THE GOLDEN CUP
In a little over a year's time many newspaper, magazine and TV reminiscence departments will be busy polishing their superlatives and dusting memories ready to mark the anniversary of an event which has happened but once. In more detail, at about 5pm on July 30, 2016, it will be 50 years since England beat West Germany to win the World Football Cup, otherwise the Jules Rimet Trophy.
In some quarters this achievement is still, for some reason, seen as relatively small beer because the football was different back then. Most film of the match is black and white, the digital media was not a gleam in anyone's eye, and the global audience, though huge in a 1960s sense, was not as large as today's audience would be. Nor was there quite the same amount of media hoo-ha. Even so, Kenneth Wolstenholme still pointed out during his BBC commentary that the TV audience was massive. And the country, of course, was in thrall to Wembley. There was no other topic of conversation in the chip shops and on the buses.
I was lucky to be at Wembley to witness this seminal soccer moment, but my visit was foreshadowed by trials and tribulations. The system then was that regional (as opposed to national) newspapers had to prove they had attended, and reported, any number of important games at Wembley, and that a request for a ticket for the World Cup Final was not simply a one-off cherry-pick. For a number of years I had attended as many internationals and Cup Finals as time and work allowed (I was a shift-working sub-editor as well as a football writer), and in consequence applied for a Press ticket on behalf of my newspaper.
A week before the big day, and just to prolong the agony, the authorities wrote to say that the allocation of a Press ticket was not guaranteed and that I would have to call into the London Press office on the morning of the match, just in case one happened to be available.
So I travelled to London on the big day and, with crossed fingers, presented myself at the Press office to be told that, yes, there was a ticket but not in the Press Box. The level of applications was so high that, with the Box already allocated, they had commandeered a couple of rows in the grandstand right in front of the other journalists. It was a wonderful vantage point.
I can still remember the tension and excitment in the packed Tube trains heading to Wembley; the goose-pimples and the joy of triumphant England fans on the way back to the city; the spectacle and the electric atmosphere at a stadium seething with emotion; and how the 'golden' trophy glinted in the sunshine as Bobby Moore held it high.
I watched the game again recently, on DVD. It was an open, fresh-faced, entertaining and tension-packed encounter, almost leisurely by today's speedy standards, with space all over the pitch and the emphasis on attack rather than defence or retaining possession. Brief shakes of the hand and congratulations when a goal was scored. No rolling around on the pitch feigning injury. Everyone (well, nearly everyone) obeying the referee without demur. Bobby Charlton spraying passes around. And, quite simply, good behaviour from all concerned.
The match did have one unforeseen consequence, because afterwards, and in the afterglow of England's success, every manager worth his salt decided his team had to play 4-3-3. The problem was that many teams still had wingers and inside-forwards and no real knowledge of these new tactics. And for a couple of seasons afterwards the old Second Division saw some of the most tedious football ever presented to the public. The tactical lessons of 1966 took a long time to absorb.
Sunday 28 September 2014
Wednesday 24 September 2014
ON THE ROAD
It would not be incorrect to say that former forester Paul Hoda'c came to Britain the hard way - being chased by the Nazis more or less all the way from Czechoslovakia to England. It happened because of a blizzard of occurrences, all of them more or less out of his control. And it happened like this.
Paul was born in 1918 to a Catholic family in Czechoslovakia, enjoying a way of life which was utterly shattered in March, 1938, when Germany annexed Austria. Neighbouring Czechoslovakia immediately took fright and mobilised, and Paul was among the many hundreds of young men who signed up. Fate, however, intervened again when, a few months' later, the Nazis invaded his country. Most of the local resistance was brushed aside, and he fled to Poland, being forced to make a highly dangerous border crossing, before finally joining the Czech Legion in that country.
But the fates had more in store. In September, 1939, Poland was also overrun, and this time the young Paul Hoda'c was forced to flee to Romania and then, eventually, to Beirut and France, where he again fought the advancing Germans. By the time France fell he was a Sergeant-Major, but he managed to escape to England.
By 1945 he was married to an English girl, and when the War was over they moved to Leamington Spa where he worked for many years at the Jaguar car factory. But two things always stayed with him - the love of his home country and the Czech forests where he had worked as a young man, and his religion, and both of them, some years' later, finally came together in one place.
In the early 1970s - which is when I first met him - Paul had only just purchased for himself a 10-acre piece of Norfolk woodland known as Spread Oak Wood between Longham and Bittering, near Dereham. Here, at weekends and during his holidays, when he 'camped' in a caravan parked under the trees, he rediscovered his connection with the forests of his youth, and also found something else - an authentic Roman road.
This, I presume, was one of the branches of the Fen Causeway which originally ran from Denver and may have continued east as far as Caister on Sea. Near Bittering, it went by Salter's Lane and Stoney Lane towards Kempstone, and a short stretch of it ran along the base of Paul's triangular-shaped block of woodland.
I visited him several times when he was living in his caravan and he showed me the distinctive line of the ancient road under the trees and covered by leaves, and another short section which he had cleared completely. For this was key to the next part of his plan - to built a chapel/shrine and erect a cross which, by dint of hard work during his free time, he duly did, by hand, using materials acquired by himself or donated by wellwishers.
And completed it so successfully that the cross and the chapel, built on the Roman road, were officially consecrated in 1974. Since the shrine opened in 1983 there has been an annual Mass, and a plaque above the altar in the chapel was dedicated to Paul's wife, Monica, who died in 1998.
The last time I saw Paul Hoda'c, which is some years' ago now, he was very much at ease among the trees, and utterly content with his lot.
It would not be incorrect to say that former forester Paul Hoda'c came to Britain the hard way - being chased by the Nazis more or less all the way from Czechoslovakia to England. It happened because of a blizzard of occurrences, all of them more or less out of his control. And it happened like this.
