Wells-next-the-Sea

Wells-next-the-Sea, a dramatic setting for a long delayed celebration

Journey of a Covid Survivor

And so, we went East on the M62 and South on the A1(M) and then East and Easter and Further East along tunnel-like Autumnal lanes, going nowhere but to the edge of the island nation and the impossibly bronze and blue  horizons of the north Norfolk coast. It was what I call “getting away from it all” with precious friends.

Me, Michael, Sally, Janet

Wells-next-the-Sea

To Quay View Cottage, a three-storey, perfectly situated, beautifully clean, well-equipped holiday let which had everything we needed to hunker down at Halloween, catch up and put the world to rights. As W H Hudson (author, naturalist and ornithologist) described it:

There are few places in England where you can get so much wildness and desolation of sea and sandhills, woods, green marsh and grey saltings as at Wells in Norfolk.

View from our bedroom at Quay View Cottage

Celebrations Assemble

Reasons to gather:

• two postponed 60th birthday weekends
• an imminent 65th birthday
• the awarding of an OBE
• the recent Empty Nesting and the happiness/success of All Our Daughters
• the recovery of Yours Truly from Ghastly Nasty Covid

Wells-next-the-Sea with, top left, the "old" lifeboat station

Gulls and Geese

The purple evening light (a bit like the “blue hour” of twilight in Scandinavia) bathed the tail end of half term holidaymakers, the younglings squealing as the seagulls and geese swooped and squabbled for territory on the harbour walls and local soccer field.

Sea Wall Defences

In such a flat, expansive landscape, a little elevation goes a long way. It was therefore memorable to walk the length of the Flood Defence Wall under dramatic skies.

Dangerous maze-like coast

The marshes, scrubland, sea, sandbanks and horizons intermingled in ever-changing arrangements, connecting and disconnecting in disorientating maze-like channels. And over us all, the massive skies, moody, broody, threatening, and glorious.

Yes, I Know I used the bottom left snap already, but it just sums up my memory of the weekend!

Holkham Bay

Our destination at the end of the Flood Defence Wall was the two-mile stretch of Holkham Beach, bleeding into dunes which sheltered us from the wind for our picnic.

There's that same pic again, along with Holkham beach, a basking seal and colourful beach huts

Offshore wind farms

Behind us was the desolation of nature and in front of us, bending the mind, were limitless skies merging into the horizon-stretching sea. Could that be a mirage or an offshore wind farm?

Wells Crab House

We self-catered apart from one evening spent in the intimate and informal Wells Crab House where you can identify the name of the fisherman who caught the food on your plate. As the website (justifiably) boasts “Nothing better than getting our deliveries so fresh with wellies still dripping with the sea.” So, there was Curry Battered Prawns, Mackerel Terrine, Haddock Pot and Salmon Noodles followed by Scallop Crumble, Crab Platter, Lobster and Fresh Cod.

Sandbanks and quicksands

Travel writer, Peter Sager, wrote of north Norfolk:

What a coast this is, with its salt marshes and lavender, its channels, dunes, bays and crumbling Ice Age cliffs, lonelier and wilder than its Suffolk neighbour, Arctic, melancholic, beautiful, treacherous, with sandbanks and quicksands, storms and floods, and never-ending erosion.

Sadly the East Coast is the likeliest bit of England to be lost to the sea if the impending climate catastrophe is not averted. Now I have spent time on this watery land, clinging to the island flats, I feel that losing north Norfolk (and, for that matter, parts of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and north Wales) to the sea would be a tragedy.

No Excuses Now

 

I hope Tory Voters are right
I hope the new government will turn the UK into a huge post-Brexit success. WHAT DID THE TORY MANIFESTO PROMISE?

• Get Brexit Done
• Take measures to reverse the climate emergency
• Protect and enhance the NHS
• Boost the Education Service
• Improve the national Criminal Justice and Penal systems
• Develop an immigration service appropriate to the 21st Century
• Build enough social housing
• Protect and enhance the lives of all vulnerable people
• Unleash the potential of the UK’s forgotten towns with major investments
• Improve our transport infrastructure
• Protect jobs and human rights
• Be taken seriously on the World Stage.

