SIGN OF THE TIMES
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, when I was a boy on a bike with a desire to explore hitherto unknown territories, I used to collect the names of public houses. I have no real idea why, yet I would carefully write down any name or sign I saw, and hadn't already noted, and then inscribe it into an alphabetical ledger which my father had obtained from somewhere or other and given to me. After a time, of course, the numbers of names ran into hundreds, which was impressive but quite, quite useless for research or reference purposes.
I certainly liked the idea of collecting pub names - even though I had never been inside one - and enjoyed recording them, I suppose because it was something to do in the long, dark, TV-free evenings. But I didn't do it properly. I didn't write, next to each name, the address or location. Just the name. Years later, of course, it dawned on me that all I had got was a list. Nothing more. And a fairly boring list, to boot.
The odd thing is I still tend to glance at pub names, hoping to spot something unusual, and I have even been inside a few. But one that I have glanced at more than most is the Sir Garnet, a picturesque pub which famously overlooks Norwich open-air market. Glanced at it, not because it is so obviously unusual, but because I didn't know much about the chap it commemorates, and guessed that not many Norwich people did, either.
Sir Garnet Wolseley (1833-1913) was a heavily decorated Anglo-Irish officer in the British Army. Educated in Dublin, he worked for a time in a surveyors' office and then obtained a commission, in 1852. A year later he was wounded in the Anglo-Burmese war, but the following year (1854) he still managed to accompany the 84th Regiment of Foot to Balaklava, and was present at the Siege of Sevastopal, where he was wounded yet again and this time lost an eye.
Undaunted, and already decorated, he then distinguished himself at the Relief of Lucknow, and in 1860 accompanied British troops to China. In 1862 he took leave to investigate the American Civil War, meeting both Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson, after which he busied himself in Canada, wrote a handbook for the troops, and in 1870 commanded the Red River Expedition, leading his men through hundreds of miles of wilderness.
He was appointed Adjutant-General to the Forces in 1882 and later raised to the peerage as Baron Wolseley. He became Field-Marshal in 1894, died on the French Riviera in 1913, and was buried in St Paul's Cathedral. I believe there is an equestrian statue of him in Horse Guards Parade. Phew! And I haven't even mentioned his input into the Ashanti Campaign in the 1870s, the Nile Expedition in the 1880s, or his becoming Commander of Forces in the 1890s. Another time, perhaps.
Si Garnet Wolseley was an unstoppable force, a real Victorian and Boys' Own hero, and indeed, there was once a saying that, 'Everything's Sir Garnet,' meaning that everything was in order. He was even caricatured by WS Gilbert in The Pirates of Penzance as, 'The very model of a modern major-general.'
Norwich's pub opened in 1861 and adopted his name in 1874, when he was at the absolute height of his fame.
Tuesday 28 July 2015
Saturday 25 July 2015
BEAR FACTS
In terms of overall or even specialist knowledge, it is hardly at an Einsteinian level. I acknowledge that. I also acknowledge that it is not the sort of general information most people might want to garner, anyway. But I do believe I know - roughly speaking - the Norfolk locations of two graves in which are interred the remains of bears.
Now, Norfolk is not your average sort of bear country. Deer, yes, in surprising abundance. And rabbits. And in the past any number of famous escapees, including coypu and mink. But not bears, because by and large they are too big and there is nowhere for them to live. Nevertheless, bears the county has had, thanks either to private enterprise, or zoos.
The first bear grave is in the grounds of Bessingham Manor, not far from Cromer, a large and previously derelict building now in the process of being re-built and restored.
The original manor house, complete with thatched roof, was built by John Spurrell (1779-1837). On his death it came into the possession of the Lord of the Manor David Spurrell, who married in 1848 and had seven children in ten years. He built the present Bessingham Manor in 1870, and when he died in 1906 the estate was left to his youngest son, Edmund Denham Spurrell (1858-1952). And he was the bear man.
In 1906 Denham returned from India with a brown bear which was kept in a stable near to the house and brought out occasionally to entertain guests. Indeed, I have seen a photograph of a group of ladies and gentlemen relaxing beside the orangery at the back of the house with the bear, being regarded with great suspicion by a little dog, rearing on its hind legs in the background.
