THIS IS LONDON

At no time have I made a deliberate decision to collect writings about the Second World War, but it does seem that over the years, and quite randomly, an unusual number of titles have somehow gravitated towards my shelves.
HE Bates (particularly his short stories written under the name of Flying Officer X) I have mentioned before. And probably Ernest Hemingway, too, who honed his journalistic (and novel writing) skills during the earlier Spanish Civil War. So, too, Martha Gellhorn, a very fine writer and, of course, still involved with Hemingway in the late 1930s. And John Steinbeck. They all described and interpreted those years of blackouts, bombings and blitzes in their own individualistic way.
Gellhorn's writing I have always liked, while Hemingway could become a mite overbearing. Steinbeck, on the other hand, was mostly thoughtful and observant. Well, now another such book has managed to propel itself from the shelves of a local charity shop and land safely among my other volumes.
This one is a little bit different because it deals with the wireless and a broadcaster, rather than the written word, though I have to say it scans and reads almost as well because the man himself wrote the text to be spoken out aloud. In Search of Light, it is called, but it is the secondary title, The Broadcasts of Ed Murrow, 1938-61, that gives the game away.
Ed Murrow - he of the wry grin, furrowed brow and laconic voice - made more than 5,000 broadcasts, beginning with an eye-witness report on Hitler's seizure of Austria and ending, nearly a quarter of a century later, with observations on the inaugural address of John F Kennedy. Between times, he did enough to earn himself the title of unofficial American ambassador to Britain during its finest hour.
One story about him says a lot. In December, 1941, when he was on leave from London, Ed was invited to the White House to talk to the president, Franklin D Roosevelt, about the morale of the British people after two years' of war. When the chat was concluded the off-guard president, relaxed and perhaps charmed by his guest, chattily informed Murrow of the true level of damage inflicted by the Japanese at Pearl Harbour.
It was a story Murrow considered privileged and there was, in consequence, no Murrow broadcast about Pearl Harbour.
However, it is likely he is best remembered in this country for his broadcast 'chats' from London during the worst days of the War. It was on September 22, 1938, that for the very first time he began his broadcast by saying, 'This is London . . . ' And on D-Day, June 6, 1944, he told his listeners, 'This is London. Early this morning we heard the bombers going out. It was the sound of a giant factory in the sky. It seemed to shake the old grey stone buildings in this bruised and battered city . . . '
Murrow lived through, and reported, so much more: the founding of the United Nations, the emergence of Africa, the Communist take-over in China, the Atomic Age, McCarthyism, and so on. And it caused him to comment afterwards, 'I have lived through it as a reporter and can scarcely credit it.'
His own place in history is secure, of course, and 'This is London' has become an emotive phrase as redolent of a particular time as the Warsaw Concerto, Vera Lynn, and the sound of air raid sirens.
(In Search of Light, by Ed Murrow. Macmillan, 1968)

SEASONAL TALK

Most folk in our north Norfolk seaside town talk of 'seasons.' The crabbing season, the holiday season. That sort of thing. But in fact at least three things tend to dictate whether the seafront and shops are busy or not - the season, the weather, and the tides, which in turn dictate if the beaches are available. Even so, it is a complex business, constantly taking people by surprise, and you can sense the off-season puzzlement if the weather is good, the tides are low and the town is busy, but the ice cream shops are closed.
'They've missed a trick,' you think. Yet it was probably all due to a quirk of the calendar. Had the weather been dodgy the place would have been deserted, and anyway, even ice cream retailers have to take some time off.
Occasionally, perhaps in February or March, and particularly if the weather is deceptively mild, the ice cream parlours are open even if the seafront is only moderately busy, and you think, 'They know something, these shop people.' Do they, or are they gambling?
Mild weather and low tides bring visitors in at any time, even in the middle of winter. But the 'summer' visitor season usually kicks off well before Easter and then receives a further shot in the arm when the school 'season' opens, or rather, when the schools close. Then, all the trains - main line and steam - are busy and the trippers, many of them grans and grampas, troop away from the stations usually with grandchildren and dogs in tow, looking for a seafront place in the sun.
This is also the season when the locals do their own shopping early, before 10.30am, otherwise  there is nowhere to park and little pleasure to be gained in wandering crowded pavements.
The carnival season, and events like the potty (Morris dance) day, extend this period somewhat; but then, as soon as the schools go back, it is noticeable that droves of grans and gramps, perhaps worn ragged by a summer of entertaining the grandchildren, take two or three weeks' off, or even a day or two off, and come back in order to be able to watch the crab boats launching off the beach and to watch the sea in peace.
The next season is a strange one, for in our town 'summer' is further extended by a 1940s weekend. Originally centered on the steam railway station, it now embraces the whole town and is becoming bigger and more successful every year. In essence, enthusiasts come from all over the country in order to enjoy it or, more likely, to take part in it.
Ostensibly, this is a 'late kicker' for holiday trade, because after that, after all the traditional and mid-year seasons have come and gone, then the town depends almost entirely not only on the inevitable Christmas season, which flickers into life in November, but also on those other factors mentioned earlier: weather, and low tides.
This, of course, is known as the late Autumn or Winter season which, once the Christmas season has ended, comes into its own early the following year when the locals are largely left to their own devices again. Until the early ice cream season begins and all the other seasons start to roll once again, of course.

