FINALE?
In about six months' time I shall be eighty years' old and I have decided that, as from today, I shall write no more blogs, at least for the time being. There are a host of reasons: I have been ill, I am running out of ideas, and I want to do other things. None of these reasons are remotely earth-shattering, but to me they seem very relevant.
And what other things do I want to do? Well, daubing acrylics pictures, listening to music, staring at the sea, family history research, and doing as much of nothing as I can get away with.
Seriously, for some time it has occurred to me that I don't have a lot fresh left to say, having scribbled and burbled far too much, anyway, over the last 65 years. Football? Much less interested that I was. Books to read? Absolutely. Transfixed by the boundless possibilities of digital technology? Not really. It's a useful tool, but so was a sharpened flint.
So after about 140 blogs I might have reached the bottom of the bucket. Have enjoyed it, though, and I have enjoyed your company. Perhaps we'll meet again some time.
Monday 29 December 2014
Sunday 28 December 2014
BOOKS UNWRITTEN
On my sixteenth birthday my father gave me a second-hand portable typewriter, a clunky contraption by today's standards, I suppose, encased in a stout wooden box complete with carrying handle. I have no idea where he got it from, but there was a deal of good sense behind the gift. I had just left school and was about to start my first job, as a cub reporter on a local weekly newspaper in south Lincolnshire. Now I was able to teach myself how to hammer the keys and write something, a skill which - I recall - impressed my new colleagues for a few seconds when I did finally report for duty.
But the old typewriter - manufacturer and model long forgotten - did something else, too. It brought about what some now call a light-bulb moment. I can remember very clearly sitting with the machine perched on a little table, rolling in a sheet of paper, and starting to write. Starting to write a novel, for goodness sake. Something about Paris, an aircraft which crashed in the Himalayas, a hunt for survivors, and about the rediscovery of letters and diaries thought lost forever in the Nepalese snows. And so forth. I think I wrote twenty or thirty pages of text.
Then I stopped because it slowly dawned on me I couldn't do it. I had never been to the Himalayas or even seen mountains - I came from the Fens, remember, and this was a period of Austerity - had never explored Paris or even flown in an aeroplane. In fact, I had never been out of the country. So a few weeks' later I tossed the pages into a waste bin having learned two valuable lessons: that I now knew that above all else I wanted to write; and that if I write then it would need to be about things I knew set in places I had actually visited.
The thrill of the moment sparked by that old typewriter over sixty years' ago, that light-bulb moment, has never faded or gone away. Even today the desire remains, for I have loved querty keyboards and books ever since. It is true, of course, that during the subsequent sixty years I have written, quite a lot, for newspapers, mainly, and magazines and books, and more recently, this blog. But I was never able to make a living out of fiction. Couldn't make the breakthrough. Didn't try hard enough. Unable to cut the mustard. Not good enough, I suppose.
The trouble is that whereas the actual desire to physically write something can and sometimes does diminish with age, ideas of what to write do not stop flowing. One consequence is that I have three or four completed novels in MS form waiting in limbo in dusty drawers and tatty folders, along with notes for at least five more.
These, I have no doubt, will remain unwritten. They are simply frozen ideas which will never see the light of day. Thus, a shortening of concentration levels is one thing; the thought and frustration of finishing another novel and then simply shoving it in the drawer is another.
So here's a toast to the pile of unread books sitting on my bedside table, awaiting their turn, and to all unwritten books, the forlorn piles of ideas and research notes bundled together with elastic bands. And here's to the time spent on fascinating but ultimately wasted research, to half-remembered ideas and to an inability to do them justice.
Actually, I am beginning to believe that unwritten books are a marvellous resource. There should be a library for them somewhere.
On my sixteenth birthday my father gave me a second-hand portable typewriter, a clunky contraption by today's standards, I suppose, encased in a stout wooden box complete with carrying handle. I have no idea where he got it from, but there was a deal of good sense behind the gift. I had just left school and was about to start my first job, as a cub reporter on a local weekly newspaper in south Lincolnshire. Now I was able to teach myself how to hammer the keys and write something, a skill which - I recall - impressed my new colleagues for a few seconds when I did finally report for duty.
But the old typewriter - manufacturer and model long forgotten - did something else, too. It brought about what some now call a light-bulb moment. I can remember very clearly sitting with the machine perched on a little table, rolling in a sheet of paper, and starting to write. Starting to write a novel, for goodness sake. Something about Paris, an aircraft which crashed in the Himalayas, a hunt for survivors, and about the rediscovery of letters and diaries thought lost forever in the Nepalese snows. And so forth. I think I wrote twenty or thirty pages of text.
Then I stopped because it slowly dawned on me I couldn't do it. I had never been to the Himalayas or even seen mountains - I came from the Fens, remember, and this was a period of Austerity - had never explored Paris or even flown in an aeroplane. In fact, I had never been out of the country. So a few weeks' later I tossed the pages into a waste bin having learned two valuable lessons: that I now knew that above all else I wanted to write; and that if I write then it would need to be about things I knew set in places I had actually visited.
The thrill of the moment sparked by that old typewriter over sixty years' ago, that light-bulb moment, has never faded or gone away. Even today the desire remains, for I have loved querty keyboards and books ever since. It is true, of course, that during the subsequent sixty years I have written, quite a lot, for newspapers, mainly, and magazines and books, and more recently, this blog. But I was never able to make a living out of fiction. Couldn't make the breakthrough. Didn't try hard enough. Unable to cut the mustard. Not good enough, I suppose.
The trouble is that whereas the actual desire to physically write something can and sometimes does diminish with age, ideas of what to write do not stop flowing. One consequence is that I have three or four completed novels in MS form waiting in limbo in dusty drawers and tatty folders, along with notes for at least five more.
These, I have no doubt, will remain unwritten. They are simply frozen ideas which will never see the light of day. Thus, a shortening of concentration levels is one thing; the thought and frustration of finishing another novel and then simply shoving it in the drawer is another.
So here's a toast to the pile of unread books sitting on my bedside table, awaiting their turn, and to all unwritten books, the forlorn piles of ideas and research notes bundled together with elastic bands. And here's to the time spent on fascinating but ultimately wasted research, to half-remembered ideas and to an inability to do them justice.
Actually, I am beginning to believe that unwritten books are a marvellous resource. There should be a library for them somewhere.
Tuesday 23 December 2014
IN TIME OF WAR
It was a very small moment in time, an inconsequential fragment of the Second World War. All one can say is that it may have been significant to those who actually took part. Or maybe not. Perhaps it was all a little too tongue-in-cheek. Either way, the story is recounted in a copy of a newspaper cutting dated July 22, 1940, and it concerned a Norfolk village detachment of the LDV (Local Defence Volunteers), the hastily organised forerunners of the Home Guard.
Apparently they had built for themselves a fortification, or blockade, on the village green. What sort of fortification was not made clear, but it is obvious they were proud of it because they decided to organise a weekend exercise and place their defences under 'attack.' So they informed the Army and managed to book the services of some 'umpires' to check fair play and rule who was dead or captured, and so on. The ages of the LDV group evidently ranged from 15 to 63, and included one gentleman apparently determined to sort out the invaders with his fists.
