Today we climbed to the top of Hethersett Church Tower and took a number of photographs, some of which are published below.
Cromer during the main holiday weeks takes on a much different feel with thousands of holidaymakers swelling the local population and making moving about much more difficult.
Today we got the Coasthopper with the intention of going to Morston and then walking back to Blakeney and then onto Sheringham. But the bus was so full and so hot that we got off at Sheringham and took our grandson to the beach instead. Then returned to Cromer and played on the beach there as well. They said it wouldn't rain, but it did. So we took the Coasthopper bus all the way from Cromer to Wells, by which time it had brightened up somewhat. Then back to Sheringham, a walk along the front and up Beeston Bump, through the caravan park and back on the bus to Cromer.
One of the great joys in life is discovering new areas and things. Today was a prime example. Another visit to North Norfolk but this time we took a scenic journey via Reepham. Discovered not only a lovely little town but also an impressive Gothic style church at nearby Booton. We had passed the church of St Michael The Archangel on a number of occasions, but this was the first time we had stopped to have a proper look. The church was the brainchild of one of those wonderfully eccentric churchmen - the Rev Whitwell Elwin who was apparently a friend of Charles Darwin. Elwin raised the money for the church and then designed it - taking details as he fancied from other churches in the country. It is thought that the original twin towers sprung from his own imagination. Inside there are numerous angels which were apparently modeled on Elwin's female friends. The church no longer holds regular worship but is run by the Churches Conservation Trust and is now available for people who want to camp out in somewhere a touch unusual. They call it Champing (a mixture of church and camping) and it has been known to host hen parties. Looking at the building I somehow think that the Rev Elwin would have approved. Then it was on to Reepham and that was like stepping back into the 1950s with its delis and old fashioned butcher shops.
I have always been drawn to Great Yarmouth - mainly due to some good memories from childhood and the fact that many of my ancestors come from the town.
But any visit to the place will show what a mixture it is of the good, the bad and the ugly and I can never work out whether there is more of the good or more of the bad and ugly. Certainly the whole place seems to need a clean-up and I believe there is news of a regeneration. It was a cold day so most people stayed away from the seafront and radiated around the market place and Regent Road. Trying to describe Regent Road is an art form in itself. Full of rock shops (that's rock as in the sweets with Great Yarmouth written through them as opposed to rock music), cheap CD shops playing grotesque country music and cheap restaurants. Sadly the House of Wax seems to be empty and falling to bits. It gained notoriety when it was voted "the worst waxworks in the country" by a national newspaper. Apparently there was little competition as Cliff Richard had once been mistaken for Margaret Thatcher - that's how bad it was. We took the grandchildren because they love the place. So lets look at the good:
But all that is balanced by the bad and the ugly which include
Those are just some of the bad points. There are many more. But for now we had a good day. Joyland is fun with its rides suitable for very young children (the snails have provided entertainment for generations of our family - myself as a child, our own children and now our grandchildren). I will write much more about Great Yarmouth in future blog entries. You can never re-create the past. The past is gone and will never return. What you can do is provide tokens from the past to help with memories and to bring a touch of that past to the present.
And that's pretty much what happened with the inaugural Sixties Day at Cromer today. They were dubbed the Swinging Sixties. Now I was a child of the Sixties despite being born in the early years of the 1950s. So I should have many memories from the sixties, but they seem to have been blotted out somewhere. They say if you remember the sixties you probably weren't there. So using that logic I can't remember them so I must have been there. As the 1960s were ushered in on January 1st I would have been eight years old and a pupil at Kinsale Avenue Junior School in Hellesdon, near Norwich. At the end of the decade on December 31st, 1969 I would have been 17 and in the sixth form at the Norwich School. I remember personal things like getting my eleven plus results but specific events surrounding hippiedom, rock festivals, the summer of love all seemed to pass me by. My only real memory is of England winning the World Cup in 1966. So I probably dressed in a very unfashionable way, spoke in an unfashionable way and the whole sixties as an event passed me by. So her we were, firmly planted in 2016 trying to re-create the feelings, the sights and the sounds of almost 60 years ago. So did it work? Well for a start the sixties were confined pretty much to Cromer Pier and the immediate promenade. Everything else was still firmly rooted in 2016. Some people dressed for the part, some of the music outside the pier was dire (not the music but the way it was delivered). I listened as one duo destroyed Joni Mitchell's classic song "Woodstock" and then moved on to murder Paul Simon's "The Boxer." I think they then went on to Creedence Clearwater Revival. Earlier we had been subjected to the worst rendition of Arthur Brown's "Fire" I have ever heard. Ironically later in North Lodge Park we listened to a rock choir, followed by the Walker Brothers (that's the Norfolk Walker Brothers who are genuine brothers compared with the real Walker Brothers who actually weren't brothers if you follow me) and they were half decent. Certasinly those two should have been playing close to the pier. There were Lambrettas and scooters and the best part was the pint for £1 on the pier. It was all quite jolly and I certainly look forward to next year when they might stretch the whole thing across a weekend. I was living and working at Cromer in the early 1970s and couldn't help thinking as I walked away from the event "They never had this kind of thing when I was working here." Then I realised that the reason for that was simple. Nobody celebrated the sixties when they were only two years in the past. A weekend in Cromer is as good a way as I can think of to dust off the cobwebs and improve one's outlook on life.