THAT’S WHAT THEY’VE PROMISED IN THEIR MANIFESTO. That’s (I hope) why TORY VOTERS voted for them because TORY VOTERS BELIEVE THIS WILL HAPPEN. I hope so too. Really hope so. I love the UK. I love its history, its culture, its countryside. I wish we had voted to remain aligned to Europe in the Referendum back in 2016 but we didn’t, so I have always thought that Brexit in some form should happen, despite my reservations about the honesty of the original exercise.

Well, the Tories have had three-and-a-half years to deliver Brexit. They haven’t – and for two of those years because of their own in-fighting – and NOW the country has voted to give the mendacious Boris Johnson a chance to Get Brexit Done. So, I watch with fascinated interest – and hope the Tory Voters are right – and within months the country regains its pride, strength and stability. Time will tell.

Right Left Divide
My final comfort is that (in the graphic below, with one result left to call):

• the Right of Centre Vote Share (Con + Brx) = 45.6%
• the Left of Centre Vote Share (Lab + LD + SNP + GRN) = 50.3%

with the rest made up of Northern Ireland parties and Independent individuals. If only a New Left Alliance could emerge from the ashes of the 2019 election…. a Rebel Alliance?

Rolled on by a horse....

(Genuinely) Clever Clive and (Genuinely) Buffoonish Boris
The late (clever and funny) Clive James wrote after an early Boris Johnson appearance as (short-lived) Foreign Secretary:

Boris gave an immediate impression of total dishevelment. It’s not his clothes and coiffure, but his personality that makes him look as if he had been rolled on by a horse and then seduced by it.

Clive James’s later poetry, like his TV and cultural criticism disarmed as well as skewered pomposity – he was that rare beast in public life, someone who wore his learning lightly. Unlike our current Prime Minister who likes to obfuscate the truth beneath bluster. Only Boris Johnson could answer a question on the traitorous Fake FactCheck site set up by the Tories with reference to:

“hunting the snark.… Fermat’s last theorem…. the riddle of the Sphinx…. the Bermuda triangle…. croutons….”

(Search for it on the internet if you don’t believe me – Boris Johnson answering question about fact check website.) His answer was designed to provoke laughter and to deflect from the serious accusation in the question. It’s a well-known technique that clever students use in Debating Societies in schools and universities time and again.

A sheep, a shark, a drunk and a lozenge
Check out the Jeremy Vine account admiring Boris Johnson’s apparent genius when Johnson gave what seemed like a spontaneous after-dinner speech…. It’s a clear example of our current Prime Minister’s elusive smoke and mirrors trickery. The winter election next Thursday seems to be framed around the future. Promises, promises…. But I find myself considering the present and the past decade. Do I want more of the same? Do I believe the Tories? Since the imposition of austerity in 2010, has the UK become a stronger, safer, more prosperous, more cultural, more law-abiding, more civilised country? If not, who has been in power since 2010? Answer: the Tories, along with five years of LiberalDemocratEnablers. They have presided over:

• an increase in the national debt (so those austerity measures worked, didn’t they?)

1. £850 billion in 2010 to £1.786 trillion by December 2018
2. £175 billion spend on Emergency Brexit stimulus by Bank of England (Brexit, remember, was initiated by the Tories and they have had over three years to implement it and the first attempts to make it happen were THWARTED by the Tories themselves)
3. 86 million pounds spent on non-existent ferries
4. £1 billion to bribe the DUP into a form of coalition that ended disastrously
5. shameful increase in child poverty (32 - 35% of UK children in this category now)
6. 80% of the 5.3 million self employed live below the poverty line
7. 185,000 deaths attributed to the austerity measures brought in by the Tories and LibDems
8. 150% increase in student debt (student fees up 300%)
9. GDP fallen to -0.1%
10. Sterling against the Euro and the USD fallen by 15%
11. 25 – 30 % cut to all government departments
12. 25 – 30 % cut to local councils, mainly centred on Labour councils

