moanin' (again)

A requisite of our rambles is the pint of foaming real ale in a quiet pub at the end of the weary mile. After our promenade along the Sir Peter Scott Walk, we arrived in King’s Lynn full of Friday afternoon anticipation. From Ferry Lane, we turned left and walked into Tuesday Market Place. Here’s a hint for anyone following our slightly damp footprints: don’t. Turn right instead.

The first pub, the Crown & Mitre, was inexplicably closed at about 3pm on a Friday afternoon. Disappointed, we walked around the square. Smoking drunks were lounging in the doorway of the second pub we tried; the booming music from within was noxious. The next pub had a solitary smoker slumped against the doorjamb, but when I opened the door, I saw the floorboards vibrating with the power of music. “Too noisy for us,” I explained to the bleary-eyed and slightly bemused puffing herald on the door.

On a far corner, we found similar at the 4th pub. In the gloom we could see a couple of drinkers at the bar screaming at each other, not in aggression but in a failed attempt to ride above the fusillade of notes wailing from speakers throughout the bar. We turned and left.

Peering through the window of the 5th pub we could see an elderly barman chatting to his solitary customer. A safe haven, we thought, and entered. He had one hand-pump for real ale and the clip for that was turned in the traditional symbol of no hope. No Abbot? On a Friday afternoon? Thirst overcame us and we forced ourselves to drink awful keg swill and, as we took our seats, the 50 inch television leapt into life, blasting us with full-volume drivel from Radio Blabber. We drank quickly and left.

King’s Lynn on a Friday afternoon attracts a lot of shoppers. The pubs should be doing a brisk trade. Yet all the pubs we tried were almost empty. I can’t understand why, because don’t we all love to push past drunks blowing smoke over us as we try to enter the premises? Do we not thrill at the thought of being deafened by music being pumped out at full volume so we have to shout at each other to be heard? Surely it’s a pleasure to drink sub-standard and expensive beer at sticky tables standing on even stickier carpets? Pub landlords obviously think the answer is yes to all three questions.

A typical landlord leans against the bar saying “Drink & drive and smoking bans have killed the business” or “We can’t compete with the supermarkets.” No, my friend. YOU have killed the trade, because you can see only the money you’re taking and not the money you’re losing as a result. You cater for the half-dozen and forget the hundreds looking for solace in a quiet, welcoming and pleasant hostelry. Look around you – peaceful and amiable pubs are thriving. Why do you think that is?

The music, by the way, was not jazz. And even if it was, we’d still have walked away from the clamour and noise. Jazz is not background music; it demands to be listened to and appreciated. It’s for the club, the dance hall and the concert room. Jazz should never be played as a means to smother other sounds the way Pizza Express uses it, and the way pubs use modern pop music. All loud music in inappropriate settings ultimately repels.

Gripe about loud music over. Now – about those execrable fruit machines with the flashing lights and electronic gimmickry…

solitude

One of the great accolades of life, albeit usually bestowed posthumously, is to have a footpath dedicated to you. Wainwright, of course, has a lot in the Lake District. The engineer of the old MGN railway company had bestowed in his memory the cycleway from Aylsham to Norwich - Marriott’s Way. And the name (and maybe the ghost) of Sir Peter Scott, the naturalist, artist and general all-round good egg, accompanied us as we walked along the eponymous path around the south banks of the Wash.


One end of the walk is in Lincolnshire, at the faux lighthouse near to where the River Nene debouches to the Wash. Sir Peter once lived here. Perhaps this east bank lighthouse was the inspiration for him to turn apostate and abandon his habit of firing punt guns at geese in favour of portraying them on canvas. A Peter Scott is now famously a generic term for paintings of skeins of geese over bleak marshland. Certainly he was here when he set about establishing sanctuaries for the creatures. I find a certain irony about this conversion on the road to Sutton Bridge. In those days, geese were prolific; they were everywhere on the marsh. Now, most have gone. Numbers have dwindled, despite the efforts of conservationists. What moral about human intervention in nature can we draw from this?

Norfolk plays host to the other end of the trail, about 11 miles to the west, more or less at the landing stage for the little aluminium ferry which plies a dour passenger trade between West Lynn and King’s Lynn’s town centre. From a distance, the boat looks like a sampan crawling across a Chinese harbour, if we disregard the grey murky water. Some five hours after leaving the lighthouse we took our seats on the ferry, grateful to find somewhere to sit after an eleven-mile walk beneath breezy and louring skies.