On the appointed evening they mustered at the Green. Uniforms and rifles were issued to the defenders, while the 'Germans' were in mufti. Then, suddenly, car loads of Top Brass turned up to watch, as did most of the rest of the population of the village. And the battle did not begin well. As the defenders began to set up outposts, the 'enemy' suddenly appeared and started to lob 'hand grenades' (actually, tennis balls) which, an umpire ruled, had immediately 'killed' the commander of the defenders without a shot having been fired.
Then a mystery car appeared in the distance, drove unchallenged by one outpost and pulled up at the blockade. Suddenly, two more attackers leapt out, hurled their 'bombs' and charged the defences. Again, the umpire ruled both attackers and one defender 'dead.'
The situation appeared grim, but at this point another attacker appeared from out of the long, wet grass and hurled his 'bomb' which, alas for him, hit the side of the fortification and bounced back. The attacker was immediately ruled 'dead,' having been 'killed' by his own bomb.
This greatly cheered the defenders but, alas, they celebrated too soon. Unknown to them, another attacker had climbed to the roof of an adjoining farm house, and from the protection of the chimney stack had thrown his tennis ball with unerring accuracy into the middle of the blockade. The umpires ruled immediately that the entire garrison had been wiped out. Oddly, it did not dampen enthusiasm, for the report also adds that they were all greatly encouraged by the experience.
There are three interesting side issues to all this, one being that shortly after the action the over-confident LDV issued a another challenge, this time to a neighbouring village, to see if they could wipe out the fortification. Also, a typewritten note on the copy of the cutting explains that the article had been 'heavily censored and not sub-edited on its return.' In other words, the EDP printed it exactly as it had come back from the censor's office. Which may or may not explain some of the article's descriptive ambiguities.
A third point is that I have a suspicion - and this is a guess - that the village at the centre of all this excitment was Felthorpe, which is not far from Weston Longville. However, I didn't know Felthorpe had a village green. Or a fortfication for that matter.
(Our Village LDV, cutting, Eastern Daily Press, July 22, 1940)
It was a very small moment in time, an inconsequential fragment of the Second World War. All one can say is that it may have been significant to those who actually took part. Or maybe not. Perhaps it was all a little too tongue-in-cheek. Either way, the story is recounted in a copy of a newspaper cutting dated July 22, 1940, and it concerned a Norfolk village detachment of the LDV (Local Defence Volunteers), the hastily organised forerunners of the Home Guard.
Apparently they had built for themselves a fortification, or blockade, on the village green. What sort of fortification was not made clear, but it is obvious they were proud of it because they decided to organise a weekend exercise and place their defences under 'attack.' So they informed the Army and managed to book the services of some 'umpires' to check fair play and rule who was dead or captured, and so on. The ages of the LDV group evidently ranged from 15 to 63, and included one gentleman apparently determined to sort out the invaders with his fists.
On the appointed evening they mustered at the Green. Uniforms and rifles were issued to the defenders, while the 'Germans' were in mufti. Then, suddenly, car loads of Top Brass turned up to watch, as did most of the rest of the population of the village. And the battle did not begin well. As the defenders began to set up outposts, the 'enemy' suddenly appeared and started to lob 'hand grenades' (actually, tennis balls) which, an umpire ruled, had immediately 'killed' the commander of the defenders without a shot having been fired.
Then a mystery car appeared in the distance, drove unchallenged by one outpost and pulled up at the blockade. Suddenly, two more attackers leapt out, hurled their 'bombs' and charged the defences. Again, the umpire ruled both attackers and one defender 'dead.'
The situation appeared grim, but at this point another attacker appeared from out of the long, wet grass and hurled his 'bomb' which, alas for him, hit the side of the fortification and bounced back. The attacker was immediately ruled 'dead,' having been 'killed' by his own bomb.
This greatly cheered the defenders but, alas, they celebrated too soon. Unknown to them, another attacker had climbed to the roof of an adjoining farm house, and from the protection of the chimney stack had thrown his tennis ball with unerring accuracy into the middle of the blockade. The umpires ruled immediately that the entire garrison had been wiped out. Oddly, it did not dampen enthusiasm, for the report also adds that they were all greatly encouraged by the experience.
There are three interesting side issues to all this, one being that shortly after the action the over-confident LDV issued a another challenge, this time to a neighbouring village, to see if they could wipe out the fortification. Also, a typewritten note on the copy of the cutting explains that the article had been 'heavily censored and not sub-edited on its return.' In other words, the EDP printed it exactly as it had come back from the censor's office. Which may or may not explain some of the article's descriptive ambiguities.
A third point is that I have a suspicion - and this is a guess - that the village at the centre of all this excitment was Felthorpe, which is not far from Weston Longville. However, I didn't know Felthorpe had a village green. Or a fortfication for that matter.
(Our Village LDV, cutting, Eastern Daily Press, July 22, 1940)
Sunday 21 December 2014
FEN MEMORIES
The diarist Samuel Pepys described the Fens as a 'heathen place,' and Daniel Defoe noted there was a lot of water and, more often than not, fogs. Other members of the literary fraternity have also made use of the atmospheric potential, including Edward Storey and Graham Swift. Even Dorothy L Sayers allowed Lord Peter Wimsey to linger hereabouts and become sucked into a 1934 saga of churches, bellringing, and fenland murder and mayhem.
Of course, there is a lot less water about now, thanks to modern drainage, but a general feeling of loneliness and wateriness is still inescapable. It drips off every map, lives on in place-names (Lakesend, Walsoken, Outwell, Ten Mile Bank, Welney, Sluice Common, Salters Lode, Fen End, The Smeeth, Well Creek, etc) and has even spawned an ancient technical language: leam, sluice, lode, cut, roddon, channel, level, dyke, eau, hyde, drain and drove.
It seems to me there are at least three sorts of fen: the salty creeks of the Wash basin, the brown tones of marshland, and the black peat fens, further inland. We lived in marshland, and by and large, and other than home and home town, I disliked it, hated its raw-toothed scruffiness, its straight-line fields and drains and messy farms. On the other hand, there were moments when the great openness of the all-embracing sky and low horizons plucked a nerve or an emotion. It always was a question of balance, and now that nostalgia has taken over from immediacy I can think again of those vast, threatening spaces with rather more affection.
In a sense this balance, and indeed the fens and marshes themselves, seem directly related to the region's perennial flood/tide conundrum. If these fertile lands are to be used for agriculture and not left vulnerable to waterlogging, then they have to be drained. And if they are drained, then they will gradually sink and begin to erode.
The situation remains the same today. Inches can measure the difference between fertility and flooding, and always there is the brooding knowledge that if rainfall and river levels, high tides and high winds ever do combine - as they have, and doubtless will again - then only banks and sluices stand between safety and inundation.
So the fens (and marshland) exist in a world of their own - albeit greatly changed from Vermuyden's day - where the centuries have bred hard-working, resolute, independent people who know the real price and value of things, and created a no-nonsense landscape of huge fields, waterways, long roads, grassy banks and lonely farms which can, and sometimes do, hint at some future disaster.