It was an eccentric atmosphere which was not to last, alas, for one day the bear escaped from its cage, injured a housemaid, and was shot and buried in the grounds. Denham, however, was not entirely finished with 'doing different,' as they say in Norfolk, because he learned to fly an aeroplane at the age of 91.
The second bear grave is slightly more problematical, for the tale is largely based on heresay. Anyway, several decades ago I was told that when a bear died in some zoo or other, the carcase was delivered to Norwich Castle Museum and duly and quietly buried in the Castle gardens not far from the footbridge. Apparently it was all part of some research progrgamme into the effects of prolonged burial on animal bones. At least, that is what I was told. Meanwhile, I have never heard that it has ever been dug up, so it may still be there.
Graves are not normally my thing, but I did once become interested in Pigg's Grave, near Melton Constable, wondering why (a) it was often put forward as a candidate for the highest place in Norfolk (it isn't), and (b) why on earth a pig might have been buried there in the first place. Wrong again, I think. Pigg was evidently the name of a man, and the place was once the site of a gibbet.
Best stick to bears.
In terms of overall or even specialist knowledge, it is hardly at an Einsteinian level. I acknowledge that. I also acknowledge that it is not the sort of general information most people might want to garner, anyway. But I do believe I know - roughly speaking - the Norfolk locations of two graves in which are interred the remains of bears.
Now, Norfolk is not your average sort of bear country. Deer, yes, in surprising abundance. And rabbits. And in the past any number of famous escapees, including coypu and mink. But not bears, because by and large they are too big and there is nowhere for them to live. Nevertheless, bears the county has had, thanks either to private enterprise, or zoos.
The first bear grave is in the grounds of Bessingham Manor, not far from Cromer, a large and previously derelict building now in the process of being re-built and restored.
The original manor house, complete with thatched roof, was built by John Spurrell (1779-1837). On his death it came into the possession of the Lord of the Manor David Spurrell, who married in 1848 and had seven children in ten years. He built the present Bessingham Manor in 1870, and when he died in 1906 the estate was left to his youngest son, Edmund Denham Spurrell (1858-1952). And he was the bear man.
In 1906 Denham returned from India with a brown bear which was kept in a stable near to the house and brought out occasionally to entertain guests. Indeed, I have seen a photograph of a group of ladies and gentlemen relaxing beside the orangery at the back of the house with the bear, being regarded with great suspicion by a little dog, rearing on its hind legs in the background.
It was an eccentric atmosphere which was not to last, alas, for one day the bear escaped from its cage, injured a housemaid, and was shot and buried in the grounds. Denham, however, was not entirely finished with 'doing different,' as they say in Norfolk, because he learned to fly an aeroplane at the age of 91.
The second bear grave is slightly more problematical, for the tale is largely based on heresay. Anyway, several decades ago I was told that when a bear died in some zoo or other, the carcase was delivered to Norwich Castle Museum and duly and quietly buried in the Castle gardens not far from the footbridge. Apparently it was all part of some research progrgamme into the effects of prolonged burial on animal bones. At least, that is what I was told. Meanwhile, I have never heard that it has ever been dug up, so it may still be there.
Graves are not normally my thing, but I did once become interested in Pigg's Grave, near Melton Constable, wondering why (a) it was often put forward as a candidate for the highest place in Norfolk (it isn't), and (b) why on earth a pig might have been buried there in the first place. Wrong again, I think. Pigg was evidently the name of a man, and the place was once the site of a gibbet.
Best stick to bears.
Thursday 23 July 2015
UPSIDE DOWN
I love maps. One of the earliest I actually owned, acquired from goodness knows where, was a sheet of eastern England printed on stiff paper which had been coated with some sort of waterproofing agent. It showed all the main roads at the time of printing - probably the late 1930s - and had evidently been produced for the benefit of motorists. But I used it for cycling. It fitted neatly into my saddlebag, and because of its stiff resilience was ideal to use in wet or windy weather. Whereas ordinary maps in these conditions tended to degenerate into lumps of pulp, this one simply shook itself off, folded itself crisply, and shrugged off the effects of inclement weather.
For all that I am not a collector, though I do have a few map books on my shelves which relate mainly to Norfolk, rather than to Lincolnshire, including Faden and Bryant, copies of one or two early Ordnance Survey sheets, and even a copy of Ogilby's strip maps of England and Wales, dated 1675. The original, that is. Not my edition, alas.