MAGGOTBOX

It may come as a mild surprise to today's savvy generations to learn that only 35 years' ago steps were being taken by the UK military authorities to rehearse the physical control of aggressive and rioting civilian protesters. I say 'mild,' because the police do this sort of thing all the time. Crowd control, and all that. But this was the Territorial Army, with guns, training in Norfolk's busy Stanford Battle Area.
It was also at the height of the Cold War when there were problems everywhere and lots of tension. Ground to air missiles at North Pickenham, Neatishead's radar operators keeping an eye on non-NATO aircraft zooming across the North Sea, Lakenheath jets loaded with nuclear bombs and ready to go, Norfolk's 'war room' with its four-minute warning, the CND protesting, military planners wanting nuclear warheads deployed in Thetford's forests, and spyplanes creeping around the edges of space peeking at the Soviets and their satellites.
Thinking I ought to see what was going on, militarily, I sought permission to join the TA on one of their Battle Area exercises. They said 'yes,' and I still have a copy of the Press briefing notes, and an Army map, dating to that time. The notes describe the training area (17,500 acres of mixed woodland, fir plantations, marshes and deserted villages) and range facilities, point out that in 1975 some 66,000 troops used the facility, and list among 'potential tresspassers' into the area 'fire raisers' and 'saboteurs of expensive equipment.' There was also another category at the bottom of the same list, scrubbed out by someone's black Biro, which originally read, 'students and militants.'
The TA detachment I joined for three days was billeted at Bodney camp, beside the B1108, where we were all briefed and given jobs. As a neutral, I was asked to join a car load of soldiers (in civvies, one with a cine camera) who were ordered to tour the area's guarded facilities, pretend to be a civvy media team, and try to extract information from the unsuspecting sentries.
No-one, they assured me, would get into trouble. It was for assessment purposes only. So I agreed to join, and we sweet-talked sentries at three or four guarded facilities - mostly around Watton and Croxton - and managed to weedle out of them assorted information about what they were guarding, how many guards there were, and so on. The TA brass, I think, were pleased with our efforts but appalled by the results.
The big effort came the next day and involved a set-piece 'battle' in the middle of the forest between dozens of troops and opponents, loosely described as 'the enemy.' Off the record, I was told, they might be Red Army paratroopers. Or, I suppose, students and militants.
Anyway, the exercise began with a pre-dawn assembly at Brack Wood, near Buckenham Tofts park, the troops moving to the start-line in White House Strip and Square Wood, with a forward element alongside Union Belt. Then at the appointed hour the assault (using blanks, of course) on Maggotbox Wood and Bramble Wood began. It was very noisy, even exciting. And out chaps won, of course, the Red infiltrators and their weapons being pushed back towards The Arms and then surrounded. 'Prisoners', I think, were taken.
It was all explained away at the time as a necessary 'trial run' in case terrorists and such-like infiltrated the area, and it echoed the tension of the time. What was more difficult to grasp was the full implication of such preparations - the Army 'shooting' at students, or civilian protesters. Mind you, at the time we didn't fully grasp the implications of a nuclear attack on the region, either.