As some of the most fertile land in the country it is also some of the most heavily cropped. When I began work in Spalding in 1951 I remember being told that a family, working hard enough to develop frost-knotted hands, could earn a living from a greenhouse and ten to 15 acres of land. Not a good living, but a living. Since then, changing times and agri-business have made inroads into the economics of smallholders, but the fertility - save the occasional fen blow - remains. Wheat, potatoes, vegetables, celery, apples and sugar beet. The spirit of the old 'fen tigers' remains intact.
As a youthful cyclist I recall these fieldscapes and vistas which, at the time, suggested nothingness. Huge skies, tall church spires, and winds that came out of nowhere to buffet and jostle and cajole. And mud. Oceans of it. And solitary trees, and no cover when the rain came. Hated it then, as I have said. Look upon it a little more kindly now.
But I would never go back. Not to live there, anyway. And yet by some means, and after all these years away, it still feels as though I have a little mud left on my boots.
The diarist Samuel Pepys described the Fens as a 'heathen place,' and Daniel Defoe noted there was a lot of water and, more often than not, fogs. Other members of the literary fraternity have also made use of the atmospheric potential, including Edward Storey and Graham Swift. Even Dorothy L Sayers allowed Lord Peter Wimsey to linger hereabouts and become sucked into a 1934 saga of churches, bellringing, and fenland murder and mayhem.
Of course, there is a lot less water about now, thanks to modern drainage, but a general feeling of loneliness and wateriness is still inescapable. It drips off every map, lives on in place-names (Lakesend, Walsoken, Outwell, Ten Mile Bank, Welney, Sluice Common, Salters Lode, Fen End, The Smeeth, Well Creek, etc) and has even spawned an ancient technical language: leam, sluice, lode, cut, roddon, channel, level, dyke, eau, hyde, drain and drove.
It seems to me there are at least three sorts of fen: the salty creeks of the Wash basin, the brown tones of marshland, and the black peat fens, further inland. We lived in marshland, and by and large, and other than home and home town, I disliked it, hated its raw-toothed scruffiness, its straight-line fields and drains and messy farms. On the other hand, there were moments when the great openness of the all-embracing sky and low horizons plucked a nerve or an emotion. It always was a question of balance, and now that nostalgia has taken over from immediacy I can think again of those vast, threatening spaces with rather more affection.
In a sense this balance, and indeed the fens and marshes themselves, seem directly related to the region's perennial flood/tide conundrum. If these fertile lands are to be used for agriculture and not left vulnerable to waterlogging, then they have to be drained. And if they are drained, then they will gradually sink and begin to erode.
The situation remains the same today. Inches can measure the difference between fertility and flooding, and always there is the brooding knowledge that if rainfall and river levels, high tides and high winds ever do combine - as they have, and doubtless will again - then only banks and sluices stand between safety and inundation.
So the fens (and marshland) exist in a world of their own - albeit greatly changed from Vermuyden's day - where the centuries have bred hard-working, resolute, independent people who know the real price and value of things, and created a no-nonsense landscape of huge fields, waterways, long roads, grassy banks and lonely farms which can, and sometimes do, hint at some future disaster.
As some of the most fertile land in the country it is also some of the most heavily cropped. When I began work in Spalding in 1951 I remember being told that a family, working hard enough to develop frost-knotted hands, could earn a living from a greenhouse and ten to 15 acres of land. Not a good living, but a living. Since then, changing times and agri-business have made inroads into the economics of smallholders, but the fertility - save the occasional fen blow - remains. Wheat, potatoes, vegetables, celery, apples and sugar beet. The spirit of the old 'fen tigers' remains intact.
As a youthful cyclist I recall these fieldscapes and vistas which, at the time, suggested nothingness. Huge skies, tall church spires, and winds that came out of nowhere to buffet and jostle and cajole. And mud. Oceans of it. And solitary trees, and no cover when the rain came. Hated it then, as I have said. Look upon it a little more kindly now.
But I would never go back. Not to live there, anyway. And yet by some means, and after all these years away, it still feels as though I have a little mud left on my boots.
Wednesday 17 December 2014
TEXEL'S TORMENT
Looking back, it must have been one of the most perplexing moments of the Second World War. And no-one was more perplexed at the time than coastguards Reg Earl and Howard Dawes, duty night-time lookouts at Mundesley beach who, during the dark early hours of April 10, 1945, saw a signal light out to sea and glimpsed the outline of an open boat. On board were what looked like armed men in uniform, so while one coastguard rushed to alert the Home Guard, the other prepared to meet the visitors, who-ever they were.
Things were no clearer when the boat beached and 14 men clambered ashore, for it turned out there were ten Dutchmen and four Russians, some of them wearing German army uniforms. It took a long time to sort things out.
This, it should be remembered, was a week before the Red Army entered Austria and one day before the Americans liberated Buchenwald. Indeed, the events behind the beaching went on until May 20, by which time Hitler and Mussolini were dead, the German forces had surrendered, and VE-Day had been celebrated. The boat on Mundesley beach thus represented one of the very last actions of the European War.
The entire episode began when captured soldiers from the Soviet Republic of Georgia were given an ultimatum by the Germans: remain in PoW camps, which meant probable death, or serve the invaders. The 822nd Georgia Infantry Battalion was formed from those who chose the latter, and in the late stages of the War the battalion was sent to Texel (pronounced Tessel), a heavily fortified Dutch island which was a pivotal point in the German Atlantic Wall defence.
On April 5, 1945, and almost a year after D-Day, the 822nd mutined. The Georgians killed some of the German garrison in their barracks and attacked the island's two gun batteries. With no response from the Allies - still preoccupied with the invasion - the reinforced Germans counter-attacked, and did so with brutal intent. Battles raged, and there was awful slaughter and reprisal on both sides, and it did not stop until May 20.
A few days after fighting broke out the group of 14 men stole the island's lifeboat, spent 27 dangerous hours at sea, and eventually landed on Mundesley beach after admitting they had 'got a bit lost.' When it was all sorted out they were given food and drink and taken to London.
Why had they made this brave escape attempt? Well, it seems the escapees carried with them two letters. One evidently pledged the Georgian troops' continued allegiance to Stalin and the USSR (a difficult point for them to argue, because they were actually wearing the uniforms of a German army unit). The other letter apparently urged the Allies to send troops or ships to Texel to bombard the German positions and bring supplies and ammunition.
Who ever had the task of considering the matter - if the matter was considered at all - is not known. And so, again, the Allies did not respond. No doubt the invasion forces already had enough on their plate, and did not have enough supplies to divert some away from the main thrust.
Indeed, the surviving groups of rebels on Texel, and those Texel residents who tried to go to their aid and paid an awful price, received no assistance at all until May 20, when elements of the Canadian army arrived. It is thought, however, that at least one Allied reconaissance aircraft did overfly the island in an atempt to check the situation, but the German commander ordered it should be left alone, in case it brought forth Allied retaliation. Thus Texel, for some time, had to suffer in isolation.
Looking back, it must have been one of the most perplexing moments of the Second World War. And no-one was more perplexed at the time than coastguards Reg Earl and Howard Dawes, duty night-time lookouts at Mundesley beach who, during the dark early hours of April 10, 1945, saw a signal light out to sea and glimpsed the outline of an open boat. On board were what looked like armed men in uniform, so while one coastguard rushed to alert the Home Guard, the other prepared to meet the visitors, who-ever they were.