• a degrading of health

1. 2400% increase in the use of food banks
2. 10,000 fewer medical professionals and there is now a dangerous nurse shortage
3. 25,000 fewer bed spaces for mental illness
4. 25% cuts for our disabled community
5. 80% cuts to Mobility allowance
6. increase in teenage suicide by 70%
7. suicide up 12% in the year 2018
8. self harm among young women up 70%
9. life expectancy down 3 years
10. NHS satisfaction level at lowest recorded rate
11. and don't get me started on the current lies about what hospital "buildings" they are currently promising

• education

1. over 1000 Sure Start centres closed
2. over 700 libraries closed
3. eradication of the Education Maintenance Allowance
4. 36,000 teachers have left the profession and there is now a teacher shortage

• crime and justice

1. 25,000 fewer police
2. 20,000 fewer prison officers
3. increase of 50% in hate crimes
4. increase of knife crime by 150% to 22,000 per year

• infrastructure (especially housing and transport)

1. 1000% increase in homelessness
2. 1,200% increase in rough sleeping
3. mass evictions caused by the bedroom tax
4. Zero starter homes built, despite Tory flagship programme
5. Council home building down 90% since 2010
6. 200,000 social homes lost since 2010
7. one million families on council home waiting list
8. 100,000 increase on the council home waiting list since 2010
9. 10,000 fewer firefighters
10. over 650 football pitches closed
11. manufacturing, contruction and auto industries in recession
12. half of local councils are facing bankruptcy
13. Claims of “job creation” are masked by self-employed, ZeroHoursContracts and gig economy causing the OECD to suggest the unemployment rate in the UK is really 13% if you calculate the 3 million hidden unemployed

Voting for more of the same?
We are an entrenched country of foodbanks and multimillionaires. How can that be? And yet it is likely that many people in the UK will still vote for the Tories, the “nasty party.’ The party of the few, not the many. How long, in normal life, would you give someone the benefit of the doubt? Has almost 10 years been long enough to make improvements? 10 years! Are you going to vote for more of the same?

The Familiars

Statue of Alice Nutter in Roughlee, Gawthorpe Hall, the Pendle Witch Trials and Stacey Hall's The Familiars

The Familiars by Stacey Halls
During a recent trip to Scotland, Sally, Emily and I listened rapt to an audio reading of the tale of Fleetwood Shuttleworth. Stacey Hall’s novel The Familiars gives an account of pregnant Fleetwood and her choice of midwife, the enigmatic Alice Grey, and how they both get caught up in the historical events and people involved in the Pendle Witch Trials. I don’t want to reveal any spoilers about the novel but would highly recommend it if you enjoy strong female characters, historical fiction, Gothic conventions and stories of friendship, brutality, betrayal, hypocrisy, religious fundamentalism and the clash of contrasting spirits.

Gawthorpe Hall

Pendle Heritage Centre and Gawthorpe Hall
Though Alice Grey is an historical name, her character is imagined. Fleetwood Shuttleworth, however, is the fabulous name of the real-life owner of Gawthorpe Hall, a mighty building open to the public right now, in the hands of the National Trust. The Elizabethan interior has panelling and ceilings of astonishing merit. Not far away is the informative and moving Pendle Heritage Centre which provides the details, amongst many other things, of:

• James I’s tightening of the screws following the Gunpowder Plot
• the Demdike and Chattox families
• pedlar John Law and his “cursing” by Alison Device
• Malkin Tower and the “Witches’ Sabbath”
• Alice Nutter, Ashlar House, Lancaster Castle, Roger Nowell
• Jennet Device and the Pendle Witch Trial and the 11 hangings that resulted

  

  Pendle Heritage Centre (and more Gawthorpe Hall images)

Iron Ring of Castles

Peaceful Now, Iron Ring Not Needed
Knowing that Edward I built his “Iron Ring of Castles” in this area of north Wales to control the rebellious Welsh is easy to forget when you stand on Conwy beach and look across to the Great Orme (the massive chunk of limestone rising up near Llandudno.) The beach has golden sandbanks and dunes, as well as charming bluebell walks to reach it from certain directions.