In between, we’d trudged in solitude along the grassy tops of the earthen sea wall. To our left, a broad expanse of marsh, hatched with small gullies and muddy creeks. From the foot of the wall stretched a swathe of wrack of dried seaweed mingled with plastic jetsam of uncaring coaster skippers. That the wrack reaches the wall is testament to the sea’s determination not to abdicate entirely its claim on what was once rightfully shared territory. The wall is a sea defence, keeping the tide at bay for the moment so the marsh barons can continue to build their fortunes before the next (alleged) inundation because of global warming.

Inside the sea embankment is prime agricultural land, glistening brown soil being ploughed and prepared for the next crop. Don’t believe other writers when they talk about prairies – these are large arable fields, true, but the area is not devoid of trees or hedgerows. Even cows have appeared in recent years, probably to allow farmers to utilise the sea bank for grazing. Farming here is organised and professional and bland.

The skies are paramount here. They form a vast 360 degrees dome; the sea and the land share the same altitude of more or less zero metres. With the flatness of the land, and the smooth calm of the distant sea, the impression of vaulted space is unavoidable. Even RAF pilots love these skies. They visit regularly to practise dropping bombs on a nonchalant and completely tolerant common seal colony that’s been nearby for many years.

We chose the wrong day for the walk. My photographs look dull, flat and devoid of colour. But if the day had been better, we’d perhaps not have been in such splendid isolation. Apart from a couple of bait diggers squelching muddily off the marsh and two dog walkers returning to their car, we met nobody for the entire 11 miles.

memories of you

A few years ago, in the middle of rural Norfolk, at the heart of a small village, an 18th century timber-beamed pub ran live jazz sessions every Friday lunch time. To the surprise, and sometimes bemusement, of casual visitors, food was dished up with a side order of Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday.

“Gimme a Pig Foot and a Bottle of Beer” seemed vaguely appropriate as ham sandwiches whizzed out through the swing doors and pints of Abbot Ale or Wherry brimmed frothily.

Over the months, quite a little clan of faithful followers evolved. Those who came by chance often returned. Village locals were a little doubting at first but soon warmed to the idea when they realised that conversations could still be heard across the low tables.

The singer was a feisty little local girl. She knew the jazz-blues songbook inside out. While she never attempted to plagiarise the originals, her delivery of standards was as good as any cover version has ever been. She was always backed by accomplished musicians capable of understanding what she was doing and where she’d be going next.

Sometimes I’d have to remind myself that I was sitting in an English country freehouse listening to a Norfolk woman rather than in a 1930s Chicago basement being bedazzled by one of the blues greats. When I stepped outside into the fresh air again, I was surprised to find a little shady village green in front of the pub rather than a great American broadway crammed with traffic, steaming vents and US cops.

That singer was Stella Goodey. I guess you’d need to be involved with the East Anglian jazz scene to know of her. She has a regular slot at a pub in Wells-next-the-Sea, has connections in France and appears at various festival venues and jazz clubs. And she’s one of the finest jazz singers I’ve ever heard.

Which brings me to the point. I’m a mediocre sort of chap. Not particularly bad at things, I similarly excel at nothing. I jockey along in the middle of the road, occasionally swerving slightly left or right to avoid collisions. I hate mediocrity, because I see it as a mortal sin wrapped in a highly reflective coating.

And it puzzles me that so many modern “jazz” singers are so mediocre yet receive such critical acclaim on radio, TV and in magazines while the likes of Ms Goodey go unsung (no pun intended). Life is unfair on far too many levels.

I was reminded of this stellar Stella when I stumbled over her website recently: www.stellagoodey.com. The find reinforced my belief in the potential intellectual nobility of the internet. How on Earth did I manage to get a learning (albeit a mediocre one) without it? How fortunate we are to live in these times.

The image above, by the way, is of a fretwork scrolled out of a sheet of timber by the very clever AM in Norwich. He doesn’t know the meaning of ‘mediocrity.’ Mind you, he’s a fan of Leonard Cohen so I suppose nobody’s perfect.

there'll be some changes made...(surely?)

