads after local bigwigs, but it is an interesting coincidence that a powerful man named Pedder should be at the height of his fame at around the time the name Peddars Way seems to have emerged.
It makes you think.
(Norfolk in the Civil War, by RW Ketton-Cremer, Gliddon Books reprint, 1985. Page 354).
Saturday 16 August 2014
STILL DRIVING
Because of early-stage glaucoma - currently held in check - and having reached my 80th year, my case for a driving licence continuation has to go before a DVLA medical panel every three years. And just like the passport office, I guess they're running a little behind schedule at the moment, because my documents were sent off in April while a new licence was not posted back until the middle of July. Anyway, I've got it, and it runs until 2017, by which time I will have had a licence for over 60 years. And just in case you're wondering, I don't drive at night or in heavy traffic areas, and I can comfortably pass all the eyesight tests.
I think I got my first driving licence in 1956, or at least it was in 1956 when I took the driving test. My parents had bought a little Austin - the family's first car - so that I could drive them around after National Service demob from the RAF. It had a top cruising speed of about 30mph, a starting handle, with trafficators (little orange signalling flags) on each side. One problem was that in those days they insisted on the use of hand signals during the driving test, which meant you needed to have the driver's window open. I took my test in Spalding on a rainy day, and ended with shirt sleeves and arm soaked to the skin.
My second car was a beast, a Vauxhall 14, a vast, green, shiny thing as long as a Churchill tank and covered in trendy slicks of chrome, including the monumental bumpers. I recall it was death if you got the chrome scratched or damaged, because rust patches were only five minutes away, and replacements cost what seemed a year's salary. In consequence, most spare time was spent manically cleaning and shining this accursed trim. The rest of the time was spent trying to get the engine started.
When it went it purred, but every projected journey was prefaced by the remark, '. . . if I can get it started.' No electric starter in those days. Just a crank handle, a choke lever, and an engine with the kick of a mule.
Have enjoyed it all, even though I can't remember the makes of all the cars. And the most fun? Driving a VW Maui motor home in New Zealand, and an antique LandRover (actually, our party had two, one called Rack and the other Ruin) in Norway, north of the Arctic Circle.
ALL PUFFED UP
The spell of beltingly hot weather this summer rekindled recollections of cycling in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Then, many of our local roads in south Lincolnshire were repaired or resurfaced with gravel and hot tar, but if the temperature happened to soar above, say, 25deg, then the tar would melt and produce black puddles on the surface. If you were cycling, then the tar stuck to your tyres and loose gravel and debris stuck to the tar. The result was the constant smell of melted tar in your nostrils, and very, very thick gravel-lined tyres.
It was the very devil to get off, and after every such expedition I had to strip the bike down and take off the wheels, beg or borrow some paraffin and wash the tyres - and quite often the bike chain, too - to get rid of all the muck.
Still it was something to do during the long school holidays. But ever since then, the smell of hot tar or paraffin tends to bring it all back.
Because of early-stage glaucoma - currently held in check - and having reached my 80th year, my case for a driving licence continuation has to go before a DVLA medical panel every three years. And just like the passport office, I guess they're running a little behind schedule at the moment, because my documents were sent off in April while a new licence was not posted back until the middle of July. Anyway, I've got it, and it runs until 2017, by which time I will have had a licence for over 60 years. And just in case you're wondering, I don't drive at night or in heavy traffic areas, and I can comfortably pass all the eyesight tests.
I think I got my first driving licence in 1956, or at least it was in 1956 when I took the driving test. My parents had bought a little Austin - the family's first car - so that I could drive them around after National Service demob from the RAF. It had a top cruising speed of about 30mph, a starting handle, with trafficators (little orange signalling flags) on each side. One problem was that in those days they insisted on the use of hand signals during the driving test, which meant you needed to have the driver's window open. I took my test in Spalding on a rainy day, and ended with shirt sleeves and arm soaked to the skin.