To an extent my interest was further enhanced when I began 'serious' leisure walking which meant, in the early days, walking the Peddars Way. There was something about this Roman road which puzzled me, for although we invariably began our walks at the southern end (near the Suffolk border) and gravitated towards the sea, my instincts suggested this was the wrong way round in a sense that the Peddars felt much more like a route which drove inland rather than merely leading to the sea.
This largely flew - and still flies, for that matter - against the grain of most archaeological advice, which usually suggests it was built to enable Roman troops to gain the seashore was rapidly as possible to enable a crossing of The Wash by ferry; whereas I was beginning to see The Wash and some of its neighbouring beaches, particularly in north-west Norfolk, as anchorages and landing areas, with people and supplies being offloaded and moved inland, possibly along the Peddars Way and, for that matter, along the Holkham road, too.
My conviction was further underlined when, looking at a map of Roman roads in Norfolk some years' ago, I inadvertently turned it upside down (with north at the bottom) and glimpsed the network for the first time as a captain out at sea might have done. Several other of these Roman roads which led directly to flat beaches also suddenly looked like tempting places to bring cargoes ashore.
Something similar occurred years' later when I was looking at a map of Britain and some of the countries bordering the North Sea, contemplating the voyages of the Danes and the Anglo-Saxons, and wondering why they bothered with us in the first place. Then I turned it upside down, and suddenly the old haunt of Doggerland and the Dogger Banks looked like a sort of 'inland sea' with an outlet corridor (the English Channel) at the top and another, larger outlet at the bottom.
It also suggested an 'inland sea' surrounded by tempting shorelines which any curious sailor in, for example, Denmark or Norway, would certainly want to explore or exploit.
Almost all modern maps are orientated with north at the top, and there is nothing wrong with that. It is standard practice. So we have grown used to the format, and expect it. But there's nothing wrong with turning a sheet so that south is at the top. Sometimes, upside down can be good.
I love maps. One of the earliest I actually owned, acquired from goodness knows where, was a sheet of eastern England printed on stiff paper which had been coated with some sort of waterproofing agent. It showed all the main roads at the time of printing - probably the late 1930s - and had evidently been produced for the benefit of motorists. But I used it for cycling. It fitted neatly into my saddlebag, and because of its stiff resilience was ideal to use in wet or windy weather. Whereas ordinary maps in these conditions tended to degenerate into lumps of pulp, this one simply shook itself off, folded itself crisply, and shrugged off the effects of inclement weather.
For all that I am not a collector, though I do have a few map books on my shelves which relate mainly to Norfolk, rather than to Lincolnshire, including Faden and Bryant, copies of one or two early Ordnance Survey sheets, and even a copy of Ogilby's strip maps of England and Wales, dated 1675. The original, that is. Not my edition, alas.
To an extent my interest was further enhanced when I began 'serious' leisure walking which meant, in the early days, walking the Peddars Way. There was something about this Roman road which puzzled me, for although we invariably began our walks at the southern end (near the Suffolk border) and gravitated towards the sea, my instincts suggested this was the wrong way round in a sense that the Peddars felt much more like a route which drove inland rather than merely leading to the sea.
This largely flew - and still flies, for that matter - against the grain of most archaeological advice, which usually suggests it was built to enable Roman troops to gain the seashore was rapidly as possible to enable a crossing of The Wash by ferry; whereas I was beginning to see The Wash and some of its neighbouring beaches, particularly in north-west Norfolk, as anchorages and landing areas, with people and supplies being offloaded and moved inland, possibly along the Peddars Way and, for that matter, along the Holkham road, too.
My conviction was further underlined when, looking at a map of Roman roads in Norfolk some years' ago, I inadvertently turned it upside down (with north at the bottom) and glimpsed the network for the first time as a captain out at sea might have done. Several other of these Roman roads which led directly to flat beaches also suddenly looked like tempting places to bring cargoes ashore.
Something similar occurred years' later when I was looking at a map of Britain and some of the countries bordering the North Sea, contemplating the voyages of the Danes and the Anglo-Saxons, and wondering why they bothered with us in the first place. Then I turned it upside down, and suddenly the old haunt of Doggerland and the Dogger Banks looked like a sort of 'inland sea' with an outlet corridor (the English Channel) at the top and another, larger outlet at the bottom.