One of my favourite writers is H.V. Morton. In the 1920s and 30s, he wrote a series of books about places he’d visited. His first major success was ‘In Search of England’ and I recommend it still today to anyone wanting to learn a little more about our country. His style is light, lyrical and incisive.

His words are sentient. They invite the reader to touch the old stones of an ancient monastery and to hear the lilt of the Lincolnshire accent. Morton’s skill with the metaphorical pen allowed us to sniff the sea, see the hidden and almost taste the salt of the Earth. He had a way with phrases that, frankly, earned him a fortune.

Sometime before 1927 (at about page 220 in my foxed and battered edition of ‘In Search of England’) the man visited Boston. His colourful observations on the experience are accompanied by a sepia image captioned ‘Boston Stump’ – the gaunt and dramatically high tower of St. Botolph’s church.

The image above is my version, taken from the same spot on the same bridge over 80 years later. Today, a new walkway spans the muddy Witham River near the church, the concrete sill beneath the river wall has replaced steep mud banks and trees are more bosky than in 1926. But otherwise the scene has changed little. Even the vertical wooden piling thrusting up at the front end of the sill was clearly evident in the earlier photograph.

A note about trees, by the way – I’ve frequently noted that when comparing ‘then and now’ photographs of British views, both rural and urban, the scene is usually far more verdant today than in Victorian or Edwardian times. Is this a result of the shift from log burning fires – or are we simply lazier in the 21st century? Discuss.

As if to reinforce unpopular opinion that little changes in Lincolnshire, I dare to repeat here a couple of lines from Morton’s text. He wrote “Boston today is an interesting study. It is typical of the great town that has come down in the world. Like many an aristocrat, it manages to carry on bravely, so that, unless you knew of its past grandeur, there would be nothing remarkable about its present condition.” I leave this offering without further comment.

Here’s another by-the-way: the day I took the photograph, I turned my back on a Charlie Parker LP I found in one of the charity shops. Later, I regretted my decision and returned to buy it. By that time, of course, it had been sold. If you bought it, please don’t leave a message telling me what I’ve missed.

let's fly down

Cromer is getting better. Once an elegant and genteel Victorian resort, the town went through a bad patch some years ago. Its haute-couture blazer wore through at the elbow, the cuffs frayed and a button dropped off. Now the seamstresses have been hard at work. A smart leather patch has been expertly sewn onto the arms, the cuffs have been turned and sparkling new brass buttons adorn the front. Today, part of the original grandeur is again being glimpsed.


Our arrival in the town had a touch of ‘good news, bad news’ about it. The good news is we parked easily and avoided the frantic crush. The bad news is we were a day early for Carnival. Never mind. We found in the town an air of expectancy, as if a band could be heard approaching from afar but the leader had yet to appear over the brow of the hill. To call the anticipation ‘fever pitch’ would be gross exaggeration. This is Norfolk. Full of character and characters it is; febrile it is not.

Yet we knew something was about to happen. For a start, the sun broke through at last. Then we saw fairgrounds and fluttering breeze-tickled bunting; the signs for extra parking; heavily laden drays delivering extra supplies to the pubs; holiday-makers wandering around with programmes in their hands; a jazz band playing. Cromer was a-buzz.

Jazz? To my delight, I encountered The Smokehouse Blue Jazz Marching Band marking time in a lazy circle on the corner by the old tobacconist’s shop, saxophones (Mick Murphy on alto), trombone, clarinet, trumpets, drum et al pumping out pure New Orleans. For what is Carnival without a jazz band? Nothing but a wan replica, a plastic Mona Lisa, a £20 note bearing the image of Cheryl Cole, a cheese and tomato sandwich made with Edam.

This band is good. Paucity of live jazz leads us to be grateful for small blessings and so we tend to consider most of what we hear as worthy, but this was beyond worthy – it was unquenched primitive excellence. Early jazz had a rawness and un-sophistication about it. Marching jazz - carnival jazz - rekindles that early enthusiasm and energy from the times when jazz was still being played as intended – to get people dancing, even, or maybe especially, at New Orleans funerals. What the music set out to do, this band seems to achieve. A small but appreciative audience applauded cheerily.