Paul was born in 1918 to a Catholic family in Czechoslovakia, enjoying a way of life which was utterly shattered in March, 1938, when Germany annexed Austria. Neighbouring Czechoslovakia immediately took fright and mobilised, and Paul was among the many hundreds of young men who signed up. Fate, however, intervened again when, a few months' later, the Nazis invaded his country. Most of the local resistance was brushed aside, and he fled to Poland, being forced to make a highly dangerous border crossing, before finally joining the Czech Legion in that country.
But the fates had more in store. In September, 1939, Poland was also overrun, and this time the young Paul Hoda'c was forced to flee to Romania and then, eventually, to Beirut and France, where he again fought the advancing Germans. By the time France fell he was a Sergeant-Major, but he managed to escape to England.
By 1945 he was married to an English girl, and when the War was over they moved to Leamington Spa where he worked for many years at the Jaguar car factory. But two things always stayed with him - the love of his home country and the Czech forests where he had worked as a young man, and his religion, and both of them, some years' later, finally came together in one place.
In the early 1970s - which is when I first met him - Paul had only just purchased for himself a 10-acre piece of Norfolk woodland known as Spread Oak Wood between Longham and Bittering, near Dereham. Here, at weekends and during his holidays, when he 'camped' in a caravan parked under the trees, he rediscovered his connection with the forests of his youth, and also found something else - an authentic Roman road.
This, I presume, was one of the branches of the Fen Causeway which originally ran from Denver and may have continued east as far as Caister on Sea. Near Bittering, it went by Salter's Lane and Stoney Lane towards Kempstone, and a short stretch of it ran along the base of Paul's triangular-shaped block of woodland.
I visited him several times when he was living in his caravan and he showed me the distinctive line of the ancient road under the trees and covered by leaves, and another short section which he had cleared completely. For this was key to the next part of his plan - to built a chapel/shrine and erect a cross which, by dint of hard work during his free time, he duly did, by hand, using materials acquired by himself or donated by wellwishers.
And completed it so successfully that the cross and the chapel, built on the Roman road, were officially consecrated in 1974. Since the shrine opened in 1983 there has been an annual Mass, and a plaque above the altar in the chapel was dedicated to Paul's wife, Monica, who died in 1998.
The last time I saw Paul Hoda'c, which is some years' ago now, he was very much at ease among the trees, and utterly content with his lot.
Monday 22 September 2014
WORKSHOP LAMENT
The old family workshop has been demolished. It had stood in the back yard of a couple of shops and houses in Market Street, Long Sutton, since it was built in the late 1800s by my mother's family as a workplace and store for their ironmongery and household appliances business. Later, and at the time when I first knew it - in the late 1940s - it was home to two carpenters, one on the ground floor and the other on the top floor.
This upstairs workroom was reached by outside steps, and the last time I went there it still had the original oil lamps-cum-heaters dangling from the rafters, even though they had not been used for years because the roof was made of corrugated sheeting and there was a fear they might turn the place into a furnace. Other than the roof, the rest of the workshops was built of dry-as-tinder timber, with pokey pane glass windows.
During the 130 or so years of its existence wonderful things were made there, from quality furniture to modest footstools, along with countless repairs and carvings. Both floors smelled of wood shavings and glue, and the racks of tools, lathes, and entire untidy paraphenalia of the wood-working business, was covered in a thick layer of sawdust and cobwebs. Off-cuts and stored wood littered the floors, and the detritus of the craftsman was everywhere.
Now the workshops have gone because they were old and unrepairable and too out-of-date for modern use; and anyway, the site had to be cleared in preparation for the construction of some new flats. Demolition was inevitable, I suppose, because the old timber construction spoke of another age, of former generations and times when men could earn a living shaping wood. It was a good, gonest place, where good, honest work was done.
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE
There are moments in some of today's TV quiz shows when my teeth begin to ache, and it usually happens when a contestant, often under 40 years of age, protests that he or she has no knowledge of something which happened before they were born. 'It's before my time,' they say. Or, 'History is the past, so I don't need to know.' Which means that history is, to varying degrees, taking a back seat in today's world of general knowledge. Indeed, ask today's young contestants which came first, the First World War, the Boer War, or the Battle of Hastings, and you cannot be sure of getting the right answer.
In the same way, a knowledge of classical music has suffered, too, put on the back burner along with history, geography and literature. And replaced by what? Well, pop music, celebrities, TV shows and a knowledge of digital technology.
There is some point to it, of course. I recall one young lady - faced by 1950s teaching methods and struggling to put names to countries on a map of the UK - claiming she didn't need to know where Wales was because if she wanted to know she could 'look it up.' Fair enough. To an extent.
But general knowledge has a different shape these days.
The old family workshop has been demolished. It had stood in the back yard of a couple of shops and houses in Market Street, Long Sutton, since it was built in the late 1800s by my mother's family as a workplace and store for their ironmongery and household appliances business. Later, and at the time when I first knew it - in the late 1940s - it was home to two carpenters, one on the ground floor and the other on the top floor.
This upstairs workroom was reached by outside steps, and the last time I went there it still had the original oil lamps-cum-heaters dangling from the rafters, even though they had not been used for years because the roof was made of corrugated sheeting and there was a fear they might turn the place into a furnace. Other than the roof, the rest of the workshops was built of dry-as-tinder timber, with pokey pane glass windows.
During the 130 or so years of its existence wonderful things were made there, from quality furniture to modest footstools, along with countless repairs and carvings. Both floors smelled of wood shavings and glue, and the racks of tools, lathes, and entire untidy paraphenalia of the wood-working business, was covered in a thick layer of sawdust and cobwebs. Off-cuts and stored wood littered the floors, and the detritus of the craftsman was everywhere.
Now the workshops have gone because they were old and unrepairable and too out-of-date for modern use; and anyway, the site had to be cleared in preparation for the construction of some new flats. Demolition was inevitable, I suppose, because the old timber construction spoke of another age, of former generations and times when men could earn a living shaping wood. It was a good, gonest place, where good, honest work was done.