Penrhyn Castle (Castle Penrhyn)
Was NOT one of Edward I’s Iron Ring – in fact is is a Victorian pile with faux medieval features, but with the attraction of enchanting William Morris decoration and pre-Raphaelite paintings. The displays about the impact of the building of the railways and the use of the local slate quarry were compelling, probably because the information honestly and imaginatively confronted the slave trade’s role in contributing to the growing economy of the Pennant family in the 17th and 18th centuries.

From “pretend” Castle Penrhyn to Fortress Caernarvon
Sturdy Caernarfon (Canarvon Castle to English tongues) is a lynchpin of the Iron Ring and has been home to several important historical events, not least of which was the investiture of Prince Charles in 1969 and, five decades earlier in 1911, the future King Edward VIII, both becoming Prince of Wales. The mighty, heavily restored Caernarvon boasts Castillian octagonal turrets (no less than three on the Eagle Tower.) 

Multimedia Castle
Imaginative multi-media displays brought different periods of the castle’s history to life. There was a circular projection that helped fill in the timeline, a giant “chess board” depicting the ownership of the title “Prince of Wales”, a shadow-puppet pageant of Eleanor of Castille’s life and a dramatic depiction of Edward I’s manipulation (to his own ends) of the myths of King Arthur.

The Museum of the Royal Welch Fusiliers
Within the Castle is an account of the distinguished Welch Fusiliers (yes, spelled with a c not an s!) The regiment was raised in 1689 and the museum contains fascinating material, including an account of Jenny Jones and Mother Ross, women who dressed as men to fight beside their comrades. A goat has been the regiment’s mascot since 1777 and, since 1844 and Queen Victoria’s “gift,” the goat has always been a “royal goat.” The new royal baby, Archie, appeared in early May, so it seemed somewhat fitting that we were visiting one of Archie’s ancestor’s large-scale Defence of the Realm F-Off castles. Will Archie ever be crowned Prince of Wales? (As Seventh in line to the throne, it is unlikely but, then again, who would have predicted Edward VIII’s life choices back in 1911?)

Harriet was off camping on this holiday; and this pic includes the longest town name in the UK

Plas Mawr (Great Hall)

Plas Mawr
I had few expectations of this Elizabethan town house, restored to as much glory as the restoration team could afford. It is tucked away in Conwy and proved to be a delightful surprise. The curators provide an audio-guide which gives an evocative two hours of detail, recreating the mansion’s past and its recent restoration. Even the outside yard has been given planters with what could be found at the time of the Great Hall's first incarnation.

Tenacious survival
The property was built Robert Wynn between 1576 and 1585 and the décor seems to be a blend of Renaissance and Elizabethan styles. Architecturally it is unchanged from its original form but the painting is recreated from contemporary accounts and uses as much authentic material as possible. Over the years it has been used, for example, as a schoolroom or a courthouse; and its almost unbroken use (and its semi-hidden location) is perhaps why it has survived.

Plas Mawr yard and view over to Conwy Castle

Bodnant Garden

National Trust – Bodnant Garden
Early May found Sally, Emily and me sleeping in the quiet countryside of North Wales – inside the palpable blackness of the night, free from light pollution – and woken by the sound of birds in the morning. Our first beautiful oasis was the National Trust’s Bodnant Garden: wisteria, rhododendrons, handkerchief trees, sequoia, cypress, glades, rocks, lawns, meadows, water, running streams, lakes, tiny bridges, benches, sharp inclines, vistas, formal sections, informal sections, pinks, whites, yellows, purples, reds and oranges – stunning landscapes in which to get lost.

Dwelling by a stream
Bodnant in Welsh means “dwelling by a stream” and this lovely place in the Conwy Valley is a rewarding place to visit if you like your soul to be bathed in nature.

4% African (where birds fly, so can I)

Spot the Finn, the Italian, the Nigerian, the North African, the Englander, the Celt....