Things were no clearer when the boat beached and 14 men clambered ashore, for it turned out there were ten Dutchmen and four Russians, some of them wearing German army uniforms. It took a long time to sort things out.
This, it should be remembered, was a week before the Red Army entered Austria and one day before the Americans liberated Buchenwald. Indeed, the events behind the beaching went on until May 20, by which time Hitler and Mussolini were dead, the German forces had surrendered, and VE-Day had been celebrated. The boat on Mundesley beach thus represented one of the very last actions of the European War.
The entire episode began when captured soldiers from the Soviet Republic of Georgia were given an ultimatum by the Germans: remain in PoW camps, which meant probable death, or serve the invaders. The 822nd Georgia Infantry Battalion was formed from those who chose the latter, and in the late stages of the War the battalion was sent to Texel (pronounced Tessel), a heavily fortified Dutch island which was a pivotal point in the German Atlantic Wall defence.
On April 5, 1945, and almost a year after D-Day, the 822nd mutined. The Georgians killed some of the German garrison in their barracks and attacked the island's two gun batteries. With no response from the Allies - still preoccupied with the invasion - the reinforced Germans counter-attacked, and did so with brutal intent. Battles raged, and there was awful slaughter and reprisal on both sides, and it did not stop until May 20.
A few days after fighting broke out the group of 14 men stole the island's lifeboat, spent 27 dangerous hours at sea, and eventually landed on Mundesley beach after admitting they had 'got a bit lost.' When it was all sorted out they were given food and drink and taken to London.
Why had they made this brave escape attempt? Well, it seems the escapees carried with them two letters. One evidently pledged the Georgian troops' continued allegiance to Stalin and the USSR (a difficult point for them to argue, because they were actually wearing the uniforms of a German army unit). The other letter apparently urged the Allies to send troops or ships to Texel to bombard the German positions and bring supplies and ammunition.
Who ever had the task of considering the matter - if the matter was considered at all - is not known. And so, again, the Allies did not respond. No doubt the invasion forces already had enough on their plate, and did not have enough supplies to divert some away from the main thrust.
Indeed, the surviving groups of rebels on Texel, and those Texel residents who tried to go to their aid and paid an awful price, received no assistance at all until May 20, when elements of the Canadian army arrived. It is thought, however, that at least one Allied reconaissance aircraft did overfly the island in an atempt to check the situation, but the German commander ordered it should be left alone, in case it brought forth Allied retaliation. Thus Texel, for some time, had to suffer in isolation.
Sunday 14 December 2014
STRANGE VILLAGE
The strangest thing about a cutting I turned up recently in a largely forgotten file was not its headline about The Strangest Village, but the fact that someone other than me had snipped off the name of the local newspaper from which it was taken. Only the year of publication remained, 1932, which goes some way to explaining why I cannot remember where I got it from.
Nevertheless, the Special Correspondent who wrote the article had plainly done his homework, visiting this evidently weird place and in the process discovering that:
The village in question had no baker, butcher, fishmonger, draper, tailor, bootmaker or resident policeman. It was close to the coast, yet residents could not see the sea. No-one in the village had the surname Smith, Brown, Jones or Robinson. The 500 or so inhabitants were not able to call upon a loal doctor, chemist or dentist. It had a railway, but no station, and a church but no chapel. And one of the local farms was hitherto in the possession of a family named Crowe, their predecessors being the Rookes, and their neighbours the Owles and the Starlings.
I certainly liked the Norfolkesque story the writer told of a meeting a yokel who claimed they didn't burn much oil in the village. Why not, the visitor asked? Replied the yokel: 'In the summer I potter in the garden until its time for bed, and in the winter go to bed early.' That would drive me to drink, retorted the visitor. ,Well,' said the old man, 'you'd have to go to Trimingham or Trunch for that.'
As for the village, it was (and still is) called Gimingham, and is between Cromer and Mundesley in east Norfolk. As for the description, it seems to me to fit pretty much any present-day Norfolk village.
ENERGY SEARCH
Fracking is the current energy buzzword. It is also a subject which, if it ever visits Norfolk, will provoke a very heated debate. Old-timers, however, will muse that it - or something like it - has happened before.
In 1914 oil-bearing shales in the county were seen as a possible source of paraffin, but a high sulphur content proved a fatal stumbling block. Then six years' later oilmen thought they had struck liquid gold when oily deposits were seen floating down the River Puny (yes, that is correct) at Setch, near King's Lynn. Workers arrived, a shanty town sprang up, and the locality was extensively drilled. But once again, the product was either below par or too expensive to process.
Don't start celebrating yet, however, because in 1986 coal exploration licences were issued for the northen half of Norwich and as far out as Coltishall, Aylsham, Hindolveston and Honingham, and including land in Happisburgh, Acle and around Great Yarmouth. Searches had already covered other blocks of land at Syderstone, East Ruston, Potter Heigham, Saxthorpe and Irstead.
Energy exploration could still be coming to a town or village near you.
The strangest thing about a cutting I turned up recently in a largely forgotten file was not its headline about The Strangest Village, but the fact that someone other than me had snipped off the name of the local newspaper from which it was taken. Only the year of publication remained, 1932, which goes some way to explaining why I cannot remember where I got it from.
Nevertheless, the Special Correspondent who wrote the article had plainly done his homework, visiting this evidently weird place and in the process discovering that:
The village in question had no baker, butcher, fishmonger, draper, tailor, bootmaker or resident policeman. It was close to the coast, yet residents could not see the sea. No-one in the village had the surname Smith, Brown, Jones or Robinson. The 500 or so inhabitants were not able to call upon a loal doctor, chemist or dentist. It had a railway, but no station, and a church but no chapel. And one of the local farms was hitherto in the possession of a family named Crowe, their predecessors being the Rookes, and their neighbours the Owles and the Starlings.
I certainly liked the Norfolkesque story the writer told of a meeting a yokel who claimed they didn't burn much oil in the village. Why not, the visitor asked? Replied the yokel: 'In the summer I potter in the garden until its time for bed, and in the winter go to bed early.' That would drive me to drink, retorted the visitor. ,Well,' said the old man, 'you'd have to go to Trimingham or Trunch for that.'
As for the village, it was (and still is) called Gimingham, and is between Cromer and Mundesley in east Norfolk. As for the description, it seems to me to fit pretty much any present-day Norfolk village.
ENERGY SEARCH
Fracking is the current energy buzzword. It is also a subject which, if it ever visits Norfolk, will provoke a very heated debate. Old-timers, however, will muse that it - or something like it - has happened before.
In 1914 oil-bearing shales in the county were seen as a possible source of paraffin, but a high sulphur content proved a fatal stumbling block. Then six years' later oilmen thought they had struck liquid gold when oily deposits were seen floating down the River Puny (yes, that is correct) at Setch, near King's Lynn. Workers arrived, a shanty town sprang up, and the locality was extensively drilled. But once again, the product was either below par or too expensive to process.
Don't start celebrating yet, however, because in 1986 coal exploration licences were issued for the northen half of Norwich and as far out as Coltishall, Aylsham, Hindolveston and Honingham, and including land in Happisburgh, Acle and around Great Yarmouth. Searches had already covered other blocks of land at Syderstone, East Ruston, Potter Heigham, Saxthorpe and Irstead.