It also suggested an 'inland sea' surrounded by tempting shorelines which any curious sailor in, for example, Denmark or Norway, would certainly want to explore or exploit.
Almost all modern maps are orientated with north at the top, and there is nothing wrong with that. It is standard practice. So we have grown used to the format, and expect it. But there's nothing wrong with turning a sheet so that south is at the top. Sometimes, upside down can be good.
Wednesday 15 July 2015
ALL AT SEA
The writer Nicholas Monsarrat, whose popularity came to the fore in the decades after the Second World War, was one of those people fortunate enough to have been born with film star good looks. Indeed, a suitably Hollywood-style photo of him, smiling, standing firm and looking directly at the camera, was duly chosen to adorn a commemorative plaque which marked his birth - in 1910 - and birthplace, in Rodney Street, Liverpool.
Monsarrat had a somewhat unusual career. Educated at Winchester, and Trinity, Cambridge, he might well have entered Law were it not for the fact that it was writing that actually attracted him like a magnet. A pacifist, he served first as a member of an ambulance brigade and then, as War loomed, joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He actually ended the War as the commander of a frigate.
Before this last commission, however, Monsarrat also served and learned his naval trade as a First Lieutenant on three different corvettes.
And there is that Rodney Street image again. This time used as a three-quarter page frontispiece in his fascinating contribution to War-time (it was first published in 1945) 'faction.' These were his notes, in effect, for the sea drama he was planning to write after the conflict was done and dusted. In his introduction, Monsarrat actually apologises for the fact that the book, Three Corvettes, 'is not a masterpiece.' Which may be true, but that does not detract from its quality.
What it is, I feel, is an honest collection of notes and jottings and reminiscences about the War at sea, written with a touch of humanity and a wry smile, a faithful record of the daily routine and trivia, nuggets of information which were to prove so important to him later on. In other words, he was seeding his writing imagination.
You will doubtless have heard of some of the books Nicholas Monsarrat produced during his post-War writing career: The Tribe That Lost Its Head, The Ship That Died of Shame, and in 1951 the novel - and subsequent film - that made him a national figure, The Cruel Sea. A year later, he published another popular novel which turned out to be somewhat controversial at the time, The Story of Esther Costello.
I watched the film version of The Cruel Sea again recently and it was still, in its black-and-white sort of way, every bit as gritty and sea salt-laden as I remembered it. And Jack Hawkins was every bit as good a strongman as John Wayne, in a wonderfully English sort of way.
In later life, Nicholas Monsarrat served his country again by entering the diplomatic service, this time being posted to South Africa and then Canada. Later still, he settled in the Channel Islands and, finally, Malta. He died in 1979.
Three Corvettes survives, however; and in my particular case serves as a reminder of an increasingly bygone period, an echo of another age; bought for a pound in a charity shop.
(Three Corvettes, by Nicholas Monsarrat. Cassell & Co, 1953)
The writer Nicholas Monsarrat, whose popularity came to the fore in the decades after the Second World War, was one of those people fortunate enough to have been born with film star good looks. Indeed, a suitably Hollywood-style photo of him, smiling, standing firm and looking directly at the camera, was duly chosen to adorn a commemorative plaque which marked his birth - in 1910 - and birthplace, in Rodney Street, Liverpool.
Monsarrat had a somewhat unusual career. Educated at Winchester, and Trinity, Cambridge, he might well have entered Law were it not for the fact that it was writing that actually attracted him like a magnet. A pacifist, he served first as a member of an ambulance brigade and then, as War loomed, joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He actually ended the War as the commander of a frigate.
Before this last commission, however, Monsarrat also served and learned his naval trade as a First Lieutenant on three different corvettes.
And there is that Rodney Street image again. This time used as a three-quarter page frontispiece in his fascinating contribution to War-time (it was first published in 1945) 'faction.' These were his notes, in effect, for the sea drama he was planning to write after the conflict was done and dusted. In his introduction, Monsarrat actually apologises for the fact that the book, Three Corvettes, 'is not a masterpiece.' Which may be true, but that does not detract from its quality.