Temba Dance Company
At some point in the mid-1980s, in my first teaching job, in the middle of a sweaty, hectic, inspiring dance workshop at Leek’s Westwood High School, an African performer spoke prophetically to me. She was an older, hefty, charismatic woman who was a senior figure in Temba Dance Company (now sadly disbanded I believe). We’d just run through some energetic routine and she had been a circling observer, wandering around the room, encouraging, cajoling, cheering, whooping at the staff and teenagers – all age groups, all abilities – who were being put through their paces. She clasped my hands and, publically and loudly declared as the room felt silent – “My God, My God, Mr Johnson, I swear you have African blood in you.” People laughed. I laughed. We carried on. But it lodged as a significant moment in my life and, yes, I’ve told it as a story many times since, especially at times when my moves on a dance floor have been on the agenda…. and usually as a story to amuse. But I hardly dared tell people that I believed her at the time in a weird supernatural way.

She was telling the true truth
And so to our DNA tests. (I have the right to believe what I want to believe!) I expected to have Scandinavian DNA because of my Viking surname. I thought there might be Celtic in me from an instinctive set of feelings. I romantically hoped there’d be Italian because of my love for that country’s history, food and drink. And what came up? (See above.) 4% African (3.2% North African and 0.9% Nigerian.) The wise Temba dancer was right all along…. I always thought Sally and I were drawn together by our love of Yorkshire, shared political values, sense of humour, instincts for generosity and open-mindedness and desire to build a nest…. but looking at our DNA results, could it have been my ancestral 0.9% Nigerian DNA calling to Sally’s 1.2% Nigerian DNA?

Endeavour and Hadrian’s Wall
There was a great moment in a recent Endeavour on TV at an imagined Oxford Union debate where a black student invited the racist person who was arguing that all people who were not originally in England should be repatriated to their country of origin and the black student delivered the punchline “after you!” Humans are migratory animals. History, archaeology and anthropology have all proved this long ago. Accents and language demonstrate it. Customs and religion colour it. If President Trump were to send all the immigrants in the United States back to their own countries, then only Native Americans would remain. In the UK the earliest people we know about definitively were the Celts and we know they bred with Belgians, Germans and French before the Romans arrived. But Hadrian’s Wall had a massive impact. For over 400 years, troops from all round the Roman Empire manned the Wall (and womaned the settlements around the Wall.) Many bred. Many never left when the Romans retreated. We’ve been a mongrel, immigrant nation from the very earliest times. (Any alt-right readers who want to argue this point should read this hyperlinked article first which has its own links to supporting evidence.) So I’m proud of my African ancestry. It shows I belong. Here on planet Earth. Where boundaries and borders are imaginary human constructs. Where birds fly, so can I.

Celtic/English woods (at Bolton Abbey), candles imported from Scandinavia, vinegar and oil and wine from various parts of Europe and textiles and table mats from Africa....?

New Year, New Routine

 

Epiphany
And so the Twelfth Day of Christmas comes around again and all the trimmings come down. Baubles go back in the cupboard for another year and pine needles are vacuumed up…. I enjoyed the annual treat of walking round the atmospheric streets of Saltaire to see the creative Advent Windows (see previous years here and here.) I’m enjoying getting hungry again and not feeling so permanently kaylied (drunk….) I’ve vowed to write only a maximum of 3 blogs a months in 2018 so, despite having the material, I’m saving up my blogs on the New Year’s Eve Murder Mystery, a winter walk at Bolton Abbey, thoughts about EM Forster, Anglesey, Norway, Bletchley Park, Shakespeare’s Rape of Lucrece…. and no doubt many other things that bounce into my brain.

Resolutions
What have I resolved? In common with every other year in living memory I hope to get fitter, declutter and avoid procrastination. But this year, 2018, fresh off the boat, I resolve to get my novel, Raydan Wakes, ready for submission to an agent (or six.) The edit of Book One is coming along in fits and starts with radical cuts and restructuring; the first draft of Book Two seems plain sailing in comparison; events are unfolding as I expected them to. No surprises so far in Book Two, but Book One is proving to be discombobulating, like a wild animal nipping, clawing, scratching and biting chunks out of what I thought it was. Ah, the life of a writer….