Energy exploration could still be coming to a town or village near you.
Thursday 11 December 2014
CROSSWINDS
About a decade ago I suddenly recalled - for no particular reason that I can remember - something that an American ex-USAAF Liberator waist-gunner had said to me many years before. Do you realise, he had exclaimed, that some of our guys over here during the Second World War were actually posted to airfields next door to the same village their ancestors had left generations before in order to emigrate to the States?
I hadn't come across this before, but the idea evidently stuck in my mind. I think I liked the idea of 17th century pilgrims sailing to New England, and Liberators crews flying back. It embraced a circularity that appealed.
Then I remembered the story of Peter Foulger, the Norfolk youngster who quit this country in the 1630s and sailed to New England, eventually making quite a name for himself and becoming grandfather of the illustrious Benjamin Franklin. And I remembered the fearsome battle of Saratoga in 1777, when the British Army, including a Norfolk regiment, fought and lost, whereupon numbers of them disappeared into the trees because they wanted to forge a new life in a new land rather than return to English poverty.
Several of these themes - voyage and emigration, Franklin, the Native Indian populations, the bloody slopes of Saratoga and the desertions, and Yanks arriving in the English countryside during the War - rolled around in my mind until I decided to try to create a novel about it. A novel about human inter-dependence: what drives people to migrate, and what brings them back. But above all, about circularity.
There was a problem, though. I had never been to the States, and Google does have its limitations. Finally, accompanied by a son and daughter-in-law, I flew to Newark and took a brief look at New York. More importantly, we also went to the museum and site of Benjamin Franklin's house in Philadelphia, visited the location of the battle of Saratoga (on a blisteringly hot day, I recall) and trod the hillsides where the old Norfolk 9th Regiment of Foot had battled so bravely, and then took a short sea trip to see Nantucket, to check out the Foulger end of things.
It was all quite thrilling, but writing the novel was a different matter. It was hard, and it took several years. But after an original draft, and two complete re-writes, it was finally completed in 2013, a yarn of about 80,000 words. I called it Crosswinds.
The blow - and a blow experienced by most writers, of course - fell later. I couldn't find a publisher, either here or in the States. No-one wanted even to cast a glance at it, never mind read it. So after a year of trying, I gave up. The manuscript went into a drawer where it nestles still, happily and comfortably, I trust, alongside three or four other 'unwanted' novels and a pile of 'unwanted' short stories.
It is not sympathy I am seeking, because I really did enjoy the research and the writing, and would certainly never have visited the States had it not been for Crosswinds. As for having a pile of unwanted manuscripts stuffed in a drawer, well, that is the nature of the beast. Anyone who has made the effort to try to write a story can tell a similar tale. After all, there are far more words written than ever see light of day.
So to my mind, Crosswinds is not a complete failure simply because its current address is the bottom drawer in my study, because the experiences gained from having become involved in it in the first place were priceless, and would not have been gained in any other way.
About a decade ago I suddenly recalled - for no particular reason that I can remember - something that an American ex-USAAF Liberator waist-gunner had said to me many years before. Do you realise, he had exclaimed, that some of our guys over here during the Second World War were actually posted to airfields next door to the same village their ancestors had left generations before in order to emigrate to the States?
I hadn't come across this before, but the idea evidently stuck in my mind. I think I liked the idea of 17th century pilgrims sailing to New England, and Liberators crews flying back. It embraced a circularity that appealed.
Then I remembered the story of Peter Foulger, the Norfolk youngster who quit this country in the 1630s and sailed to New England, eventually making quite a name for himself and becoming grandfather of the illustrious Benjamin Franklin. And I remembered the fearsome battle of Saratoga in 1777, when the British Army, including a Norfolk regiment, fought and lost, whereupon numbers of them disappeared into the trees because they wanted to forge a new life in a new land rather than return to English poverty.
Several of these themes - voyage and emigration, Franklin, the Native Indian populations, the bloody slopes of Saratoga and the desertions, and Yanks arriving in the English countryside during the War - rolled around in my mind until I decided to try to create a novel about it. A novel about human inter-dependence: what drives people to migrate, and what brings them back. But above all, about circularity.
There was a problem, though. I had never been to the States, and Google does have its limitations. Finally, accompanied by a son and daughter-in-law, I flew to Newark and took a brief look at New York. More importantly, we also went to the museum and site of Benjamin Franklin's house in Philadelphia, visited the location of the battle of Saratoga (on a blisteringly hot day, I recall) and trod the hillsides where the old Norfolk 9th Regiment of Foot had battled so bravely, and then took a short sea trip to see Nantucket, to check out the Foulger end of things.
It was all quite thrilling, but writing the novel was a different matter. It was hard, and it took several years. But after an original draft, and two complete re-writes, it was finally completed in 2013, a yarn of about 80,000 words. I called it Crosswinds.
The blow - and a blow experienced by most writers, of course - fell later. I couldn't find a publisher, either here or in the States. No-one wanted even to cast a glance at it, never mind read it. So after a year of trying, I gave up. The manuscript went into a drawer where it nestles still, happily and comfortably, I trust, alongside three or four other 'unwanted' novels and a pile of 'unwanted' short stories.
It is not sympathy I am seeking, because I really did enjoy the research and the writing, and would certainly never have visited the States had it not been for Crosswinds. As for having a pile of unwanted manuscripts stuffed in a drawer, well, that is the nature of the beast. Anyone who has made the effort to try to write a story can tell a similar tale. After all, there are far more words written than ever see light of day.
So to my mind, Crosswinds is not a complete failure simply because its current address is the bottom drawer in my study, because the experiences gained from having become involved in it in the first place were priceless, and would not have been gained in any other way.
Tuesday 9 December 2014
JOHN'S TREASURE
The essence of this episode can be stated in eight words, all of which will be grasped immediately by most of today's schoolchildren: King John lost his jewels in the Wash. The rest of the story, however, is cloaked in speculation and argument. Which makes this mysterious occurrence even more intriguing, of course.
It certainly happened, in 1216. But where? Was it near Fosdyke, close to the mouth of the river Welland, as some modern revisionists have suggested; or as most Long Suttonians have long believed, on the Sutton Wash estuary of the river Nene? And what was the treasure? Gold and silver, or ancient books and legal documents? Or was there never any 'treasure' in the first place, as some have speculated, because the King was largely bankrupt?
There are more questions than answers, and what is actually known does not take long in the telling. It is known, for example, that on October 2 John travelled to Grimsby, apparently to arrange for military equipment and stores to be shipped to what is now King's Lynn. He was back in Lynn on October 9, possibly having used one of the Sutton Wash crossing points. And was still there on October 11, reaching Wisbech the following day and arriving in Swineshead later that same day. It was, without doubt, a hard schedule for a very sick man.
The precise details of these daily movements are unknown, and there has been much speculation as to how the schedule was achieved. John may have gone directly from Lynn to Wisbech, crossing the Nene by the town bridge before heading for Spalding and then Swineshead. Or he may have crossed the estuary and ridden to Wisbech before awaiting the arrival of his baggage train.