What it is, I feel, is an honest collection of notes and jottings and reminiscences about the War at sea, written with a touch of humanity and a wry smile, a faithful record of the daily routine and trivia, nuggets of information which were to prove so important to him later on. In other words, he was seeding his writing imagination.
You will doubtless have heard of some of the books Nicholas Monsarrat produced during his post-War writing career: The Tribe That Lost Its Head, The Ship That Died of Shame, and in 1951 the novel - and subsequent film - that made him a national figure, The Cruel Sea. A year later, he published another popular novel which turned out to be somewhat controversial at the time, The Story of Esther Costello.
I watched the film version of The Cruel Sea again recently and it was still, in its black-and-white sort of way, every bit as gritty and sea salt-laden as I remembered it. And Jack Hawkins was every bit as good a strongman as John Wayne, in a wonderfully English sort of way.
In later life, Nicholas Monsarrat served his country again by entering the diplomatic service, this time being posted to South Africa and then Canada. Later still, he settled in the Channel Islands and, finally, Malta. He died in 1979.
Three Corvettes survives, however; and in my particular case serves as a reminder of an increasingly bygone period, an echo of another age; bought for a pound in a charity shop.
(Three Corvettes, by Nicholas Monsarrat. Cassell & Co, 1953)
Sunday 12 July 2015
FUN OF THE FAIR
My late father, discussing TV, once told me he saw his first moving image on a screen as a boy at a funfair. This would place it at around 1908/10 and put it in the same vague time slot as he saw his first aeroplane, which had landed in a field near Bloxham in Oxfordshire, and caused such a stir they closed the school and let the pupils go to see it. It must have been an exciting time for a youngster. Whatever would these flying machines and moving images lead to? Imaginations must have boggled.
Despite my promptings, however, he could not remember the name of the fair. The fairs of my youth invariably involved the names Fendick, Thurston and Gray, and they came to our town and set up on a field known as Cinder Ash, next to the football pitch. There weren't too many neighbours to complain at the noise there, for they were always a great attraction. Coloured lights were a magnet to folk emerging from the blackout years, when everything was dark and dull.
As to the moving image my father saw, had that funfair been in Norwich then it might well have been Thurston. It probably wasn't, but the Thurstons were on to the magic of the silver screen very early on. Charles Thurston opened at Norwich's Easter Fair in 1901 with an ornate facade of gilded carved-work decorating a tented auditorium, and dancing girls to entice patrons, all to witness a display of the 'cinematograph,' or 'living pictures.' It must have seemed so new and exciting, because the cinematograph had made its local fairground debut only five years' earlier, in 1896, when showman Randall Williams staged a demonstration at Lynn Mart.
Films soon began to appear on village greens and in town squares. Then music halls took them on, and the clips of film developed into filmed stories. In 1908 one of the first picture houses, known as The Gem, was opened at Great Yarmouth, and in 1912 Charles Thurston opened his own Cinema Palace in Norwich. This was followed by Wisbech estate agent Frederick H Cooper, who developed a chain of cinemas in East Anglia.
The Thurston story ran almost parallel. In 1868, and tiring of his work in a Cambridge brickyard, Henry Thurston obtained a hand-operated children's roundabout and launched himself on a new career. Ten years' later he had not only adapted the roundabout to pony power but had also purchased a set of 'four abreast galloping horses and ostriches' built by Tidman of Norwich and powered by a Hornsby traction engine.
By 1906 Henry had also acquired a Savage spinning top gondola and switchback, and a Gavioli organ. But it was his son, Charles, born 1870, who saw the potential of vaudeville and the bioscope and anticipated the arrival of the static cinema.
I can recall in the 1950s a funfair gamely trying to help a football team, which wanted to rig up some lights to enable training on dark evenings. In teeming rain, a group of volunteers struggled to erect posts and cables around one end of the playing pitch, but the system produced only the merest glimmer of light. Then the funfair on nearby Cinder Ash came to their rescue. Their chaps relaid the cables, hooked them up to a trailer generator, and thrummed new life into the lamps. Better, but still not bright enough, alas.
In early 1974 I met Charles' son, Charles junior, who told me about the family background and talked about their preparations for Lynn Mart, traditionally the showman's seasonal opener. Not exactly life on the open road, but mobile enough.