Bridge over troubled waters

Humber Bridge (Yorkshire), Forth Bridge (Scotland)

Bridges
Bridges are awe-inspiring objects. I am happily married to someone who, if anything, loves bridges more than I do. One of mine and Sally’s favourite spots in Yorkshire is the elegant (and seemingly impossible) Humber Bridge. A recent trip to Anglesey provided sights of two bridges near each other: the Menai Bridge and the Britannia Bridge. Who isn’t impressed with Tower Bridge in London? (though I have a personal fetish for Blackfriars Bridge.) Even those who haven’t visited know from advertisements, films and TV what the Golden Gate Bridge in San Fancisco looks like. Sally and I hope one day to visit the Øresund Bridge between Malmö and Copenhagen and I have a fantasy that one day we’ll sail under the Sydney Harbour Bridge down under.

Clockwise from top right: Menai Bridge (Anglesey), Moon Gate (Beijing), Golden Gate (San Francisco), Clifton Suspension (Bristol), Allahverdi Khan (Iran), Tower Bridge (London), Millau Viaduct (France)

Bridges in culture
Wordsworth wrote a famous poem Composed Upon Westminster Bridge and Longfellow’s The Bridge was always an accessible and attractive poem to use when teaching younger pupils (both easily found online.) If war films shiver your timbers you will be familiar with The Bridge Over The River Kwai or A Bridge Too Far (bridges at Tha Ma Kham and Arnhem respectively.) A far gentler bridge experience is explored in The Bridges of Madison County but recently the Swedish/Danish TV thriller, The Bridge (Bron/Broen) has been a favourite watch in my house when the main characters are desperate to bridge gaps of understanding in multiple ways as they cross backwards and forwards from Sweden to Denmark and in and out of each other’s lives.

Øresund Bridge between Sweden and Denmark

Westminster Bridge (London), Mackinac Bridge (Michigan)

Bridges as symbols
For our subconsciousness and in our dreams a bridge can mean many things:

• a bridge can represent a journey….
• whether it crosses to the other side or falls short is said to be connected to transitions in our life that are difficult….
• whether it falls down or has gaps in it or is wobbly can indicate great anxiety….
• a bridge can represent a crossing from one state to another, from one phase of life to another, a bridging of a gap….
• in Tarot The Bridge represents stability, progress, directions or connections….
• we talk about “pulling up the drawbridge” to mean hunkering down and hiding away….
• we talk about “crossing over to the other side” meaning to die, to reach heaven….
• we advise against “burning our bridges” for obvious reasons, highlighting the inability to turn back on a decision….
• a bridge can symbolise birth, the penis (in Freudian analysis apparently), the meeting between men and women, young and old, ancient and new….
• in a dream a bridge can represent both safety or danger depending on context, an obstacle that needs to be confronted and crossed….
• a very useful and fruitful symbol, a bridge is….

Zhangjiajie Glass Bridge in Zhangjiajie National Park (China) and Clopton Bridge (Stratford-upon-Avon)

Potentially tragic, potentially hopeful
Crossing a bridge can feel like an act of sadness if you’re leaving somewhere precious; but equally it can be an uplifting and exciting arrival to a new way of life. Bridges are phenomenal feats of engineering, a real tribute to the human capacity for determination and imagination. Bridges can be associated, tragically, with suicide spots; but equally couples regularly propose on the Brooklyn Bridge in New York. (Current, only-for-now US President Trump, could do well to pay heed to his fellow American, Joseph Fort Newton, who said People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges.)

Raydan at the Watchtower overlooking Grayton Bridge
The main character in my book, Raydan Wakes, starts his story overlooking a bridge. Raydan is on Bridge Duty, keeping an eye on the comings and goings over a particular bridge in a remote spot. His watch partner is throwing up in the bathroom so Raydan is left on his own feeling jittery when a small group arrives unexpectedly in the minutes before midnight on New Year’s Eve….

Blue Bridge (Wakefield), Brooklyn Bridge (New York), Clifton Suspension (again, in Bristol), Garabit Viaduct (France), Eshina Ohashi (Japan, nicknamed the rollercoaster bridge)