PEDDARS UPDATE

I have always found the Peddars Way - Norfolk's best surviving Roman road, which runs from Stanton Chare in Suffolk to the north Norfolk coast - intriguing in terms of its basics, namely when and why. When was it built, AD47 or post-AD60/61? And why? A military patrol road, a route to a ferry, supply road, or all of these things?
MC Bishop's new book does not answer these questions directly, but it does present a cluster of fresh perspectives on Roman roads in Britain in general, and some of his points seem to have a bearing on the Peddars Way and its beginnings and later use.
First, he suggests, the Romans did not invent hard-surface roadways or even bring the idea with them. Britain already had some routes with hard-surface sections long before the Romans arrived, and there is increasing evidence for them (including causeways, of course) in several places, opening up the possibility that some of these roads (as opposed to tracks) may date from the Iron Age or even the Bronze Age.
Second, the author suggests, the Romans would not have had the time during the invasion phase to begin construction, which throws into question previous thoughts that the Legions might have built their roads as they advanced. His argument is that, with time short and calls on manpower pressing, the advancing Legions would, as far as possible, simply have used existing prehistoric tracks.
Third, he argues that it could only have been during the later consolidation phase - after the invaders had found the local networks with their wandering and muddy surfaces utterly unsuitable for marching troops, and for carts and wagons - that the business of constructing their own roads actually began.
And four, what the Romans actually introduced to Britain was not hard surfaces but all-weather roads, laid out by surveyors with an understanding of gradients and curves, complete with drainage systems. Military and strategic use of almost every part of the network was paramount, so in other words, they simply, and rather skillfully, updated the existing native network.
So how can we apply this to the Peddars Way? Well, if Mr Bishop is right about the Legions using the native network - which seems a logical suggestion - then perhaps they did incorporate into their roads some of the tracks already existing in west and north-west Norfolk. It has been written about before and some writers have said, without recourse to caution, that they did. Yet I don't believe there is any hard evidence for it at all, one reason being that we do not know where the Iron Age or Bronze Age tracks were in the first place.
But here's a thought: maybe the Peddars Way, or sections of it, is actually an updated and improved replacement for Norfolk's part of the Icknield Way. In other words, perhaps the Peddars Way does incorporate pieces of the much-older Icknield.
Another strand of thought in the book is that the Roman military and supply roads, with their all-weather surfaces, bridges and fords, clearly brought long-term benefit to the inhabitants of these islands, particularly during the Medieval period.
It is difficult to argue against that. And it is easy to forget, perhaps, that even today's road network is, by and large, a patchwork, or an accumulation, of many other older networks.
(The Secret History of the Roman Roads of Britain. By MC Bishop. Pen & Sword, 2014)

JUST VISITING

In terms of mammals, birds, creepy-crawlies and suchlike, which are native to Norfolk? More to the point, which are non-native, or visitors from abroad which have stayed on and made their homes here? The question is not social or political, but a matter of natural history.
The usual yardstick for 'native' is anything already here when the sea flooded in to form our islands. But how many mammal species have arrived since then? About 20 per cent, apparently, according to figures I was given in 1980. To take the matter further - and the numbers may have changed over the years - of the 52 species then recorded in Norfolk, introduced mammals accounted for ten, the greatest influences on this influx being arrivals by sea and ship, landowners and estates, pet shops and zoos. But that tells only part of the story. For example, the domestic cat and the house mouse are visitors, too.
One of the earliest introductions is the pheasant, originally Oriental and known in Britain before AD 1058. Another success story is the red-leg partridge, an introduction which now outnumbers the common partridge. In 1785 capercaillie were brought in from Norway by Thomas Fowell Buxton, of Northrepps and Cromer. The experiment failed, but by 1835 they were in Scotland in useful numbers.
The Canada goose, an Eastern Atlantic bird, was in London in 1675 and probably reached Norfolk via Wretham and Holkham parks where, in 1941, there was a flock of 200. They are now a familiar sight at Holkham and clearly see the place as an ancestral home. The Mandarin duck, first reported breeding in the Broads in 1977, is thought to have arrived about 1599. Woburn had a colony in 1900, and there were others at a Norfolk game farm.
As for the little owl, occasional birds were spotted in the 1800s, and in 1876 six youngsters were brought to Kimberley Hall. The project failed, and it was not until 1901 that the little owl finally settled in East Anglia. Similar attempts were made to establish the budgerigar (from Australia) in the wild, and they did breed near Downham Market and the west of Norwich in the 1970s, but by and large numbers were decimated by hard winters. Cetti's warblers arrived under their own steam, while various attempts were made to establish the ring-necked parakeet, most particularly at Northrepps. In the late 1970s several sightings were reported.
There have been various reports of wallabies over the years. Three pairs escaped from the Gurney zoo at Northrepps in the 1850s, and others appeared in the Peak District. Chinese water deer were brought to Woburn in the 1900s, and there were escapes from Woburn and Whipsnade during the 1940s. Muntjac were first recorded at Hickling, but it is not known when or from where they arrived. Fallow deer are said to have been introduced by the Romans, and red and roe deer, once extinct in the Brecks, were reintroduced by the sporting estates. Japanese sika deer arrived in the 1860s.
The black rat was largely ousted by the brown rat, which arrived in the 1890s, while excavations at Castle Acre suggested the beaver and the polecat/ferret were around in the 12th century. In the 1800s attempts were made to introduce the grey squirrel, but not until 1860/90 were large enough numbers released to start viable populations. In 1902 some 250 were released, and in 1934 they were introduced at Northrepps. The combined effect was to drive the red squirrel into retreat.
Coypu arrived at nutria farms in the 1920s and 1930s - in 1962 Norfolk had the largest population in the world when they peaked at about 200,000 - while mink came in at the same time. Not even the rabbit is thought to be native. As for the edible frog, it was introduced by the Romans, while a colony at Thetford was probably descended from introductions at Morton Hall. In 1837 some 200 frogs were brought from France, followed in 1841/42 by other Continental batches. They were found in the wild near Thetford in 1853.