Naturally, it is the movement of the baggage train which has excited most curiousity, for its attempted crossing of the estuary using the Cross Keys to Sutton route apparently at a time when the tide was about to turn can only suggest either that the baggage train was in a desperate hurry, or that someone must have ignored or over-ruled the advice of local guides. Either way - and it might have been both - and assuming the event did take place here and not Fosdyke, it was a foolhardy decision.
Crossings of the Wash, and between the Lincolnshire and Norfolk coasts, seem to have been taking place at least since the Bronze Age. The Romans almost certainly used the Wash either as an anchorage or supply route to coastal ports, or even inland destinations via the local rivers. And there were certainly other estuary crossing places in addition to Cross Keys.
Precisely when the Sutton-Cross Keys route came into being no-one knows. But we do know when it came to an end. This followed the realignment of the river Nene in the early part of the 19th century, because after this, in 1831, a bridge was built and a causeway opened from Norfolk to Lincolnshire. You can still see it, a grassy and disused embankment on the north side of the A17 close to the present Nene swing bridge at Sutton Bridge. A few years after the opening, when the last of the Sutton Wash guides died, he was buried in Long Sutton churchyard because the church at Sutton Bridge had not then been built.
The whole King John episode has sparked some odd investigations over the decades, none stranger than one shortly before the Second World War when an 'expedition' to find the jewels excited interest and suspicion, so much so that years later, when I was a boy, a story was still current that the searchers were not archaeological experts looking for treasure but 'Nazi spies' mapping the fieldscapes in preparation for later landings by paratroopers.
Interestingly, in 1940 and 1941, during the 'invasion scare' period, defensive preparations for enemy paratroop landings were still high on the list of local military priorities.
The essence of this episode can be stated in eight words, all of which will be grasped immediately by most of today's schoolchildren: King John lost his jewels in the Wash. The rest of the story, however, is cloaked in speculation and argument. Which makes this mysterious occurrence even more intriguing, of course.
It certainly happened, in 1216. But where? Was it near Fosdyke, close to the mouth of the river Welland, as some modern revisionists have suggested; or as most Long Suttonians have long believed, on the Sutton Wash estuary of the river Nene? And what was the treasure? Gold and silver, or ancient books and legal documents? Or was there never any 'treasure' in the first place, as some have speculated, because the King was largely bankrupt?
There are more questions than answers, and what is actually known does not take long in the telling. It is known, for example, that on October 2 John travelled to Grimsby, apparently to arrange for military equipment and stores to be shipped to what is now King's Lynn. He was back in Lynn on October 9, possibly having used one of the Sutton Wash crossing points. And was still there on October 11, reaching Wisbech the following day and arriving in Swineshead later that same day. It was, without doubt, a hard schedule for a very sick man.
The precise details of these daily movements are unknown, and there has been much speculation as to how the schedule was achieved. John may have gone directly from Lynn to Wisbech, crossing the Nene by the town bridge before heading for Spalding and then Swineshead. Or he may have crossed the estuary and ridden to Wisbech before awaiting the arrival of his baggage train.
Naturally, it is the movement of the baggage train which has excited most curiousity, for its attempted crossing of the estuary using the Cross Keys to Sutton route apparently at a time when the tide was about to turn can only suggest either that the baggage train was in a desperate hurry, or that someone must have ignored or over-ruled the advice of local guides. Either way - and it might have been both - and assuming the event did take place here and not Fosdyke, it was a foolhardy decision.
Crossings of the Wash, and between the Lincolnshire and Norfolk coasts, seem to have been taking place at least since the Bronze Age. The Romans almost certainly used the Wash either as an anchorage or supply route to coastal ports, or even inland destinations via the local rivers. And there were certainly other estuary crossing places in addition to Cross Keys.
Precisely when the Sutton-Cross Keys route came into being no-one knows. But we do know when it came to an end. This followed the realignment of the river Nene in the early part of the 19th century, because after this, in 1831, a bridge was built and a causeway opened from Norfolk to Lincolnshire. You can still see it, a grassy and disused embankment on the north side of the A17 close to the present Nene swing bridge at Sutton Bridge. A few years after the opening, when the last of the Sutton Wash guides died, he was buried in Long Sutton churchyard because the church at Sutton Bridge had not then been built.
The whole King John episode has sparked some odd investigations over the decades, none stranger than one shortly before the Second World War when an 'expedition' to find the jewels excited interest and suspicion, so much so that years later, when I was a boy, a story was still current that the searchers were not archaeological experts looking for treasure but 'Nazi spies' mapping the fieldscapes in preparation for later landings by paratroopers.
Interestingly, in 1940 and 1941, during the 'invasion scare' period, defensive preparations for enemy paratroop landings were still high on the list of local military priorities.
Sunday 7 December 2014
TOPPING TIMES
During those sunlit summers of long ago that we now call childhood, it was very much the case that one had to invent one's own amusements. This was particularly so in the dying days of the Second World War, when no-one knew whether to be happy because the fighting was nearly over, or cry because of what had been lost. So whereas in 1945 there were few opportunities to 'go out,' or do anything new, and when playing on your own in the garden was the norm, by 1946 horizons had widened.
In my case, the end of the War also brought into my circle of interest an entertainment that was to dominate my dreams until I left school: the circus.
Mostly, in our case, it was Fossett, Sanger or Rosaire, but the little shows would turn up in our town every summer, regular as clockwork, sometimes three or four a year. They usually found a willing audience, though by the early 1950s, I have to confess, other interests (cars, television, holidays) were taking over and enchantment with the Big Top was coming to an end. I did not recognise this at the time, but it was plain even to me that some of the shows were struggling. The numbers of animals and acts were reducing, and recorded music was replacing the circus bands.
In our town the key site for any visiting circus - or funfair, for that matter - was Cinder Ash field, a public area and popular walk next door to the recreation ground; a pleasant tree-circled sward approached from the town side by a little bridge which crossed a perennially dry ditch. The circus vans and lorries had to approach from the other side; but once there, they fitted snugly into the leafy scene.
We had a plan, of course. We would study the circus posters plastered around town and work out on which day the first vehicles, the tent transporters, would be arriving. Then, thanks to our bikes, we were able to hover in the background while the vehicles and caravans sorted themselves out, perhaps enjoying the brief glimpse of a couple of listless lions in a wheeled cage, some of the horses, or very occasionally, spotting an elephant stretching its legs in the sunshine.
We were looking for jobs, of course; volunteer jobs which, if we were fortunate, might lead to a free ticket. The trick was to wait and keep out distance until the king poles had been hauled upright and secured, and the Big Top canvas sections had been unloaded, sorted, and laid flat in position on the ground.
This was the signal for the bike brigade to move in closer and start chatting to the roustabouts. We liked to forge a relaxed relationship, and for a very good reason - the circus folk had a very boring job ahead of them. They had to lace all the panels together before they could be hoisted up the king poles, and it was a tedious business. So this was the point when, if we were lucky, they would beckon us across and ask for assistance.
You had to start at the top end of two canvas panels and then, on one's knees, push one rope loop through the loop on the opposite side, and so op and so forth all the way down until the two panels were laced together. Then when the job was finished and the Big Top had been hoisted and secured, then they would (sometimes) reward us, either with a closer look at the animals, some sweets, or better still, a free ticket for one of the performances.