GENERAL KNOWLEDGE
There are moments in some of today's TV quiz shows when my teeth begin to ache, and it usually happens when a contestant, often under 40 years of age, protests that he or she has no knowledge of something which happened before they were born. 'It's before my time,' they say. Or, 'History is the past, so I don't need to know.' Which means that history is, to varying degrees, taking a back seat in today's world of general knowledge. Indeed, ask today's young contestants which came first, the First World War, the Boer War, or the Battle of Hastings, and you cannot be sure of getting the right answer.
In the same way, a knowledge of classical music has suffered, too, put on the back burner along with history, geography and literature. And replaced by what? Well, pop music, celebrities, TV shows and a knowledge of digital technology.
There is some point to it, of course. I recall one young lady - faced by 1950s teaching methods and struggling to put names to countries on a map of the UK - claiming she didn't need to know where Wales was because if she wanted to know she could 'look it up.' Fair enough. To an extent.
But general knowledge has a different shape these days.
Thursday 18 September 2014
DIGGING SEDGEFORD
Until the late 1960s or even the early 1970s archaeology was its own worst enemy, presenting itself as straight-laced and tight-lipped. Then, slowly, came important changes, including a slow-burning desire to publish and publicise on a much wider scale; persuading most metal-detectorists to work on the scholarly side of the fence, rather than up against it; adjusting to the concept of well-watched TV programmes popularising the subject; making greater use of enthusiastic amateurs; and, of course, employing that great leveller, the internet, allowing the global distribution of news and finds.
Digging Sedgeford, the book, represents yet another part of this process of evolution.
The Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project began its first excavation in the village in 1996, and every summer since then a team of volunteers has camped for six weeks in a field and spent their time exploring the history of the settlement from the Stone Age to World War One. In the beginning, it was primitive: no money, no staff, smelly loos, tools stored in an old trailer, and lunch a cheese roll sitting on a log. It was also argumentative. But out of the turmoil came what the authors describe as 'democratic archaeology,' which embraces the golden rule that the person who uncovers something interesting should also complete the excavation and help to record it.
This remarkable examination of the parish of Sedgeford still continues, and Digging Sedgeford is an illustrated summary of the first twelve years of exploration, 1996 to 2007. It is packed with unexpected finds and revelations, and questions waiting to be answered, for a village which at first glance had seemed so ordinary has turned out to be quite extraordinary. Of course, this might have been suspected. After all, the location of the Ken Hill 'gold field,' the Icknield Way and the Peddars Way, are all close by, adding their own intrigues to the story.
Indeed, the first twelve years of 'democratic' searching has embraced everything from a Middle Anglo-Saxon cemetery and settlement, and recorded sites from the Iron Age, Roman, Late Anglo-Saxon, Medieval and Modern periods.
Remember news stories of the gold torc terminal which matched exactly a damaged torc found in 1965? The grave of the badly disabled Medieval lady who was nevertheless well-nourished and had lived to a good age? The gold coins stuffed inside a cow bone? And the body of a citizen of the empire discovered inside a Roman grain drying oven? All from an 'ordinary' Norfolk village.
There is even a Boudiccan 'hypothesis,' a question relating to the site of a Late Iron Age farmstead which had been deserted for a time before a Roman landowning elite became established in the area. The suggested dates of the abandonment seem to chime with the aftermath of the Boudiccan revolt when, it is thought, farms went untended and harvests ungathered. But no-one knows for certain, and it is only hypothesis.
The book is like this, however, constantly throwing up ideas and problems in glorious array. Fascinating.
(Digging Sedgeford: A Peoples' Archaeology, SHARP, Poppyland Publications, 2014)
Until the late 1960s or even the early 1970s archaeology was its own worst enemy, presenting itself as straight-laced and tight-lipped. Then, slowly, came important changes, including a slow-burning desire to publish and publicise on a much wider scale; persuading most metal-detectorists to work on the scholarly side of the fence, rather than up against it; adjusting to the concept of well-watched TV programmes popularising the subject; making greater use of enthusiastic amateurs; and, of course, employing that great leveller, the internet, allowing the global distribution of news and finds.
Digging Sedgeford, the book, represents yet another part of this process of evolution.
The Sedgeford Historical and Archaeological Research Project began its first excavation in the village in 1996, and every summer since then a team of volunteers has camped for six weeks in a field and spent their time exploring the history of the settlement from the Stone Age to World War One. In the beginning, it was primitive: no money, no staff, smelly loos, tools stored in an old trailer, and lunch a cheese roll sitting on a log. It was also argumentative. But out of the turmoil came what the authors describe as 'democratic archaeology,' which embraces the golden rule that the person who uncovers something interesting should also complete the excavation and help to record it.
This remarkable examination of the parish of Sedgeford still continues, and Digging Sedgeford is an illustrated summary of the first twelve years of exploration, 1996 to 2007. It is packed with unexpected finds and revelations, and questions waiting to be answered, for a village which at first glance had seemed so ordinary has turned out to be quite extraordinary. Of course, this might have been suspected. After all, the location of the Ken Hill 'gold field,' the Icknield Way and the Peddars Way, are all close by, adding their own intrigues to the story.
Indeed, the first twelve years of 'democratic' searching has embraced everything from a Middle Anglo-Saxon cemetery and settlement, and recorded sites from the Iron Age, Roman, Late Anglo-Saxon, Medieval and Modern periods.
Remember news stories of the gold torc terminal which matched exactly a damaged torc found in 1965? The grave of the badly disabled Medieval lady who was nevertheless well-nourished and had lived to a good age? The gold coins stuffed inside a cow bone? And the body of a citizen of the empire discovered inside a Roman grain drying oven? All from an 'ordinary' Norfolk village.