SELF SUFFICIENT?

On Friday mornings during the years immediately after the Second World War, when we were waiting for the school bus to take us to Spalding, it became the custom to stand outside the nearby waggon works and watch men putting iron 'tyres' on to the wheels of newly-made farm carts. There was a circular indentation in the concrete forecourt into which they placed a new wooden wheel, and then the heated and sometimes red-hot iron rim was hammered into place. Once done, water was poured into the hole, causing it to sizzle and steam and the rim to cool and contract and grip. 
It was a thrilling sight - sometimes there were six brand new farm carts lined up outside, their freshly painted pale salmon-coloured liveries lined with black, drying in the sun - but in the late 1940s it was routine. What is more, there were two other waggon works in the town doing the same, or similar, work.
Looking back from a distance of sixty years it is plain our small town - Long Sutton, in south Lincolnshire - was self-sufficient in many things, except coal, and like many communities could pretty much look after itself. For example, in the market place, or close by, were two grocery stores (where everything was sliced or weighed on the spot and placed in blue paper bags ready for delivery by boys on bikes), two printing and newsagent shops, an ironmonger, two or more butchers, two barbers, a wool shop, two clothing shops, several greengrocers, three bakers, two sweet shops, a couple of blacksmiths, and a coal yard next to the railway station.
But it was Swapcote Corner which really fascinated me. This was a curved and somewhat ramshackle series of frontages which faced the main road and then tailed round into Swapcote Lane. There were four premises here, all long gone, at least two of them built of timber and corrugated zinc.
First and closest to the town was Mr Tasker, the cobbler, who not only repaired shoes and boots but actually made them, too. You could see him through the window hammering at his last when you walked by on the way into town, or when going home. Second was Jenkinson's garage, where some of my friends made extra pocket money by taking the family wireless accumulator to be re-charged. It was a source of income denied me as our wireless was plugged directly into the mains electricity, or rather, and as was the method then, into the main light plug.
Third was Mr Parrott, saddler and leatherworker. When the town's agricultural show was in the offing his workshop would be 'decorated' with lines of brand new saddles and sets of harness. And fourth was Mr Franks, who in the mornings was a postman, delivering mail far and wide on his bicycle, and in the afternoons, a tinsmith. He also sold paraffin for cookers. I used to watch him in his little shop tap-tap-tapping the shiny sheets of metal into saucepans and trays and kettles. He also repaired items which were clearly meant to last, because we still have and still occasionally use a baking tray which originally belonged to my parents and which he probably made sometimes in the 1940s.
The postman/tinsmith was in fact one of a well-known trio of Franks' business people in the town, another being a jeweller and the third a printer, which earned the three of them the nicknames of Tinny, Clocky and Inky.
Of course, I don't suppose the town really was self-sufficient, but at the time it certainly felt as though everything we actually needed was close to hand.