My second car was a beast, a Vauxhall 14, a vast, green, shiny thing as long as a Churchill tank and covered in trendy slicks of chrome, including the monumental bumpers. I recall it was death if you got the chrome scratched or damaged, because rust patches were only five minutes away, and replacements cost what seemed a year's salary. In consequence, most spare time was spent manically cleaning and shining this accursed trim. The rest of the time was spent trying to get the engine started.
When it went it purred, but every projected journey was prefaced by the remark, '. . . if I can get it started.' No electric starter in those days. Just a crank handle, a choke lever, and an engine with the kick of a mule.
Have enjoyed it all, even though I can't remember the makes of all the cars. And the most fun? Driving a VW Maui motor home in New Zealand, and an antique LandRover (actually, our party had two, one called Rack and the other Ruin) in Norway, north of the Arctic Circle.
ALL PUFFED UP
The spell of beltingly hot weather this summer rekindled recollections of cycling in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Then, many of our local roads in south Lincolnshire were repaired or resurfaced with gravel and hot tar, but if the temperature happened to soar above, say, 25deg, then the tar would melt and produce black puddles on the surface. If you were cycling, then the tar stuck to your tyres and loose gravel and debris stuck to the tar. The result was the constant smell of melted tar in your nostrils, and very, very thick gravel-lined tyres.
It was the very devil to get off, and after every such expedition I had to strip the bike down and take off the wheels, beg or borrow some paraffin and wash the tyres - and quite often the bike chain, too - to get rid of all the muck.
Still it was something to do during the long school holidays. But ever since then, the smell of hot tar or paraffin tends to bring it all back.
Tuesday 12 August 2014
ELI & TINKER
In the 1970s and 1980s one of the most persistent topics of public discussion was a sudden proliferation in 'gypsy sites,' a common label later amended to 'traveller sites.' Amended, because 'gypsy' signalled Romany, whereas in reality many of those using the controversial sites were not Romany at all but Irish tinkers or drifters, mobile 'good lifers,' or simply unemployed.
One of the locations which provoked many public tut-tuts was Roundwell, at Costessey, and I went there a couple of times. Mostly, the travellers talked about general levels of ill-feeling within the site, because gypsies, tinkers and drifters were not at that time natural neighbours; about how nearly all their traditional stopping places had gone; and how difficult it was to fulfill the usual demands, like school for the youngsters, access to health clinics, and regular rubbish disposal. The public, of course, simply saw the sites as rubbish-strewn eyesores.
Eli Frankham, who lived in Marshland between King's Lynn and Wisbech, was one Romany who had more or less given up life on the road for a permanent residence. He was a tireless worker for travellers' rights, even though he yearned to travel. 'Every Romany traveller I know,' he told me, somewhat sadly, 'just wants a letterbox.' Meaning that many more of them wanted to settle. Then he made, and gave me, a walking-stick, which I still have.
Another 'settled' Romany, who lived near Hainford, showed me around his bungalow and his caravan, still parked in his yard, still spotlessly clean, and sparkling with crystal glass. I also met one of the Boswells - who was a scrap dealer - when I was a junior reporter in Spalding. But the chap who attracted my particular interest came from an earlier age - Tinker Joe, of Great Hockham, on the edge of the Brecklands, who died in 1881.
Tinker Joe, a local character, is also a bit of a mystery because his gravestone says he died on October 8, 1881, aged 112 years. The EDP reported at the time that after the funeral his age was amended to 116. Amended where, exactly, is not clear, because the last time I looked at his stone it still said he was 112. And therein is the mystery.
His real name was Joseph Ashton, originally of Kettering, Northants, who as a child was apprenticed to a chimney-sweep. At some point he ran away, joined some gypsies, and ended up at Hockham. Deeply religious, and a regular Sunday churchgoer, Joe turned himself into a travelling tinker, mending pots and pans, and is said to have set off each Monday with his pony and cart on his rounds of the surrounding villages. But how old was he?