My late father, discussing TV, once told me he saw his first moving image on a screen as a boy at a funfair. This would place it at around 1908/10 and put it in the same vague time slot as he saw his first aeroplane, which had landed in a field near Bloxham in Oxfordshire, and caused such a stir they closed the school and let the pupils go to see it. It must have been an exciting time for a youngster. Whatever would these flying machines and moving images lead to? Imaginations must have boggled.
Despite my promptings, however, he could not remember the name of the fair. The fairs of my youth invariably involved the names Fendick, Thurston and Gray, and they came to our town and set up on a field known as Cinder Ash, next to the football pitch. There weren't too many neighbours to complain at the noise there, for they were always a great attraction. Coloured lights were a magnet to folk emerging from the blackout years, when everything was dark and dull.
As to the moving image my father saw, had that funfair been in Norwich then it might well have been Thurston. It probably wasn't, but the Thurstons were on to the magic of the silver screen very early on. Charles Thurston opened at Norwich's Easter Fair in 1901 with an ornate facade of gilded carved-work decorating a tented auditorium, and dancing girls to entice patrons, all to witness a display of the 'cinematograph,' or 'living pictures.' It must have seemed so new and exciting, because the cinematograph had made its local fairground debut only five years' earlier, in 1896, when showman Randall Williams staged a demonstration at Lynn Mart.
Films soon began to appear on village greens and in town squares. Then music halls took them on, and the clips of film developed into filmed stories. In 1908 one of the first picture houses, known as The Gem, was opened at Great Yarmouth, and in 1912 Charles Thurston opened his own Cinema Palace in Norwich. This was followed by Wisbech estate agent Frederick H Cooper, who developed a chain of cinemas in East Anglia.
The Thurston story ran almost parallel. In 1868, and tiring of his work in a Cambridge brickyard, Henry Thurston obtained a hand-operated children's roundabout and launched himself on a new career. Ten years' later he had not only adapted the roundabout to pony power but had also purchased a set of 'four abreast galloping horses and ostriches' built by Tidman of Norwich and powered by a Hornsby traction engine.
By 1906 Henry had also acquired a Savage spinning top gondola and switchback, and a Gavioli organ. But it was his son, Charles, born 1870, who saw the potential of vaudeville and the bioscope and anticipated the arrival of the static cinema.
I can recall in the 1950s a funfair gamely trying to help a football team, which wanted to rig up some lights to enable training on dark evenings. In teeming rain, a group of volunteers struggled to erect posts and cables around one end of the playing pitch, but the system produced only the merest glimmer of light. Then the funfair on nearby Cinder Ash came to their rescue. Their chaps relaid the cables, hooked them up to a trailer generator, and thrummed new life into the lamps. Better, but still not bright enough, alas.
In early 1974 I met Charles' son, Charles junior, who told me about the family background and talked about their preparations for Lynn Mart, traditionally the showman's seasonal opener. Not exactly life on the open road, but mobile enough.
Wednesday 8 July 2015
DWILE FLONKING
How odd is odd? Or more accurately, perhaps, how old is old? In the past I have seen written claims that dwile flonking is a quaint and very ancient Norfolk pastime, most obviously and publicly dragged out of the undergrowth for performances at village festivals. Which, if true, would place the ritual in the same sort of odd-ball category as ley lines and flying saucers.
But of course, it is not ancient at all. In fact, dwile flonking is demonstrably modern, having been 'invented' by some thirsty enthusiasts in Beccles in the mid-1960s. Nevertheless, it has helped keep several pubs and breweries in business ever since.
So, rather than place it alongside ley lines, perhaps it should be seen in the same, or similar, category as snail racing and ferret-legging, other honourable pastimes which have entranced Norfolk participants and spectators in the past.
Dwile flonking actually evolved as a charitable stunt and as a means, or excuse, to drink large quantities of beer, something which once caused a worried North Norfolk District Council to at least consider banning it on the grounds that it did indeed encourage excessive drinking. Not a good example to the young, then.
Some say it originated in a Michael Bentine TV programme broadcast in the early 1960s. Which may or may not be true. But in essence, two teams (usually but not necessarily made up of lads) take it in turns to dance around each other while trying to avoid being hit by a beer-soaked dishcloth being twirled around, and finally flung, by another chap in the middle. There is a scoring system, and there is no limit to the amount of alcohol which can be consumed.