JOHN MONEY

I first encountered tales of John Money during a visit to the grassy slopes and high elevations of the American War of Independence battlefield at Saratoga. Money, from Norfolk, UK, was an officer in General Burgoyne's ill-fated army which finally surrendered to American forces in October, 1777. He and his companions then spent the next three years in captivity. But there was much more to Mr Money than this.
Major John Money was born in 1740, the son of a tenant farmer at Trowse, near Norwich. John eventually joined the Norfolk Militia and then the 6th Eniskillen Dragoons, while during the Seven Years' War he was with Elliot's Light Horse and present at the battle of Tillinghausen. By 1771 he had transferred to the 9th (Norfolk) Regiment of Foot, where he was eventually promoted to the position of Deputy Assistant Quarter-Master-General.
Returning to England in 1781 following his US captivity, he retired from the army as a major on half-pay in 1784 and, back at Trowse, built a mansion he named Crown Point - better known today as Whitlingham Hall - close to the location of his father's former farm. Now in his mid-forties, Money could have retired to become a country gentleman. Instead, he evidently craved further excitement, and in the end turned to the latest innovation - ballooning.
Money's first flight took place in June, 1785, from Tottenham Court Road, in London. With two other companions 'in the basket' this so-called 'British balloon' took off, but after losing gas it came down near Abridge in Essex. Later, it took off again, this time with only two crew, including Money, and finally descended near Maldon, having covered 40 miles.
A month later Major Money was at it again, this time flying from Quantrell's Gardens in Norwich, watched by several thousand spectators. The plan was that it would fly with a crew of three, but because of difficulties with the inflation the passengers had to be reduced to one - Money - who took off and promptly discovered there was a problem with the gas release valve.
Unable to make landfall, Money and the balloon drifted out to sea, eventually coming down in the early evening about 20 miles off Southwold. Various boats set off in the dark to find him, and a Dutch boat saw him but did not stop. He was in the water for five hours until at about 11.30pm he was finally rescued by a Harwich cutter. Apparently none the worse for his adventures, he was taken to Lowestoft, feted as a celebrity and given grog. Then he took a post-chaise back to Crown Point.
The episode made Money famous, but his adventures were still not over. Returning to military life, he fought for Belgium against the Austrians, was present in Paris during the French Revolution - leaving shortly before the king was executed - and maintained an interest in the military possibilities of ballooning. In 1806 he addressed a letter to the Secretary of State for War on the defence of London against a possible French invasion.
John Money died in 1817, aged 77. He was a significant pioneer of early flying, the first soldier to fly, a military theorist and adventurer, an important figure on the local social scene, and probably the first aeronaut to be rescued at sea. He was buried at St Andrew's church, Trowse.
(Flying Lives With a Norfolk Theme, by Peter B Gunn. Published, Peter Gunn, 2010)

DROVING DAYS

In the decades before a rapid growth of the railway system changed the face of Britain forever, and for some decades afterwards, long-distance cattle droving was an everyday occurrence. One of the main channels of supply to the English market - though by no means the only one - led from Scotland, where hardy black Galloway cattle flourished, all the way south to Norfolk and the St Faith's selling fair, and then to London's Smithfield market, quite often following rest and fattening on the Norfolk/Suffolk marshes. 
In the late 1990s, while researching a novel (Hudson's Drove - see publications list), I travelled to Scotland by car and then turned south and followed one of these droving routes back to Norfolk.
Traces of this once vast trade are hard to find nowadays, but bits and pieces do still survive: folklore stories; banknotes, devised so that drovers did not need to carry coins; pubs called The Black Bull, or something similar; small items, such as iron shoes, at various local museums; and so on. And the occasional word. Stance, for example, which meant an overnight stopping place (and in Dumfries, at least, now means a bus stop).
As for these lingering stories, I particularly like the one of the Norfolk drover who, having reached Smithfield and being in receipt of his money, regularly ordered his dog to return to Norwich, alone and using its own devices. The owner, of course, had previously made monetary arrangements for it to be fed and rested at various hostelries along the way.
I went by car to Dumfries and then drove north through Thornhill towards the Lowther Hills, once one of the great trysting or meeting places of the herds. Here, the deals were done, contracts signed, and droves assembled. Then the vast herds would set off for Norfolk accompanied by four or five drovers using several possible routes, most usually Bowness (though this involved a dangerous crossing of the Solway Firth at low water), or more often, one suspects, Gretna and Carlisle. My own route took me through Lazonby and Bowes, Catterick, Wetherby and Retford, and on to Bourne, where the drovers must have faced yet another choice.
To get to Wisbech for the crossing of the river Nene they could either follow the inland route across the marshy fenlands, or turn east towards Spalding and Long Sutton. However, unless they turned south at Long Sutton towards Wisbech this would also have entailed another dangerous estuary crossing, this time at the old Cross Keys terminal close by what is now Sutton Bridge.
I'm sure this Cross Keys route into Norfolk was tried by some of the drovers, but other than the names of a couple of pubs - The Bull, for example - or Dockings Holt, which may or may not have been a cattle holding area, I have never come across any reference to my home town, Long Sutton, having any regular role in the long-distance trade. My guess, for what it is worth, is that the herds stuck largely to the inland fen route and crossed the Nene at Wisbech.
Once over the Nene the drovers would then move into Norfolk at Setch (or Setchy) before beginning the final lap of their journey to St Faith's Fair, held not far from Norwich. Here the cattle would be sorted and sold and later rested before making their last journey, to London's Smithfield market.
The spread of the rail network killed off the long-distance trade, though droving on a smaller scale continued at local levels until many of the old livestock markets faded away and the cattle were carted by lorry. Nevertheless, the Scotland-Norfolk droves must have been a memorable sight, while the head drovers, despite their sometimes colourful reputations, were very largely men of honour. Indeed, they had to be as they were trusted, for weeks on end, with stock worth a very great deal of money.