There is even a Boudiccan 'hypothesis,' a question relating to the site of a Late Iron Age farmstead which had been deserted for a time before a Roman landowning elite became established in the area. The suggested dates of the abandonment seem to chime with the aftermath of the Boudiccan revolt when, it is thought, farms went untended and harvests ungathered. But no-one knows for certain, and it is only hypothesis.
The book is like this, however, constantly throwing up ideas and problems in glorious array. Fascinating.
(Digging Sedgeford: A Peoples' Archaeology, SHARP, Poppyland Publications, 2014)
Monday 15 September 2014
MOUNT EPHRAIM
There are many ways to describe the Walsingham Way, and many Walsingham Ways to describe. The problem was once put to me like this: there is no one Yarmouth Road because almost every village in the east of Norfolk has a road leading, eventually, to Yarmouth. So it is with the Walsingham pilgrim trail.
Just within Norfolk, for example, there were routes from King's Lynn, one of them leading through Castle Rising and North Creake; another (including, no doubt, variations and deviations) from London (via Barkway, Brandon and Pickenham); one branch which utilised a short section of the Peddars Way; and no doubt others, too, some from the south, and some possibly from the Blakeney/Cley estuary and even from Great Yarmouth itself.
I took an interest in the subject because of Mount Ephraim, a stone cross - or more recently, a stump cross - which stood beside a green lane, sometimes called Pilgrims' Walk, emanating a short distance north away from Weeting. A church brochure from Weeting All Saints' church described the green lane as a part of Walsingham Way and the stone cross as an ancient guide to pilgrims. But it spoke of it in the past tense, which may or may not have been significant.
According to Whatmore, Camden's Brittania (published 1695) said the greenway was called Walsingham Way even then, being a road for pilgrims, while a second green lane from Hockwold to Wilton, which crossed it, once had two stump stone crosses. Faden's map (1797) also marked a Pilgrims' Path. And in 1934 a Mr Cozens-Hardy recorded that the remains of one cross was in a wood at Mount Ephraim, but by then it consisted of little more than a stone base.
Several decades ago a colleague and I parked our car in Weeting and walked this tree-lined green lane north of the village, and after a search - memory suggests - we found it. A low, stone stump cross a little distant from a crossroads of tracks. But alas, I did not have a camera with me at the time, and the recollection has faded. All I know is that a year or so later I did the walk again, this time with a camera, and this time was completely unable to find any trace of the stump cross. It was as though the pilgrims had entirely faded away.
There seems little doubt that the green lane had some sort of relationship with a former 13th century priory at Bromehill, where pilgrims may have rested on their journey. But the matter is less than certain, and Chris Barringer makes plain that the layout of paths and tracks around Weeting is complicated and that the outline has changed many times. For example, in the 19th century a 'new' estate landscape was superimposed on the 'ancient' landscape.
It is unlikely that, in Norfolk at least, any lanes or tracks came into being solely and simply to satisfy a pilgrim demand. Mostly, it would appear, pilgrims and other travellers used what suitable lanes and tracks were already in being, including that section of the Peddars Way near North Pickenham. But the Pilgrims' Path near Weeting, the river ferry crossing at King's Lynn, and several of the lanes around the Walsingham villages, do seem to be remembered in the main for their association with these travellers.
(Highway to Walsingham, by Rev Leonard E Whatmore, The Pilgrim Bureau, 1973. Weeting All Saints with S. Mary, church brochure, undated. Norfolk Origins 8, Exploring the Norfolk Village, Christopher Barringer, Poppyland Publishing, 2005)
There are many ways to describe the Walsingham Way, and many Walsingham Ways to describe. The problem was once put to me like this: there is no one Yarmouth Road because almost every village in the east of Norfolk has a road leading, eventually, to Yarmouth. So it is with the Walsingham pilgrim trail.
Just within Norfolk, for example, there were routes from King's Lynn, one of them leading through Castle Rising and North Creake; another (including, no doubt, variations and deviations) from London (via Barkway, Brandon and Pickenham); one branch which utilised a short section of the Peddars Way; and no doubt others, too, some from the south, and some possibly from the Blakeney/Cley estuary and even from Great Yarmouth itself.
I took an interest in the subject because of Mount Ephraim, a stone cross - or more recently, a stump cross - which stood beside a green lane, sometimes called Pilgrims' Walk, emanating a short distance north away from Weeting. A church brochure from Weeting All Saints' church described the green lane as a part of Walsingham Way and the stone cross as an ancient guide to pilgrims. But it spoke of it in the past tense, which may or may not have been significant.
According to Whatmore, Camden's Brittania (published 1695) said the greenway was called Walsingham Way even then, being a road for pilgrims, while a second green lane from Hockwold to Wilton, which crossed it, once had two stump stone crosses. Faden's map (1797) also marked a Pilgrims' Path. And in 1934 a Mr Cozens-Hardy recorded that the remains of one cross was in a wood at Mount Ephraim, but by then it consisted of little more than a stone base.
Several decades ago a colleague and I parked our car in Weeting and walked this tree-lined green lane north of the village, and after a search - memory suggests - we found it. A low, stone stump cross a little distant from a crossroads of tracks. But alas, I did not have a camera with me at the time, and the recollection has faded. All I know is that a year or so later I did the walk again, this time with a camera, and this time was completely unable to find any trace of the stump cross. It was as though the pilgrims had entirely faded away.
There seems little doubt that the green lane had some sort of relationship with a former 13th century priory at Bromehill, where pilgrims may have rested on their journey. But the matter is less than certain, and Chris Barringer makes plain that the layout of paths and tracks around Weeting is complicated and that the outline has changed many times. For example, in the 19th century a 'new' estate landscape was superimposed on the 'ancient' landscape.
It is unlikely that, in Norfolk at least, any lanes or tracks came into being solely and simply to satisfy a pilgrim demand. Mostly, it would appear, pilgrims and other travellers used what suitable lanes and tracks were already in being, including that section of the Peddars Way near North Pickenham. But the Pilgrims' Path near Weeting, the river ferry crossing at King's Lynn, and several of the lanes around the Walsingham villages, do seem to be remembered in the main for their association with these travellers.