Small beer nowadays, of course, but something looked upon at the time as a major experience.
During those sunlit summers of long ago that we now call childhood, it was very much the case that one had to invent one's own amusements. This was particularly so in the dying days of the Second World War, when no-one knew whether to be happy because the fighting was nearly over, or cry because of what had been lost. So whereas in 1945 there were few opportunities to 'go out,' or do anything new, and when playing on your own in the garden was the norm, by 1946 horizons had widened.
In my case, the end of the War also brought into my circle of interest an entertainment that was to dominate my dreams until I left school: the circus.
Mostly, in our case, it was Fossett, Sanger or Rosaire, but the little shows would turn up in our town every summer, regular as clockwork, sometimes three or four a year. They usually found a willing audience, though by the early 1950s, I have to confess, other interests (cars, television, holidays) were taking over and enchantment with the Big Top was coming to an end. I did not recognise this at the time, but it was plain even to me that some of the shows were struggling. The numbers of animals and acts were reducing, and recorded music was replacing the circus bands.
In our town the key site for any visiting circus - or funfair, for that matter - was Cinder Ash field, a public area and popular walk next door to the recreation ground; a pleasant tree-circled sward approached from the town side by a little bridge which crossed a perennially dry ditch. The circus vans and lorries had to approach from the other side; but once there, they fitted snugly into the leafy scene.
We had a plan, of course. We would study the circus posters plastered around town and work out on which day the first vehicles, the tent transporters, would be arriving. Then, thanks to our bikes, we were able to hover in the background while the vehicles and caravans sorted themselves out, perhaps enjoying the brief glimpse of a couple of listless lions in a wheeled cage, some of the horses, or very occasionally, spotting an elephant stretching its legs in the sunshine.
We were looking for jobs, of course; volunteer jobs which, if we were fortunate, might lead to a free ticket. The trick was to wait and keep out distance until the king poles had been hauled upright and secured, and the Big Top canvas sections had been unloaded, sorted, and laid flat in position on the ground.
This was the signal for the bike brigade to move in closer and start chatting to the roustabouts. We liked to forge a relaxed relationship, and for a very good reason - the circus folk had a very boring job ahead of them. They had to lace all the panels together before they could be hoisted up the king poles, and it was a tedious business. So this was the point when, if we were lucky, they would beckon us across and ask for assistance.
You had to start at the top end of two canvas panels and then, on one's knees, push one rope loop through the loop on the opposite side, and so op and so forth all the way down until the two panels were laced together. Then when the job was finished and the Big Top had been hoisted and secured, then they would (sometimes) reward us, either with a closer look at the animals, some sweets, or better still, a free ticket for one of the performances.
Small beer nowadays, of course, but something looked upon at the time as a major experience.
Wednesday 3 December 2014
ON TOUR
Books on travel inevitably provide a snapshot of how things were at a particular moment. If the writer is observant and competent, that is. This makes such books particularly useful if you are writing historically and studying the period of choice. You can also get an inkling of the atmosphere of the moment from journals and diaries, of course; but it is travel books, and particularly travel books about England, I find fascinating. I have quite a few.
A recent shuffle through my bookshelves brought to light an embarrassment of riches, including Celia Fiennes and Daniel Defoe, William Dutt and John Byng, JB Priestley and Carl Philip Moritz, James Plumtre, Arthur Young and HV Morton. I dare say there are a few more tucked away if I cared to dig deeper.
HV Morton's In Search of England was undertaken, written and published in 1927, which was no mean feat, his travels being by motor-car, and I have always found it fascinating even if Morton himself sometimes comes across as a bit of a nostalgic duffer.
What I had not realised - until I stumbled across a copy of I Saw Two Englands in a charity shop - is that Morton had actually undertaken three expeditions around England, the second in May, 1939, and the third in October of the same year, when war was very much in the air. In fact, the final third of this book is devoted to a tour of the country seven weeks after the War started.
Armed with a bundle of official letters, permits, petrol coupons and letters of introduction, and provided with a gas mask and a first-aid box, and his faithful motor-car, he visited aircraft factories, spoke to air raid wardens and Land Army girls, watched a fishing fleet come in after a night of dodging mines, toured an ammunitions factory and a prisoner-of-war camp, visited the postal censorship office, and watched tanks roll off a production line.
Morton also weaved a delightful story around the dispersal of ministries and Government departments in London into the countryside, when he decided to visit the Cereal Imports Committee. Previously housed in Baltic House, in St Mary Ax, the chaps who purchased wheat from the world were now housed in a 'hidden' mansion somewhere in Surrey.
He drove to the village, asked directions and drew a blank, because there was nothing to see. So he went to the post office, asked for the way to the Committee's offices and again drew a blank. Then he mentioned someone's name. This produced a glimmer of recognition, and he was given directions to a mansion set amid acres of woodland and pasture. A butler answered his knock at the front door.
This chap, still splendidly stiff with formality, evidently lead him through gilded room after gilded room, and finally asked for a particular person by name. 'Mr Blank?' queried a clerk, somewhat irreverently. 'I expect you will find him in the swimming bath.'
The butler then took Mr Morton into a 'fabulously expensive' indoor swimming bath. In order to make space for the Cereal Imports Committee from the Baltic Exchange the water, of course, had been drained out and a wooden floor inserted. And in this ornate hole in the ground some 30 clerks were beavering away at trestle tables 'with their noses in ledgers or their mouths to the telephones.' Not far away, on the squash court, there were more offices, more clerks, and more trestle tables and telephones.
Morton said later that every time he ate bread he recalled that the wheat had originated in a house among yellowing woods and crowing pheasants.
(I Saw Two Englands, by HV Morton. Methuen, 1942)
Books on travel inevitably provide a snapshot of how things were at a particular moment. If the writer is observant and competent, that is. This makes such books particularly useful if you are writing historically and studying the period of choice. You can also get an inkling of the atmosphere of the moment from journals and diaries, of course; but it is travel books, and particularly travel books about England, I find fascinating. I have quite a few.
A recent shuffle through my bookshelves brought to light an embarrassment of riches, including Celia Fiennes and Daniel Defoe, William Dutt and John Byng, JB Priestley and Carl Philip Moritz, James Plumtre, Arthur Young and HV Morton. I dare say there are a few more tucked away if I cared to dig deeper.
HV Morton's In Search of England was undertaken, written and published in 1927, which was no mean feat, his travels being by motor-car, and I have always found it fascinating even if Morton himself sometimes comes across as a bit of a nostalgic duffer.
What I had not realised - until I stumbled across a copy of I Saw Two Englands in a charity shop - is that Morton had actually undertaken three expeditions around England, the second in May, 1939, and the third in October of the same year, when war was very much in the air. In fact, the final third of this book is devoted to a tour of the country seven weeks after the War started.
Armed with a bundle of official letters, permits, petrol coupons and letters of introduction, and provided with a gas mask and a first-aid box, and his faithful motor-car, he visited aircraft factories, spoke to air raid wardens and Land Army girls, watched a fishing fleet come in after a night of dodging mines, toured an ammunitions factory and a prisoner-of-war camp, visited the postal censorship office, and watched tanks roll off a production line.