In 1981 I sent his details to the Registrar General, in Kingsway, London, and they suggested - because Joe had been born before the start of official registration, in 1837 - that a baptism record might be found in Kettering. Then I sent the details to the Northamptonshire Record Office at Delapre Abbey, which searched Kettering church records, but alas, drew a blank. But having found the church marriage of Joseph's parents, in February, 1777, they then tried their microfilm records of independent chapel baptisms.
They promptly discovered the details of four offspring - the first, also named Joseph, who was born on May 25, 1777, three months after the wedding. He, alas, died when young. Then came two girls, Mary and Elizabeth, in 1778 and 1781. And then a second son, another Joseph, listed as having been born, or at least baptised, on May 8, 1783. This is presumed to have been Tinker Joe.
Perhaps the real date of Tinker's birth, and thus his actual age at death, may never be known, but it seemed likely that Joseph (born 1783) had somehow confused or adopted the birth date of his younger, dead, brother, who was also called Joseph. More detective work, I think, needs to be done.
In the 1970s and 1980s one of the most persistent topics of public discussion was a sudden proliferation in 'gypsy sites,' a common label later amended to 'traveller sites.' Amended, because 'gypsy' signalled Romany, whereas in reality many of those using the controversial sites were not Romany at all but Irish tinkers or drifters, mobile 'good lifers,' or simply unemployed.
One of the locations which provoked many public tut-tuts was Roundwell, at Costessey, and I went there a couple of times. Mostly, the travellers talked about general levels of ill-feeling within the site, because gypsies, tinkers and drifters were not at that time natural neighbours; about how nearly all their traditional stopping places had gone; and how difficult it was to fulfill the usual demands, like school for the youngsters, access to health clinics, and regular rubbish disposal. The public, of course, simply saw the sites as rubbish-strewn eyesores.
Eli Frankham, who lived in Marshland between King's Lynn and Wisbech, was one Romany who had more or less given up life on the road for a permanent residence. He was a tireless worker for travellers' rights, even though he yearned to travel. 'Every Romany traveller I know,' he told me, somewhat sadly, 'just wants a letterbox.' Meaning that many more of them wanted to settle. Then he made, and gave me, a walking-stick, which I still have.
Another 'settled' Romany, who lived near Hainford, showed me around his bungalow and his caravan, still parked in his yard, still spotlessly clean, and sparkling with crystal glass. I also met one of the Boswells - who was a scrap dealer - when I was a junior reporter in Spalding. But the chap who attracted my particular interest came from an earlier age - Tinker Joe, of Great Hockham, on the edge of the Brecklands, who died in 1881.
Tinker Joe, a local character, is also a bit of a mystery because his gravestone says he died on October 8, 1881, aged 112 years. The EDP reported at the time that after the funeral his age was amended to 116. Amended where, exactly, is not clear, because the last time I looked at his stone it still said he was 112. And therein is the mystery.
His real name was Joseph Ashton, originally of Kettering, Northants, who as a child was apprenticed to a chimney-sweep. At some point he ran away, joined some gypsies, and ended up at Hockham. Deeply religious, and a regular Sunday churchgoer, Joe turned himself into a travelling tinker, mending pots and pans, and is said to have set off each Monday with his pony and cart on his rounds of the surrounding villages. But how old was he?
In 1981 I sent his details to the Registrar General, in Kingsway, London, and they suggested - because Joe had been born before the start of official registration, in 1837 - that a baptism record might be found in Kettering. Then I sent the details to the Northamptonshire Record Office at Delapre Abbey, which searched Kettering church records, but alas, drew a blank. But having found the church marriage of Joseph's parents, in February, 1777, they then tried their microfilm records of independent chapel baptisms.