THE BRECKLANDS

I still recall the day I fell in love with the Brecklands. It was in 1973/74, and some months after I had changed jobs and become a newspaper columnist instead of a soccer scribe, and had arranged to meet someone who lived in a village on the edge of the forest. I drove into the Brecks, an area I did not know at all, and finding there was time to spare, stopped the car in a layby to consult a map.
When I glanced up again it was as though I was surrounded by light. An early light snowfall had dusted the ranks of conifer belts which lined the verges on both sides, and shafts of sunlight speared through gaps in the trees, adding a crystalline sheen to the snow on the ground, and on the trees, all of it emanating from a brilliant pale blue and Spring-like sky.
From that very first moment, that first connection, I was hooked and constantly lured back. The very thought of an excursion into the racks and rides of the plantations would set my pulse racing, and probably still does even though I now live much further away from the area than I did then.
And so over the years we have walked and camped and picknicked and holidayed in the Brecks, and the thrill has always been the same. Grassy, sunlit paths, the quietness and resinous smell of the plantations, and distant perspectives of dusty-dry fields surrounded by silhouetted lines of gnarled Scots pines, twisted and leaning like queues of tottering ancient folk.
Even its modern history is fascinating. In 1677 the diarist John Evelyn, visiting Euston Hall, wrote of the soil that it was dry, barren and 'miserably' sandy. And almost a century later, William Gilpin, travelling the area in 1769, commented that 'nothing was to be seen on either side but sand and scattered gravel without the least vegetation: a mere African desert.' Sand there certainly was. For a time, Santon Downham was known as Sandy Downham, and for good reason.
Then in the 18th and 19th centuries tracts of heathland were brought into cultivation, and following a report by the agricultural writer Arthur Young, for the Board of Agriculture, woods and shelter belts and lines of trees began to be planted to divide the fields, stabilise the soils, and provide cover for game birds. Later still, large areas were enclosed, the tree of choice being the Scots pine. Then, shortly after the First World War, the Forestry Commission acquired lots of cheap land hereabouts and began tree planting with such success that by 1935 about 55,000 acres had been covered.
It should be said, of course, that many people still do not like these sombre plantations, and it is true they can be interpreted as regimented and sterile. But things have changed much over the past few decades, and the nature of the forests has evolved.There is much more deciduous planting than there used to be, bringing a softening to the hitherto hard lines of the blocks of conifers, and a greater public freedom now that most of the No Entry signs are part of its historical past.
Frankly, I love the plantations, the smell of pine, the dusty paths and tracks, the wild strawberries, rosebay willow-herb and brilliant yellow gorse, the darting passage and fleeting glimpses of deer, patches of sunlight, birds, and sometimes, on hot days, a profound cathedral-like stillness. 
The Brecklands are riddled with history, social, military, and archaeological, layers of human activity which have added to, rather than detracted from, this marvellous and often under-appreciated area.