Morton also weaved a delightful story around the dispersal of ministries and Government departments in London into the countryside, when he decided to visit the Cereal Imports Committee. Previously housed in Baltic House, in St Mary Ax, the chaps who purchased wheat from the world were now housed in a 'hidden' mansion somewhere in Surrey.
He drove to the village, asked directions and drew a blank, because there was nothing to see. So he went to the post office, asked for the way to the Committee's offices and again drew a blank. Then he mentioned someone's name. This produced a glimmer of recognition, and he was given directions to a mansion set amid acres of woodland and pasture. A butler answered his knock at the front door.
This chap, still splendidly stiff with formality, evidently lead him through gilded room after gilded room, and finally asked for a particular person by name. 'Mr Blank?' queried a clerk, somewhat irreverently. 'I expect you will find him in the swimming bath.'
The butler then took Mr Morton into a 'fabulously expensive' indoor swimming bath. In order to make space for the Cereal Imports Committee from the Baltic Exchange the water, of course, had been drained out and a wooden floor inserted. And in this ornate hole in the ground some 30 clerks were beavering away at trestle tables 'with their noses in ledgers or their mouths to the telephones.' Not far away, on the squash court, there were more offices, more clerks, and more trestle tables and telephones.
Morton said later that every time he ate bread he recalled that the wheat had originated in a house among yellowing woods and crowing pheasants.
(I Saw Two Englands, by HV Morton. Methuen, 1942)
Monday 1 December 2014
DICK TURPIN
Much of my childhood was coloured by tales of Dick Turpin, the highwayman, because a short distance from our home in Long Sutton (Lincs) was a narrow roadway known as Swapcote Lane. And it was there, according to folklore, that Turpin exchanged his coat with a sympathetic local and thus escaped his pursuers.
The story, however, has many holes in it. To begin with, Swapcote - named thus before Turpin was born - was also known as Swepcot, and before that, Nettlebed Lane. And second, although Turpin is thought to have had relatives in the area, not many Suttonians would have displayed much sympathy for him. Because Turpin was more than a bully. He was also a thug, a swindler and a murderer.
He had arrived in the town in July, 1737, his previous hunting grounds of Epping Forest, Finchley Common and Hounslow Heath having become too hot for him. In his 30s, stylishly dressed, and with a face scarred by smallpox, he announced himself as a horse dealder and butcher named John Palmer (Palmer being his mother's maiden name).
Legend also had it that he stabled his horse in High Street, then known as Village Street or Kirkgate. This at least may have been true, for there was also a tradition that Turpin's cottage and butcher's shop were attached to buildings owned by families named Crosby, on one side, and Oliver on the other.
Palmer appeared to be a person of substance, and although he stayed only nine months it was noted he was frequently away, and was thought to have attended Manchester races. However, it began to dawn on folk that Palmer was not who he said he was, and a complaint (or perhaps several complaints, possibly for horse stealing) was levelled against him. Finally, an arrest warrant was issued by the JP, Mr Delamore, but when a constable went to serve it he was knocked to the ground. Palmer was not seen in the town again.
And that might have been the end of the story as far as Long Sutton was concerned until, a year later, Mr Delamore received a letter from a magistrate in Beverley, Yorkshire, saying that Palmer had been arrested for shooting, while drunk, his landlord's gamecock, and asking if, as Palmer had evidently claimed, his father lived in Long Sutton. Mr Delamore replied giving the details of the attempted arrest and assault on the constable. And so the highwayman's goose was cooked.
The trial of John Palmer opened at York Assizes on March 22, 1739, and faced with the evidence he soon admitted that he was Richard (Dick) Turpin, one-time Essex butcher and highwayman. Nevertheless, at his trial he was found guilty only of horse stealing. But it was enough. He was 34 when he was hanged, a clerk later writing on the verdict sheet: 'Guilty. No goods. Hanged.'
In more recent years Long Sutton has been fascinated by Turpin's short stay, and there is one account, written by a former local clergyman, Canon Leigh Bennett, in which he said he had talked to a builder named Carbutt who remembered demolishing a cottage at the back of the then Post Office near where the Old Welcome pub had once stood. This cottage said to have have been, briefly, Turpin's home.
Mr Carbutt also claimed, apparently, that during the demolition he found a horse pistol with a silver handle, and the skeleton of a horse. Possible, of course, but in terms of local folklore this was two stories too far.
Much of my childhood was coloured by tales of Dick Turpin, the highwayman, because a short distance from our home in Long Sutton (Lincs) was a narrow roadway known as Swapcote Lane. And it was there, according to folklore, that Turpin exchanged his coat with a sympathetic local and thus escaped his pursuers.
The story, however, has many holes in it. To begin with, Swapcote - named thus before Turpin was born - was also known as Swepcot, and before that, Nettlebed Lane. And second, although Turpin is thought to have had relatives in the area, not many Suttonians would have displayed much sympathy for him. Because Turpin was more than a bully. He was also a thug, a swindler and a murderer.
He had arrived in the town in July, 1737, his previous hunting grounds of Epping Forest, Finchley Common and Hounslow Heath having become too hot for him. In his 30s, stylishly dressed, and with a face scarred by smallpox, he announced himself as a horse dealder and butcher named John Palmer (Palmer being his mother's maiden name).
Legend also had it that he stabled his horse in High Street, then known as Village Street or Kirkgate. This at least may have been true, for there was also a tradition that Turpin's cottage and butcher's shop were attached to buildings owned by families named Crosby, on one side, and Oliver on the other.
Palmer appeared to be a person of substance, and although he stayed only nine months it was noted he was frequently away, and was thought to have attended Manchester races. However, it began to dawn on folk that Palmer was not who he said he was, and a complaint (or perhaps several complaints, possibly for horse stealing) was levelled against him. Finally, an arrest warrant was issued by the JP, Mr Delamore, but when a constable went to serve it he was knocked to the ground. Palmer was not seen in the town again.
And that might have been the end of the story as far as Long Sutton was concerned until, a year later, Mr Delamore received a letter from a magistrate in Beverley, Yorkshire, saying that Palmer had been arrested for shooting, while drunk, his landlord's gamecock, and asking if, as Palmer had evidently claimed, his father lived in Long Sutton. Mr Delamore replied giving the details of the attempted arrest and assault on the constable. And so the highwayman's goose was cooked.
The trial of John Palmer opened at York Assizes on March 22, 1739, and faced with the evidence he soon admitted that he was Richard (Dick) Turpin, one-time Essex butcher and highwayman. Nevertheless, at his trial he was found guilty only of horse stealing. But it was enough. He was 34 when he was hanged, a clerk later writing on the verdict sheet: 'Guilty. No goods. Hanged.'
In more recent years Long Sutton has been fascinated by Turpin's short stay, and there is one account, written by a former local clergyman, Canon Leigh Bennett, in which he said he had talked to a builder named Carbutt who remembered demolishing a cottage at the back of the then Post Office near where the Old Welcome pub had once stood. This cottage said to have have been, briefly, Turpin's home.
Mr Carbutt also claimed, apparently, that during the demolition he found a horse pistol with a silver handle, and the skeleton of a horse. Possible, of course, but in terms of local folklore this was two stories too far.
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