They promptly discovered the details of four offspring - the first, also named Joseph, who was born on May 25, 1777, three months after the wedding. He, alas, died when young. Then came two girls, Mary and Elizabeth, in 1778 and 1781. And then a second son, another Joseph, listed as having been born, or at least baptised, on May 8, 1783. This is presumed to have been Tinker Joe.
Perhaps the real date of Tinker's birth, and thus his actual age at death, may never be known, but it seemed likely that Joseph (born 1783) had somehow confused or adopted the birth date of his younger, dead, brother, who was also called Joseph. More detective work, I think, needs to be done.
Friday 8 August 2014
SHOULDERS & ELBOWS
My 1940s/50s Sec Mod games teacher repeatedly told his boys there were only three proper ways to tackle in football. Mind you, he also said that if we didn't clean our plimsolls thoroughly and shower diligently afterwards, then the girls wouldn't be interested. We didn't entirely believe him on this latter subject, but we did take the 'three ways to tackle' with a degree of seriousness. He was referring, of course, to the front tackle (man to man, face to face, boot to boot); the sliding tackle (from the side, bottom on the ground, with one straight leg also on the ground and directly on to the ball); and the side-by-side shoulder charge.
As an embryo goalkeeper hampered by a serious lack of talent and courage, I was above most of this rough outfield stuff, but his words did come back to me while watching a recent match on the TV. There was a clear (and to me, perfectly fair) shoulder charge, which the defender won, but on this particular occasion the attacker spiralled to the ground, rolled over three times holding his leg for some reason, and grimmaced with pain. The hapless referee duly gave a free-kick in his favour.
So, the shoulder charge now seems to be outlawed, which is a pity, because it used to be the staple diet of the game. In a sense this charge in the law, if that is what it is, is counter-balanced by the fact that the game - and most referees - does allow the raised elbow, which strikes me as being a foul of much greater seriousness.
Thinking again of the Shackleton, Carter and Matthews era, our games teacher also used to order us (or the outfield players, anyway) to, 'Tuck your elbows into your sides, and keep them there.' Even when involved in a shoulder charge, and certainly when jumping for a high ball. Nowadays, of course, it is quite routine to see defenders' arms dangling all over attackers' heads and shoulders, and players jumping for a high ball with their arms and elbows sticking out, presumably, as I heard one ex-pro explain on TV, 'to give themselves a bit of leverage.'
Yes, indeed. Leverage. But did I actually dream this old, alternative state of affairs, of a world when players did actually keep their arms and elbows more or less straight? I consulted my small collection of Playfair Football Annual, Charles Buchan's Football Monthly, books about Buchan, Matthews and Mortensen, mainly from the 1940s and 1950s, and one flimsy News Chronicle Annual of 1931.
In these, I checked all the photographs which showed a player challenging for a high ball (usually a forward competing with a goalkeeper, or a defender), and in about 85 per cent of the pictures none of them, other than the goalkeepers, had arms above their heads or elbows sticking out.
It seems to me that if the shoulder charge has been eliminated while the elbow and arm are allowed, then somewhere along the line there has been some subtle rule-changing. Which reminds me that our games teacher also allowed no speaking on the pitch, other than someone's Christian name; and certainly no speaking to the referee; and that if anyone actually scored, then a quick handshake was quite sufficient and anything more elaborate or showy was considered demeaning to the opposition. So don't even get me started on today's goalscoring Grand Operas.
My 1940s/50s Sec Mod games teacher repeatedly told his boys there were only three proper ways to tackle in football. Mind you, he also said that if we didn't clean our plimsolls thoroughly and shower diligently afterwards, then the girls wouldn't be interested. We didn't entirely believe him on this latter subject, but we did take the 'three ways to tackle' with a degree of seriousness. He was referring, of course, to the front tackle (man to man, face to face, boot to boot); the sliding tackle (from the side, bottom on the ground, with one straight leg also on the ground and directly on to the ball); and the side-by-side shoulder charge.