More prosiacally dwile flonking, which occasionally pops up on village social calendars - and which once popped up at a public demonstration in New Zealand! - and often pulls in more spectators than it probably deserves, did also introduce a dialect vocabulary, or list of words, into the local dialect: girter, flonker, driveller, swadger, wanton, jobanow and snurd, some of which do actually have a pedigree.
A dwile is Norfolk/Suffolk dialect for a dishcloth. As for flonk, well, a flong is a mould in the printing profession. But these things are ephemeral, and all things pass.
Meanwhile, I see that the Dog Inn at Ludham seems to have taken over the mantle as HQ of the flonkers, and indeed, the Annual Dwile Flonking World Championships are evidently to be held there this coming August. They are still looking for sponsors.
But if you don't believe me, then do ask your favourite search engine for particulars about dwile flonking. Or look it up on http://www.thenorfolkbroads.org/Dwile%20Flonking.html It is all there, including the so-called rules.
How odd is odd? Or more accurately, perhaps, how old is old? In the past I have seen written claims that dwile flonking is a quaint and very ancient Norfolk pastime, most obviously and publicly dragged out of the undergrowth for performances at village festivals. Which, if true, would place the ritual in the same sort of odd-ball category as ley lines and flying saucers.
But of course, it is not ancient at all. In fact, dwile flonking is demonstrably modern, having been 'invented' by some thirsty enthusiasts in Beccles in the mid-1960s. Nevertheless, it has helped keep several pubs and breweries in business ever since.
So, rather than place it alongside ley lines, perhaps it should be seen in the same, or similar, category as snail racing and ferret-legging, other honourable pastimes which have entranced Norfolk participants and spectators in the past.
Dwile flonking actually evolved as a charitable stunt and as a means, or excuse, to drink large quantities of beer, something which once caused a worried North Norfolk District Council to at least consider banning it on the grounds that it did indeed encourage excessive drinking. Not a good example to the young, then.
Some say it originated in a Michael Bentine TV programme broadcast in the early 1960s. Which may or may not be true. But in essence, two teams (usually but not necessarily made up of lads) take it in turns to dance around each other while trying to avoid being hit by a beer-soaked dishcloth being twirled around, and finally flung, by another chap in the middle. There is a scoring system, and there is no limit to the amount of alcohol which can be consumed.
More prosiacally dwile flonking, which occasionally pops up on village social calendars - and which once popped up at a public demonstration in New Zealand! - and often pulls in more spectators than it probably deserves, did also introduce a dialect vocabulary, or list of words, into the local dialect: girter, flonker, driveller, swadger, wanton, jobanow and snurd, some of which do actually have a pedigree.
A dwile is Norfolk/Suffolk dialect for a dishcloth. As for flonk, well, a flong is a mould in the printing profession. But these things are ephemeral, and all things pass.
Meanwhile, I see that the Dog Inn at Ludham seems to have taken over the mantle as HQ of the flonkers, and indeed, the Annual Dwile Flonking World Championships are evidently to be held there this coming August. They are still looking for sponsors.
But if you don't believe me, then do ask your favourite search engine for particulars about dwile flonking. Or look it up on http://www.thenorfolkbroads.org/Dwile%20Flonking.html It is all there, including the so-called rules.
Saturday 4 July 2015
TIME OUT
Political watchers of even tender years will doubtless remember when 'choice' was the top Wetsminster mantra. 'Choice' - in the NHS, for example - was what everyone evidently wanted, a choice of hospital, consultant, or GP. Then it became apparent that most people did not actually want choice. What they wanted more than anything were top-class facilities close to home. So instead of 'choice,' the mantra was changed to 'privatisation.'
Now in my book, and again relating to the NHS, 'privatisation' is as dodgy a label as 'choice' or 'PFI.' None have been howling successes, and indeed, it is not too difficult to make out a case that they have been disasters. Most privatised services, from nursing homes to medical and social services, seem to run with minimum numbers of staff earning minimal wages, with the profits going to the shareholders.
So it was no surprise to hear during the last General Election that the top mantra had changed once more, this time to 'hard-working families.' Something designed, no doubt, to take the microscope of bad publicity away from choice and PFI and privatisation.