(Highway to Walsingham, by Rev Leonard E Whatmore, The Pilgrim Bureau, 1973. Weeting All Saints with S. Mary, church brochure, undated. Norfolk Origins 8, Exploring the Norfolk Village, Christopher Barringer, Poppyland Publishing, 2005)
Friday 12 September 2014
WHAT'S IT FOR?
Big football matches can change things, and England's World Cup victory over West Germany in 1966 certainly did that, for football in general and particularly for the old Second Division. Afterwards, entertainment levels in the Division were dire for at least a couple of seasons. Following Ramsey's success, everyone but everyone had to play 4-3-3. The problem was that most clubs still had players from earlier tactical ages who were simply not suited to this new, physically draining, back-tracking and running game. In the end, of course, pragmatism won, as most sides 'played for the point' at home and away, and 0-0 and 1-1 draws ruled the roost.
I can remember facing the wrath of one Norwich City manager who thought the latest goalless home draw had been greeted with insufficient enthusiasm by the fans and by my written newspaper account. It was boring, I said. We got a bloody point, exclaimed he.
More recently, when contemplating the aftermath of the Canaries' relegation, it produced the thought that perhaps club and fans would be happier in the Championship, anyway, because they would most probably win more games. And it prompted the larger question: what is football for?
Is it for prestige: is Premiership status really the only status worth having? Is it for entertainment? After all, a 4-5 defeat can produce a terrific match. Or is it a results-based business only?
Going back to Norwich City, they were relegated from the Premiership last season, a fact which provoked much frustration and hard words among the fans and months of misery and disappointment during the season. It's a disaster, they said. But in the Championship, I thought, City will almost certainly win more matches, and everyone will be a good deal happier.
So, what is football for? Honours and high status, meaning the Premiership? Thrilling, entertaining matches, in whatever division? Or points, plain and simple. It is important, because it is rare for all three to come together at the same time.
TRIPLE DERBY
Norwich City's recent victory over Ipswich Town was greeted as usual by whoops of enthusiasm in my neck of the woods. Indeed, thoughts of battles between Town and City have kept local football juices running for many decades, and clashes between the two have always been among the most eagerly awaited of fixtures. It is important to have local bragging rights even if it is, quite often, only on a temporary basis.
The fact is, however, that Norwich/Ipswich clashes are the sole survivors of what was once a cluster of 'derby' matches. Nearly 60 years' ago, when I first came to Norfolk, Norwich City sometimes had six - not two - recognised and fairly regular 'derby' clashes on their fixture lists. I can remember reporting on one of them. Aside from Ipswich, the other two teams perceived as derbies were Leicester City and Northampton Town, and it was a match at Northampton I watched.
Why Leicester and Northampton? Well, the boot and shoe industry was behind it. So many people from the Norwich footwear industry had taken similar jobs in these other two centres, and raised their families there, that any Northampton/Norwich or Leicester/Norwich clash was automatically important, not only as an excuse to refresh old acquaintances but also, again, for the bragging rights.
It was fun, I seem to remember, though by about 1959 these particular links were beginning to come to an end. Along with the heyday of the local boot and shoe industry, of course.
Big football matches can change things, and England's World Cup victory over West Germany in 1966 certainly did that, for football in general and particularly for the old Second Division. Afterwards, entertainment levels in the Division were dire for at least a couple of seasons. Following Ramsey's success, everyone but everyone had to play 4-3-3. The problem was that most clubs still had players from earlier tactical ages who were simply not suited to this new, physically draining, back-tracking and running game. In the end, of course, pragmatism won, as most sides 'played for the point' at home and away, and 0-0 and 1-1 draws ruled the roost.
I can remember facing the wrath of one Norwich City manager who thought the latest goalless home draw had been greeted with insufficient enthusiasm by the fans and by my written newspaper account. It was boring, I said. We got a bloody point, exclaimed he.
More recently, when contemplating the aftermath of the Canaries' relegation, it produced the thought that perhaps club and fans would be happier in the Championship, anyway, because they would most probably win more games. And it prompted the larger question: what is football for?
Is it for prestige: is Premiership status really the only status worth having? Is it for entertainment? After all, a 4-5 defeat can produce a terrific match. Or is it a results-based business only?
Going back to Norwich City, they were relegated from the Premiership last season, a fact which provoked much frustration and hard words among the fans and months of misery and disappointment during the season. It's a disaster, they said. But in the Championship, I thought, City will almost certainly win more matches, and everyone will be a good deal happier.
So, what is football for? Honours and high status, meaning the Premiership? Thrilling, entertaining matches, in whatever division? Or points, plain and simple. It is important, because it is rare for all three to come together at the same time.
TRIPLE DERBY
Norwich City's recent victory over Ipswich Town was greeted as usual by whoops of enthusiasm in my neck of the woods. Indeed, thoughts of battles between Town and City have kept local football juices running for many decades, and clashes between the two have always been among the most eagerly awaited of fixtures. It is important to have local bragging rights even if it is, quite often, only on a temporary basis.
The fact is, however, that Norwich/Ipswich clashes are the sole survivors of what was once a cluster of 'derby' matches. Nearly 60 years' ago, when I first came to Norfolk, Norwich City sometimes had six - not two - recognised and fairly regular 'derby' clashes on their fixture lists. I can remember reporting on one of them. Aside from Ipswich, the other two teams perceived as derbies were Leicester City and Northampton Town, and it was a match at Northampton I watched.
Why Leicester and Northampton? Well, the boot and shoe industry was behind it. So many people from the Norwich footwear industry had taken similar jobs in these other two centres, and raised their families there, that any Northampton/Norwich or Leicester/Norwich clash was automatically important, not only as an excuse to refresh old acquaintances but also, again, for the bragging rights.