As an embryo goalkeeper hampered by a serious lack of talent and courage, I was above most of this rough outfield stuff, but his words did come back to me while watching a recent match on the TV. There was a clear (and to me, perfectly fair) shoulder charge, which the defender won, but on this particular occasion the attacker spiralled to the ground, rolled over three times holding his leg for some reason, and grimmaced with pain. The hapless referee duly gave a free-kick in his favour.
So, the shoulder charge now seems to be outlawed, which is a pity, because it used to be the staple diet of the game. In a sense this charge in the law, if that is what it is, is counter-balanced by the fact that the game - and most referees - does allow the raised elbow, which strikes me as being a foul of much greater seriousness.
Thinking again of the Shackleton, Carter and Matthews era, our games teacher also used to order us (or the outfield players, anyway) to, 'Tuck your elbows into your sides, and keep them there.' Even when involved in a shoulder charge, and certainly when jumping for a high ball. Nowadays, of course, it is quite routine to see defenders' arms dangling all over attackers' heads and shoulders, and players jumping for a high ball with their arms and elbows sticking out, presumably, as I heard one ex-pro explain on TV, 'to give themselves a bit of leverage.'
Yes, indeed. Leverage. But did I actually dream this old, alternative state of affairs, of a world when players did actually keep their arms and elbows more or less straight? I consulted my small collection of Playfair Football Annual, Charles Buchan's Football Monthly, books about Buchan, Matthews and Mortensen, mainly from the 1940s and 1950s, and one flimsy News Chronicle Annual of 1931.
In these, I checked all the photographs which showed a player challenging for a high ball (usually a forward competing with a goalkeeper, or a defender), and in about 85 per cent of the pictures none of them, other than the goalkeepers, had arms above their heads or elbows sticking out.
It seems to me that if the shoulder charge has been eliminated while the elbow and arm are allowed, then somewhere along the line there has been some subtle rule-changing. Which reminds me that our games teacher also allowed no speaking on the pitch, other than someone's Christian name; and certainly no speaking to the referee; and that if anyone actually scored, then a quick handshake was quite sufficient and anything more elaborate or showy was considered demeaning to the opposition. So don't even get me started on today's goalscoring Grand Operas.
Monday 4 August 2014
ERNIE'S THE MAN
Somewhere amid the domestic detritus, among the old albums and cardboard boxes full of loose photographs, are three holiday pictures of me standing in three Spanish bullrings, namely, Seville, Ronda and Cordoba. No bulls, you understand. No-one else in the ring, not even any spectators. Just me, looking more than a little ill-at-ease. The reasons are fairly complicated.
An early 1960s holiday in Spain coincided with the Seville Easter Feria, when visits to the local bullring were more or less obligatory, and I am fairly certain that a big name of the day - if not Ordonez, then Dominguin - was one of the main attractions. Anyway, and despite the fact that I had no specific interest in bullfighting, I was blown away by the spectacle - the blazing sun, the noise, the music, the blinding yellow sand, and the unfolding drama of man and black fighting bull.
Talking about it afterwards, I was told: 'You ought to read Ernest Hemingway.' So I did, eventually purchasing a copy of Death in the Afternoon, his rambling but entertaining peon on bullfighting first published in 1932. But it also did something else. I so enjoyed Hemingway's writing style that I also, in time, worked my way through his other, better known and more recent fiction titles, all of which still remain on my shelves - A Farewell to Arms, Green Hills of Africa, For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Moveable Feast, The Old Man and the Sea, Across the River and Into the Trees, and so on.
They remain among my favourites, books I return to time and time again. Why? I don't know, but there is something about his style - regularly imitated and even smugly parodied these days - terse, pared down to essentials, unfussy, uncluttered, which triggered my interest. Perhaps it was his and my newspaper connections. Perhaps I thought he wrote in precisely the way that editors seemed to like, being economical with space and sparse with words. Or perhaps I just wished I could write like him.