Meanwhile, the poor old NHS stumbles on, doing its best despite the interference of politicians, coping with increasing demands for its services, and monetary limitations and squeezes. Mind you, various solutions have been promised, including injections of extra cash and other knee-jerk suggestions. But none of this, it seems to me, actually fits the bill.
It has been general knowledge for several decades that the average ages of the population at large were increasing and that there would be a tidal wave of elderly people seeking care and treatments at some point in the future. Say, around 2015? And yet when Norwich's new University hospital was in the planning stage the original idea was still to close two old hospitals and build a new one containing even fewer beds than the previous pair put together.
So what was actually put in motion, decades ago, to plan for this deluge? Not a lot as far as I can see. And yet this is what the NHS needs most of all : not knee-jerk responses, but long-term planning. And this is also where the difficulties really start.
A new Government is elected for a five-year spell. It will often spend the first few months sorting itself out, and the final 12 months preparing for the next election, leaving a space of about three years in the middle in which to fomulate plans and put them into operation. And if the Opposition, with an entirely different approach, actually win the next Election, then all those three-year plans will have been wasted, anyway.
Surely something as large and complicated and vital as the NHS needs at least a 15-year plan, subject to checks and balances as time passes and in light of new discoveries and techniques. You could only do this, however, by taking the NHS out of the political arena and working with some sort of political consensus.
So lets have consensus on the NHS. Take it out of the bear-pit of Westminster politics and put it into the hands of people given a mandate to formulate and initiate long-term strategies. And if the system worked, how about taking education out of the political arena, too?
Come to think of it, if further powers are to be devolved to major cities, and if the NHS and education were being run from elsewhere sensibly and successfully, would there actually be anything for Westminster to do?
Political watchers of even tender years will doubtless remember when 'choice' was the top Wetsminster mantra. 'Choice' - in the NHS, for example - was what everyone evidently wanted, a choice of hospital, consultant, or GP. Then it became apparent that most people did not actually want choice. What they wanted more than anything were top-class facilities close to home. So instead of 'choice,' the mantra was changed to 'privatisation.'
Now in my book, and again relating to the NHS, 'privatisation' is as dodgy a label as 'choice' or 'PFI.' None have been howling successes, and indeed, it is not too difficult to make out a case that they have been disasters. Most privatised services, from nursing homes to medical and social services, seem to run with minimum numbers of staff earning minimal wages, with the profits going to the shareholders.
So it was no surprise to hear during the last General Election that the top mantra had changed once more, this time to 'hard-working families.' Something designed, no doubt, to take the microscope of bad publicity away from choice and PFI and privatisation.
Meanwhile, the poor old NHS stumbles on, doing its best despite the interference of politicians, coping with increasing demands for its services, and monetary limitations and squeezes. Mind you, various solutions have been promised, including injections of extra cash and other knee-jerk suggestions. But none of this, it seems to me, actually fits the bill.
It has been general knowledge for several decades that the average ages of the population at large were increasing and that there would be a tidal wave of elderly people seeking care and treatments at some point in the future. Say, around 2015? And yet when Norwich's new University hospital was in the planning stage the original idea was still to close two old hospitals and build a new one containing even fewer beds than the previous pair put together.
So what was actually put in motion, decades ago, to plan for this deluge? Not a lot as far as I can see. And yet this is what the NHS needs most of all : not knee-jerk responses, but long-term planning. And this is also where the difficulties really start.
A new Government is elected for a five-year spell. It will often spend the first few months sorting itself out, and the final 12 months preparing for the next election, leaving a space of about three years in the middle in which to fomulate plans and put them into operation. And if the Opposition, with an entirely different approach, actually win the next Election, then all those three-year plans will have been wasted, anyway.
Surely something as large and complicated and vital as the NHS needs at least a 15-year plan, subject to checks and balances as time passes and in light of new discoveries and techniques. You could only do this, however, by taking the NHS out of the political arena and working with some sort of political consensus.
So lets have consensus on the NHS. Take it out of the bear-pit of Westminster politics and put it into the hands of people given a mandate to formulate and initiate long-term strategies. And if the system worked, how about taking education out of the political arena, too?
Come to think of it, if further powers are to be devolved to major cities, and if the NHS and education were being run from elsewhere sensibly and successfully, would there actually be anything for Westminster to do?
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