It was fun, I seem to remember, though by about 1959 these particular links were beginning to come to an end. Along with the heyday of the local boot and shoe industry, of course.
Tuesday 9 September 2014
THE NORWICH ROAD
In the year 2000 I bought a book in a secondhand bookshop in Norwich. That in itself was not unusual, because every year for over sixty years of my softback life I have bought a book. Or more likely, books. But this one was different in a sense that not only was it almost a hundred years' old at the time, it was also on a subject that continues to fascinate me. Roads. In this case, the main highway from Whitechapel church in London to Norwich's market place, taking in Stratford Broadway, Romford, Brentwood, Ingatestone, Chelmsford, Mark's Tey, Copdock, Ipswich, Little Stonham, Scole and Long Stratton along the way.
A colourful account, then, written in the dying dregs of the 19th century and published very early in the 20th century. But what made it additionally interesting was the fact that, tucked inside the hardback cover, was the original sale receipt.
The hardback had been purchased by a Mr GE Cower, of 3 Gower Street, London, from bookseller Francis Edwards, of 83 High Street, Marylebone, London, at a cost of nine shillings. The receipt was dated June 10, 1902. Two days' later Mr Cower evidently paid the amount in full, ownership being confirmed by a private bookmark pasted on the inside front cover which declared it Ex Libris (from the library of) George Evelyn Cower.
Two years after I bought it, to be precise on June 10, 2002, and exactly one hundred years to the day when the book was first sold to Mr Cower, I used it as an excuse for an excursion to The Smoke for a day of literary exploration. In fact, I and the book took not the Norwich Road but the Iron Horse to Liverpool Street, and repaired immediately to Marylebone High Street, number 83.
Astonishingly, and a century later, a bookshop was still there. At least, a bookshop still occupied Nos. 83 and 84, though it was no longer Francis Edwards but Daunt Books which then, and may still do, specialised in publications for travellers and books about foreign countries. I went in, holding my copy of The Norwich Road, and gave it a 100th birthday tour of its original home.
My next port of call was 3 Gower Street, the 1902 home of the said Mr Cower, which was three Tube stations away, and I duly found it in an area of intense intellect and learning, art and literature. University College, the University of London, the British Museum, Newman House and Darwin House, were all in the same locality, while another nearby house sported a blue plaque recording the fact that it was here the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was formed.
No. 3 itself was one of a terrace of fine town houses, though it looked as though it might have been divided into flats at some point. There was a letting agency notice outside, and beside the door a nameplate which said The Bloomsbury Centre. I rang the doorbell, wanting to show them my book and its receipt, but no-one answered.
Book and receipt and I eventually retreated back to Norwich, but I was happy to have at least tried to give it a significant and interesting 100th birthday. Later still, a search of the 1901 census turned up a George Cower, of the parish of St George, Bloomsbury, St Giles in the Fields. Then aged 77, he was described as a retired Madras judge. Of course, I have no idea if he was the Mr Cower who previously owned my book, but I hope so. Book and I could both do with some sober reflection and sound judgement.
(The Norwich Road, by Charles G Harper, Chapman & Hall, 1901)
In the year 2000 I bought a book in a secondhand bookshop in Norwich. That in itself was not unusual, because every year for over sixty years of my softback life I have bought a book. Or more likely, books. But this one was different in a sense that not only was it almost a hundred years' old at the time, it was also on a subject that continues to fascinate me. Roads. In this case, the main highway from Whitechapel church in London to Norwich's market place, taking in Stratford Broadway, Romford, Brentwood, Ingatestone, Chelmsford, Mark's Tey, Copdock, Ipswich, Little Stonham, Scole and Long Stratton along the way.
A colourful account, then, written in the dying dregs of the 19th century and published very early in the 20th century. But what made it additionally interesting was the fact that, tucked inside the hardback cover, was the original sale receipt.
The hardback had been purchased by a Mr GE Cower, of 3 Gower Street, London, from bookseller Francis Edwards, of 83 High Street, Marylebone, London, at a cost of nine shillings. The receipt was dated June 10, 1902. Two days' later Mr Cower evidently paid the amount in full, ownership being confirmed by a private bookmark pasted on the inside front cover which declared it Ex Libris (from the library of) George Evelyn Cower.
Two years after I bought it, to be precise on June 10, 2002, and exactly one hundred years to the day when the book was first sold to Mr Cower, I used it as an excuse for an excursion to The Smoke for a day of literary exploration. In fact, I and the book took not the Norwich Road but the Iron Horse to Liverpool Street, and repaired immediately to Marylebone High Street, number 83.
Astonishingly, and a century later, a bookshop was still there. At least, a bookshop still occupied Nos. 83 and 84, though it was no longer Francis Edwards but Daunt Books which then, and may still do, specialised in publications for travellers and books about foreign countries. I went in, holding my copy of The Norwich Road, and gave it a 100th birthday tour of its original home.
My next port of call was 3 Gower Street, the 1902 home of the said Mr Cower, which was three Tube stations away, and I duly found it in an area of intense intellect and learning, art and literature. University College, the University of London, the British Museum, Newman House and Darwin House, were all in the same locality, while another nearby house sported a blue plaque recording the fact that it was here the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was formed.
No. 3 itself was one of a terrace of fine town houses, though it looked as though it might have been divided into flats at some point. There was a letting agency notice outside, and beside the door a nameplate which said The Bloomsbury Centre. I rang the doorbell, wanting to show them my book and its receipt, but no-one answered.
Book and receipt and I eventually retreated back to Norwich, but I was happy to have at least tried to give it a significant and interesting 100th birthday. Later still, a search of the 1901 census turned up a George Cower, of the parish of St George, Bloomsbury, St Giles in the Fields. Then aged 77, he was described as a retired Madras judge. Of course, I have no idea if he was the Mr Cower who previously owned my book, but I hope so. Book and I could both do with some sober reflection and sound judgement.