It seemed to me he could say more in fewer words than anyone else, no matter what he was like in his private life, or how much he drank. Thus I could even forgive him for having become involved with Martha (The Faces of War) Gellhorn who, heaven forbid, might even have been a better writer and war correspondent than he was.
Yet Hemingway somehow managed to project the colour and feel of a place better than any other writer I had read. Cuba, Spain, Italy, America, Africa, Florida, Paris. He was Spain and Italy; he was the African game hunter; he was the brawling Cuban fishing and drinking man, and the louche Parisian drinker and socialite between the two world wars. Indeed, somewhere in all this was the man you wanted him to be.
Later in life when I was trying to write novels, I found that his work was also something of an antedote. If I hit a bad patch at the keyboard, ran out of ideas, got fed up or bored or ran against a brick wall, I simply stopped typing and started reading - A Moveable Feast, or Fiesta, perhaps - and afterwards found that I could start writing again. If I had a blockage, Hemingway freed it.
I am also fascinated by his journalistic work. Hemingway By-Line (Penguin Books, 1970) contains over 70 of his articles written for newspapers or magazines, dating from 1920 through to 1956, and the scope is remarkable. But it is his novels which hold sway on my bookshelves. In any battle for my 'favourite author' title, Ernest Miller Hemingway would still win - with HE Bates, perhaps, coming a very close second.
Somewhere amid the domestic detritus, among the old albums and cardboard boxes full of loose photographs, are three holiday pictures of me standing in three Spanish bullrings, namely, Seville, Ronda and Cordoba. No bulls, you understand. No-one else in the ring, not even any spectators. Just me, looking more than a little ill-at-ease. The reasons are fairly complicated.
An early 1960s holiday in Spain coincided with the Seville Easter Feria, when visits to the local bullring were more or less obligatory, and I am fairly certain that a big name of the day - if not Ordonez, then Dominguin - was one of the main attractions. Anyway, and despite the fact that I had no specific interest in bullfighting, I was blown away by the spectacle - the blazing sun, the noise, the music, the blinding yellow sand, and the unfolding drama of man and black fighting bull.
Talking about it afterwards, I was told: 'You ought to read Ernest Hemingway.' So I did, eventually purchasing a copy of Death in the Afternoon, his rambling but entertaining peon on bullfighting first published in 1932. But it also did something else. I so enjoyed Hemingway's writing style that I also, in time, worked my way through his other, better known and more recent fiction titles, all of which still remain on my shelves - A Farewell to Arms, Green Hills of Africa, For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Moveable Feast, The Old Man and the Sea, Across the River and Into the Trees, and so on.
They remain among my favourites, books I return to time and time again. Why? I don't know, but there is something about his style - regularly imitated and even smugly parodied these days - terse, pared down to essentials, unfussy, uncluttered, which triggered my interest. Perhaps it was his and my newspaper connections. Perhaps I thought he wrote in precisely the way that editors seemed to like, being economical with space and sparse with words. Or perhaps I just wished I could write like him.
It seemed to me he could say more in fewer words than anyone else, no matter what he was like in his private life, or how much he drank. Thus I could even forgive him for having become involved with Martha (The Faces of War) Gellhorn who, heaven forbid, might even have been a better writer and war correspondent than he was.
Yet Hemingway somehow managed to project the colour and feel of a place better than any other writer I had read. Cuba, Spain, Italy, America, Africa, Florida, Paris. He was Spain and Italy; he was the African game hunter; he was the brawling Cuban fishing and drinking man, and the louche Parisian drinker and socialite between the two world wars. Indeed, somewhere in all this was the man you wanted him to be.
Later in life when I was trying to write novels, I found that his work was also something of an antedote. If I hit a bad patch at the keyboard, ran out of ideas, got fed up or bored or ran against a brick wall, I simply stopped typing and started reading - A Moveable Feast, or Fiesta, perhaps - and afterwards found that I could start writing again. If I had a blockage, Hemingway freed it.