Today we did a long circular walk from the town centre, out to Felbrigg Hall and back the long way. It was down as 6.5 miles but it felt much longer. Add on a mile to our apartment and it was probably the best part of an eight mile walk. Weather-wise it was a very strange day. Sunshine one moment, cloud and a cold wind the next. A few spots of rain chucked in for good measure. The outward walk took us past Cromer Hall. "Did you ever visit the hall when you worked here," asked my dear wife. "Never knew it existed," I replied. And that set me thinking. I loved my time working in Cromer in the 1970s but cannot remember being very interested in the place's heritage or history. I suppose an interest in history comes with age, although I do have an 'A level in the subject. Now I am fascinated with virtually every aspect of the town's past. The same happened to me a few years ago when I re-visited Belper in Derbyshire, many years after I spent a year working there. On my return I became hugely interested in its history and heritage, having given this scant regard in the past. Once past Cromer Hall we worked our way through a field - populated with a few inquisitive looking cows and through Felbrigg village and onto Felbrigg Hall where they had a plant sale. So there were plenty of people around. The queue for refreshments was long but an arrow pointed us towards a tea stall in a meadow. After standing in the queue for the best part of 15 minutes without moving forward I gave up. Let's be charitable and just say the young man serving wasn't grease lightning. After a quick waltz around the walled garden we continued our circular walk and the second half turned out really to be the second two-thirds. We were following a route from the Bittern Line web site and soon found out that they had made changes to the "way out" sign at Felbrigg. It now takes you back the same way, whereas in the past it directed cars and walkers through the estate. So we took the path of the past and soon got back on track. An interesting walk past uninhabited camp sites and eventually back to Cromer and a much needed shower. A quick visit to friends at Beeston Regis Caravan Park and then an evening meal at Craft Burger where we went because the Red Lion was overfull. The weather on Sunday 9th April was perfect for a day by the sea. Temperatures soared to well over 20 degrees and there wasn't a cloud in the sky.
A wonderful day for the beach and also for one of our favourite places in the town - North Lodge Park. With the grandchildren in tow we had an early morning walk along the cliff top into town and then back along Overstrand Road, before driving to Lidl on the Holt Road to stock up on groceries. It was only 10 am but the traffic was already building up and it was something of a crawl. The supermarket opens at 10 am on Sundays and, shortly after that time, the car park is already heaving. Managed to get a space but it was difficult to get out due to some amazingly inept driving. Goodness knows how many shunts there are during a year. With the groceries safely stowed away, it was time to go to the cafe in North Lodge Park for coffee and cake. The cafe is run by volunteers and the cakes are excellent. Over Easter the volunteers have organised an Easter egg hunt primarily aimed at children. Strangely some of the clues are difficult and others just plain confusing - even to the people marking the answers. Not that it matters because all the youngsters get a chocolate egg anyway. I'm not even sure how many we got wrong but it certainly was rather confusing and tough for a four year old and two year old. Our favourite clue surrounded a western pointing sign that lead to something divine. We found the signpost in the park but the only indication to the west that we could find was "toilet". So we put that as our answer. The real answer should have been the parish church which not only didn't seem to be signposted but was also not in the park! It did make us laugh though. I did find one of the clues rather poignant. It referred to the person commemorated on a seat with the date 1993. It turned out to be Tom Bolton who I remember well from my time as a young reporter on the North Norfolk News. Tom was the owner of the Cliftonville Hotel and I believe a top local angler. Brought the past back to light once again. The interesting thing about the park is the work being undertaken by the Friends Group who have established the cafe, a very picturesque garden and many other improvements. The park is still a mixture of the Good, the Bad and the Ugly however with a nasty concrete area and a shelter that seems to be decaying at a speedy rate. I understand there are plans to renovate the shelter. There has also been local controversy over a move to turn part of the park into a car park. The couple of photos above were taken an the beach and show a boat being brought ashore by a tractor. Also one of the grandchildren and wife Anne. THE fragility of the North Norfolk coast was underlined today during a beach walk from Cromer to East Runton. I wouldn't say that cliff top caravans are quite hanging over the edge but they aren't far away from it as the photographs above illustrate. Sadly it won't be too long before the cliffs erode sufficiently to take away parts of various caravan parks throughout North Norfolk. Today we had an early morning drive to East and West Runton and a coffee at Clementine's Cafe Bistro on the main coast road at West Runton. We ended there because I refused to pay the ridiculous car parking charges at East Runton. North Norfolk District Council cannot seriously expect motorists to pay £1.50 for an hour's parking. No wonder motorists clog up side roads by dumping their cars. Just have a look at the charges imposed and absolutely no discount for longer periods of time. In the afternoon we walked along the beach to East Runton and then back again along the clifftop. There was an extremely keen wind, making walking difficult, although it was quite a warm day. I may have mentioned before my fascination with the lifeboat service at Cromer and in particular the singularly heroic endeavors of Henry Blogg. I rarely go past Corner Street in Cromer without making a slight detour to have a look at the plaques on the wall of the cottage where Henry lived in his later years. It is now Blogg Cottage and is the first cottage on the left hand side of the road (or on your right as you walk up it) and just past Mary Jane's fish and chip shop. A little research has established that there are blue plaques to a number of coxswains of Cromer Lifeboat including Blogg, Shrimp Davies and Tuna Harrison, but none as far as I know to Richard Davies who died a few years ago and was honoured on numerous occasions for his bravery. I have to admit a personal interest in this matter as back in the early 1970s I lives next door to Richard - Me at No 7 Corner Street and he at No 9. I think it is high time that a blue plaque was put in place at number 9 to remember Richard's bravery. |
AuthorTwo of my loves in life are writing and the Norfolk coast. This blog combines the two with entries covering visits to the sea. Archives
April 2017
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