(The Norwich Road, by Charles G Harper, Chapman & Hall, 1901)
Friday 5 September 2014
FAVOURITES
I used to listen to Desert Island Discs before I largely fell out of the habit of regularly turning on the radio. If I do listen now, rather than the constant jabber of flustered politicians being interrupted by tetchy interviewers, it tends to be Classic FM. For my sins, a good symphonic piece does far more for me than this week's pop. Or PM's Question Time, for that matter.
That's not snobbery, as far as I know. I hope it isn't, anyway. It is just that I deserted pop in, I think, 1956 when I first heard Bill Haley's Rock Around the Clock being played on an endless loop at a fairground in Spalding, next door to the football ground. I wasappalled. By the music, that is.
I was weaned, musically, on War-time music and more particularly on swing bands and jazz instrumentalists. The silky rhythms of Count Basie, the soaring trumpet artistry of Harry James. I just couldn't take to these brash youngsters who simply plugged their instruments into the mains supply, switched on, and shouted into microphones. Thus it goes without saying that, to my mind, Gene Krupa had more rhythm in his little finger than any automated electronic gizmo.
So, what sort of things do I like? I'll try to tell you.
I like family life, woodland and fieldscapes, the coast and the sea. Cats and football and the cinema. Harvest fields, poppies in harvest fields, wide skies, history, travel, and Berlinner-sized morning newspapers. Flapjack and ice cream. Scotch whisky, red wine, liquorish allsorts and fudge. Wild natural areas, autumn, and autumnal colours. Hemingway, Steinbeck and HE Bates; Benny Goodman, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand. Swing bands and symphony orchestras. Sea frets, old roads and tracks, and green lanes. Lasagne. Second hand bookshops, books in general, reading, coffee, chocolate and qwerty keyboards. Monet, Paul Nash, Ravilious and Seago; Brahms, Bach and Beethoven. Always and forever Beethoven. And piles of books waiting to be read.
That's what I like.
There's actually more. Mornings, for example. I like mornings, particularly pulling back the curtains to let the sunshine in. And old clothes that I've trained to be comfortable; and walking, when I'm able to, especially walking in old clothes on sunlit mornings. And custard. Must not forget custard. And writing, and researching something I'm writing.
I'm not quite certain what sort of a person all this makes me, though the list is not by any means complete. But bookish, I suppose, someone a bit on the solitary side, because if you like writing and reading then you have to, as it were, shut yourself away every now and again.
Then again, it occurs to me that perhaps I'm getting too old to keep writing for much longer. But if I'm too old for writing, though, then it also helps underline why I'm also too old to appreciate pop music.
Mind you, these sorts of definitions are a little misleading. After all, Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman and Doris Day were top of the pops once.
I used to listen to Desert Island Discs before I largely fell out of the habit of regularly turning on the radio. If I do listen now, rather than the constant jabber of flustered politicians being interrupted by tetchy interviewers, it tends to be Classic FM. For my sins, a good symphonic piece does far more for me than this week's pop. Or PM's Question Time, for that matter.
That's not snobbery, as far as I know. I hope it isn't, anyway. It is just that I deserted pop in, I think, 1956 when I first heard Bill Haley's Rock Around the Clock being played on an endless loop at a fairground in Spalding, next door to the football ground. I wasappalled. By the music, that is.
I was weaned, musically, on War-time music and more particularly on swing bands and jazz instrumentalists. The silky rhythms of Count Basie, the soaring trumpet artistry of Harry James. I just couldn't take to these brash youngsters who simply plugged their instruments into the mains supply, switched on, and shouted into microphones. Thus it goes without saying that, to my mind, Gene Krupa had more rhythm in his little finger than any automated electronic gizmo.
So, what sort of things do I like? I'll try to tell you.
I like family life, woodland and fieldscapes, the coast and the sea. Cats and football and the cinema. Harvest fields, poppies in harvest fields, wide skies, history, travel, and Berlinner-sized morning newspapers. Flapjack and ice cream. Scotch whisky, red wine, liquorish allsorts and fudge. Wild natural areas, autumn, and autumnal colours. Hemingway, Steinbeck and HE Bates; Benny Goodman, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra and Barbra Streisand. Swing bands and symphony orchestras. Sea frets, old roads and tracks, and green lanes. Lasagne. Second hand bookshops, books in general, reading, coffee, chocolate and qwerty keyboards. Monet, Paul Nash, Ravilious and Seago; Brahms, Bach and Beethoven. Always and forever Beethoven. And piles of books waiting to be read.
That's what I like.
There's actually more. Mornings, for example. I like mornings, particularly pulling back the curtains to let the sunshine in. And old clothes that I've trained to be comfortable; and walking, when I'm able to, especially walking in old clothes on sunlit mornings. And custard. Must not forget custard. And writing, and researching something I'm writing.
I'm not quite certain what sort of a person all this makes me, though the list is not by any means complete. But bookish, I suppose, someone a bit on the solitary side, because if you like writing and reading then you have to, as it were, shut yourself away every now and again.
Then again, it occurs to me that perhaps I'm getting too old to keep writing for much longer. But if I'm too old for writing, though, then it also helps underline why I'm also too old to appreciate pop music.
Mind you, these sorts of definitions are a little misleading. After all, Frank Sinatra, Benny Goodman and Doris Day were top of the pops once.
Tuesday 2 September 2014
PETER FOULGER
I had never heard of Peter Foulger (or Folger) - nor could I find anything filed about him - until a letter arrived at our newspaper office from America. It asked if any readers had information about him, the request coming from a research assistant at the Peter Folger Museum on faraway Nantucket island. Peter was a 17th century Norfolk man - or perhaps part-Suffolk - and famous enough to have a museum named after him, and yet he still remains largely unknown over here.