I am also fascinated by his journalistic work. Hemingway By-Line (Penguin Books, 1970) contains over 70 of his articles written for newspapers or magazines, dating from 1920 through to 1956, and the scope is remarkable. But it is his novels which hold sway on my bookshelves. In any battle for my 'favourite author' title, Ernest Miller Hemingway would still win - with HE Bates, perhaps, coming a very close second.
Friday 1 August 2014
FLYING LOW
In late 1979 and early 1980 the hot news topic in our neck of the woods was low flying, by British and American jet fighters. Some localities were getting very vocal, complaining of excessive noise. The system then was that the fighters and their crews - and they needed to train somewhere, remember - were restricted to air corridors so that particularly vulnerable areas were avoided as far as possible. But there was a flaw. It also meant that those people who lived under the corridors saw more flow flying than elsewhere. So the system was changed. The corridors were abolished, and instead, 'sensitive' localities were designated 'no-fly zones,' giving the jets more navigational flexibility while the noise factor was spread over a wider area.
Yet the grumbling continued, so the RAF responded with a public relations campaign. Sensing an opportunity, I applied to RAF Coltishall for a Press facility ride in one of their Jaguars, and to my surprise they agreed. This in turn led to a day spent on ejection procedures, dinghy drill, a pressure suit fitting, a health check, and the issuing of a medical certificate, which I still have. Dated February 12, 1980, it reads: 'Fit to fly in high performance aircraft, Category 2.'
A few days' later I was kitted out in flying helmet and pressure suit, attended a briefing (the plan was to 'target' Holbeach bombing range on the edge of the Wash, and then fly into the Midlands via Norman Cross, visit one or two other targets, cross the Cotswolds, and turn over the Bristol Channel before returning to Coltishall. 'Targeting' and 'bombing,' of course, meant locking-on and photographing. Nothing more than that. But it felt deadly serious when I was finally strapped into the back seat of a Jaguar behind Ted, my pilot.
I had flown in aircraft before, and had been up in a helicopter, gliders, and a hot air balloon, but nothing can prepare you for 40 minutes in a fast jet. First, they don't do anything slowly, and the feeling of high speed is something entirely outside of your usual experience. They don't turn gently, either. They flip over on their side, suddenly, and drop out of the sky. At the same time, there is the claustrophobic grip of the pressure suit as it inflates and the rubbery smell of the face mask.
By the time we had flown over Holt, crossed the coast and zoomed out over the Wash, I was already feeling ill. There was bile in my mouth, and my stomach seemed to be somewhere else. 'You OK?' Ted asked. I mumbled in the affirmative, so he took us down to 200ft over the water - we seemed to be level with the top of Hunstanton cliffs - and roared over the Plughole (a circular test bank in the Wash, which from the air resembles a basin plug), left the Holbeach range behind (after a successful 'attack'), and thundered over Long Sutton and through something called the Norman Cross gap at just over 1,000ft and an airspeed of 470 knots.
It was easy to see where we were because there was a moving map screen right in front of me. Then Ted explained the workings of the attack computer on his head-up display. On the screen there was a steady verticle line and a moving horizontal line, with a circular line on the outside which reduced as the seconds-to-target ticked away. When the horizontal line reached the top of the verticle, to form a T, the target - a rail bridge - had been reached. Ted pressed the button, took his photograph, and flipped over, twice, to avoid a cluster of Worcestershire villages. I felt awful, too ill to be sick.
'I think we'd better head home,' Ted said in my earpiece, and so in the gathering gloom of early evening and somewhere near Malvern, he set course for Corby, Peterborough, and Coltishall.
Near Norman Cross he asked if I wanted to fly the Jaguar, which was not as daunting as it sounded. On another screen there was a small yellow circle and a little cross, and around the outside another circular line which counted off the seconds. My task, using the stick, was to keep the cross in the middle of the circle, and when the outer line had finally ticked away, he said, 'Look left,' and there was RAF Coltishall far below us. Ted took over again and we made a gentle landing, but it was two or three days before I felt that my stomach had finally been reunited with my body.
In late 1979 and early 1980 the hot news topic in our neck of the woods was low flying, by British and American jet fighters. Some localities were getting very vocal, complaining of excessive noise. The system then was that the fighters and their crews - and they needed to train somewhere, remember - were restricted to air corridors so that particularly vulnerable areas were avoided as far as possible. But there was a flaw. It also meant that those people who lived under the corridors saw more flow flying than elsewhere. So the system was changed. The corridors were abolished, and instead, 'sensitive' localities were designated 'no-fly zones,' giving the jets more navigational flexibility while the noise factor was spread over a wider area.
Yet the grumbling continued, so the RAF responded with a public relations campaign. Sensing an opportunity, I applied to RAF Coltishall for a Press facility ride in one of their Jaguars, and to my surprise they agreed. This in turn led to a day spent on ejection procedures, dinghy drill, a pressure suit fitting, a health check, and the issuing of a medical certificate, which I still have. Dated February 12, 1980, it reads: 'Fit to fly in high performance aircraft, Category 2.'
A few days' later I was kitted out in flying helmet and pressure suit, attended a briefing (the plan was to 'target' Holbeach bombing range on the edge of the Wash, and then fly into the Midlands via Norman Cross, visit one or two other targets, cross the Cotswolds, and turn over the Bristol Channel before returning to Coltishall. 'Targeting' and 'bombing,' of course, meant locking-on and photographing. Nothing more than that. But it felt deadly serious when I was finally strapped into the back seat of a Jaguar behind Ted, my pilot.
I had flown in aircraft before, and had been up in a helicopter, gliders, and a hot air balloon, but nothing can prepare you for 40 minutes in a fast jet. First, they don't do anything slowly, and the feeling of high speed is something entirely outside of your usual experience. They don't turn gently, either. They flip over on their side, suddenly, and drop out of the sky. At the same time, there is the claustrophobic grip of the pressure suit as it inflates and the rubbery smell of the face mask.
By the time we had flown over Holt, crossed the coast and zoomed out over the Wash, I was already feeling ill. There was bile in my mouth, and my stomach seemed to be somewhere else. 'You OK?' Ted asked. I mumbled in the affirmative, so he took us down to 200ft over the water - we seemed to be level with the top of Hunstanton cliffs - and roared over the Plughole (a circular test bank in the Wash, which from the air resembles a basin plug), left the Holbeach range behind (after a successful 'attack'), and thundered over Long Sutton and through something called the Norman Cross gap at just over 1,000ft and an airspeed of 470 knots.
It was easy to see where we were because there was a moving map screen right in front of me. Then Ted explained the workings of the attack computer on his head-up display. On the screen there was a steady verticle line and a moving horizontal line, with a circular line on the outside which reduced as the seconds-to-target ticked away. When the horizontal line reached the top of the verticle, to form a T, the target - a rail bridge - had been reached. Ted pressed the button, took his photograph, and flipped over, twice, to avoid a cluster of Worcestershire villages. I felt awful, too ill to be sick.
'I think we'd better head home,' Ted said in my earpiece, and so in the gathering gloom of early evening and somewhere near Malvern, he set course for Corby, Peterborough, and Coltishall.
Near Norman Cross he asked if I wanted to fly the Jaguar, which was not as daunting as it sounded. On another screen there was a small yellow circle and a little cross, and around the outside another circular line which counted off the seconds. My task, using the stick, was to keep the cross in the middle of the circle, and when the outer line had finally ticked away, he said, 'Look left,' and there was RAF Coltishall far below us. Ted took over again and we made a gentle landing, but it was two or three days before I felt that my stomach had finally been reunited with my body.
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