The only obvious additional detail I could supply was that a lot of Foulgers still live in Norfolk, but I did - thanks to help from correspondents - manage to send a few more items of information back to Nantucket, once famous for its whaling fleet.
Peter Foulger seems to have been born around 1617/18 in Norwich, or south Norfolk, but in any event with family connections with the Diss, Frenze, and even Wymondham areas. But in 1635/37, and largely because of their religious and social convictions, Peter, then aged about 18, and together with his father and mother, sailed to America with the idea of joining other free-thinking groups in Massachussetts at either Martha's Vineyard or Salem. Anyway, they may have sailed on the vessel Abigail, or more likely the Defence, and it was on board that he first met his future wife, Mary Moril, or Morrell, then a serving girl with a party led by the Rev Hugh Peter.
Serious, pious and bookish, Foulger quickly adapted to his new and still unstable country, his secretarial skills enabling him to make rapid progress. By the time he was a prominent citizen of Edgartown, on Martha's Vineyard, he also first visited Nantucket, some time before 1660, but indeed surveyed the island in 1660/61. Two years' later he was granted a half-share by the island's freeholders who needed a surveyor, interpreter and Indian teacher, whereupon he and his family moved there.
Foulger was guided by strong personal beliefs, and he became an important part of the island's history. American Puritanism had developed a bigoted and hard-line form, and Peter turned away from it. Instead, he did his work, taught Christianity to the island's Algonquin-speaking Wampanoag people, and was largely instrumental in maintaining a balanced peace between the island's Indians and the white settlers, something many other settlements found beyond them.
In 1665 he intervened in a Native dispute involving the Indian king, Philip, and a Nantucket Indian named Gibbs, which he successfully resolved; and in 1676 wrote a pamphlet, A Looking Glass for the Times, later described as a defence of liberty and conscience 'in homespun verse, written with a good deal of decent plainness and manly freedom.' By this time Peter was minister to the island's Christian Indians. In 1685, when he was about 70, he was even imprisoned briefly following a row with the Nantucket town fathers over the voting rights of the half-sharemen.
Peter Foulger became a major figure in the Salem/Martha's Vineyard/Nantucket area at a time of great transformation as New England was beginning to find its feet. And change is still happening on the island. The words Peter Folger Museum are still written in stone across the front of the building named after him - or they were when I visited a few years ago - but the museum itself has been largely incorporated into the town's whaling museum. Nowadays, if you want to find Peter Foulger on Nantucket you need to visit the island's archive office.
It is also worth mentioning that Peter and Mary were prolific parents having had, I think, nine children. Peter died in 1690 at about the time his youngest daughter, Abiah, married a widower, Josiah Franklin, a candle and soapmaker in Boston, Mass. They had many children, too, one of whom was the brilliant and famous Benjamin Franklin.
I had never heard of Peter Foulger (or Folger) - nor could I find anything filed about him - until a letter arrived at our newspaper office from America. It asked if any readers had information about him, the request coming from a research assistant at the Peter Folger Museum on faraway Nantucket island. Peter was a 17th century Norfolk man - or perhaps part-Suffolk - and famous enough to have a museum named after him, and yet he still remains largely unknown over here.
The only obvious additional detail I could supply was that a lot of Foulgers still live in Norfolk, but I did - thanks to help from correspondents - manage to send a few more items of information back to Nantucket, once famous for its whaling fleet.
Peter Foulger seems to have been born around 1617/18 in Norwich, or south Norfolk, but in any event with family connections with the Diss, Frenze, and even Wymondham areas. But in 1635/37, and largely because of their religious and social convictions, Peter, then aged about 18, and together with his father and mother, sailed to America with the idea of joining other free-thinking groups in Massachussetts at either Martha's Vineyard or Salem. Anyway, they may have sailed on the vessel Abigail, or more likely the Defence, and it was on board that he first met his future wife, Mary Moril, or Morrell, then a serving girl with a party led by the Rev Hugh Peter.
Serious, pious and bookish, Foulger quickly adapted to his new and still unstable country, his secretarial skills enabling him to make rapid progress. By the time he was a prominent citizen of Edgartown, on Martha's Vineyard, he also first visited Nantucket, some time before 1660, but indeed surveyed the island in 1660/61. Two years' later he was granted a half-share by the island's freeholders who needed a surveyor, interpreter and Indian teacher, whereupon he and his family moved there.
Foulger was guided by strong personal beliefs, and he became an important part of the island's history. American Puritanism had developed a bigoted and hard-line form, and Peter turned away from it. Instead, he did his work, taught Christianity to the island's Algonquin-speaking Wampanoag people, and was largely instrumental in maintaining a balanced peace between the island's Indians and the white settlers, something many other settlements found beyond them.
In 1665 he intervened in a Native dispute involving the Indian king, Philip, and a Nantucket Indian named Gibbs, which he successfully resolved; and in 1676 wrote a pamphlet, A Looking Glass for the Times, later described as a defence of liberty and conscience 'in homespun verse, written with a good deal of decent plainness and manly freedom.' By this time Peter was minister to the island's Christian Indians. In 1685, when he was about 70, he was even imprisoned briefly following a row with the Nantucket town fathers over the voting rights of the half-sharemen.
Peter Foulger became a major figure in the Salem/Martha's Vineyard/Nantucket area at a time of great transformation as New England was beginning to find its feet. And change is still happening on the island. The words Peter Folger Museum are still written in stone across the front of the building named after him - or they were when I visited a few years ago - but the museum itself has been largely incorporated into the town's whaling museum. Nowadays, if you want to find Peter Foulger on Nantucket you need to visit the island's archive office.
It is also worth mentioning that Peter and Mary were prolific parents having had, I think, nine children. Peter died in 1690 at about the time his youngest daughter, Abiah, married a widower, Josiah Franklin, a candle and soapmaker in Boston, Mass. They had many children, too, one of whom was the brilliant and famous Benjamin Franklin.
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