Smokehouse Blue processed along the High Street. At the band’s head, the grey-beard Grand Marshal, resplendent in black coat and hat, ceremonial sash and ornate traditional umbrella, led his musicians to that most appropriate of NO anthems – Bourbon Street Parade. Impatient cars squeezed past. Not even good jazz can be allowed to halt commerce and the traffic.

Serendipity! Around the corner was a carnival music market with a huge stock of covetable LPs for sale. I could have spent a lot of money, but I settled for a 1962 recording by the Gerry Mulligan Concert Jazz Band. I still reckon Mulligan had one of the best swing (with a small s) bands around at the time. In my choice is an irony. Mulligan purposefully formed his big band with the objective of playing music for the concert hall, not for dancing. But I can’t always square the circle.

Take a look at www.smokehousblue.com. You can listen to a few of the band’s favourite tracks.

half way up the stairs is the place where i sit

Our Lincolnshire garden had an unusual visitor last week. It was sitting in the middle of the front lawn looking lost and confused. For a moment, I felt quite emotional – our first frog. The camera was to hand, so I snapped one image quickly and before I could recompose myself for a second, the frog sprang forward on its straggled rear legs and disappeared into the hydrangeas, where no doubt one of the neighbours’ many cats ate it. If the image is a little blurred, put it down to excitement rather than my novice skills.


Serendipity again – the sighting was unexpected. Frogs are common enough, but not in our garden. In France recently we heard thousands of marsh frogs singing tunelessly all round us when we camped in the Marquenterre. There, twilight trembled to the croak and rasp of a clamorous ranarian opera with a cast of thousands. They performed well into the night before the multiple-antiphony gently subsided, hopefully not because of sore throats. But les petites rascals kept out of sight. We saw not one.

Of course, as soon as I’d spotted the Lincolnshire visitor, I reached for my old copy of “Collins Field Guide to Freshwater Life” and turned to Plate 322. “Rana ridibunda” it cited. “Marsh Frog.” That’s with a capital M rather than the more generic little m I used earlier. According to the book, frogs come in all sorts of shadings and patterns, so I have no idea how we’re supposed to obtain a definitive identification. The olive-green on our lawn looked exactly like the one in my book, so - tick! But if I’m realistic, it was more likely to be a common frog

Tick and move on. The other day I bought another LP from a charity shop in Boston. Why do so many Bostonians dispose of their old jazz albums? I rarely find them elsewhere, but I can usually find something worth buying in the Market Place. This one was by someone I think I’ve mentioned before – Wild Bill Davison. Or was that Will Bill Davis? I always confuse the two.

The line-up is like a who’s who of British Jazz. The American cornet player is backed by Freddy Randall (t) George Chisholm (tb) Bruce Turner (cl/as) Lennie Felix (p) Dave Markee (b) Tony Allen (d) and Ronnie Gleaves on vibraphone. Annoyingly, the recording date is omitted, but the World Record Club issued the album in 1966 and a quick Google revealed the recording to have been made in February 1965, during Davison’s tour of England. The music is good old British trad, rhythmic and joyful and a cut above what you’ll hear in the local pub on a Sunday lunch time. And perhaps a little uninspiring.

What has this to with frogs and serendipity? A very good question.

serendipity in saltfleetby

If I’ve said this before, I make no apology for repeating it. The most uplifting discoveries are those which are unexpected. Guide books tell us what we should see, but so much more pleasure is gained when we stumble over something omitted from the pages.


Saltfleetby has just such serendipity. A mile from the enigmatically named “Prussian Queen” pub, a wooden finger-post points cryptically up a sombre green lane towards “The Stump ¼ mile.” The sign seemed to us an imperative, so we dutifully followed the grassy and rutted track.

After a short distance, the path suddenly opened onto a large enclosure in a sun-mottled glade. Passing through a wooden gate, we arrived in an old graveyard, once attached to a church. In the middle of the hallowed patch, a stumpy stone tower leaned at a crazy angle as if disturbed in the act of settling down to rest. This, we learned, is the last remnant of the original St Peter’s church of Saltfleetby.

The relic stands in a shaded corner of the Lincolnshire northern flatlands and is reached by crossing a short wooden bridge over a shallow ditch. A narrow, almost deserted, country lane snakes quietly by. The tower’s large stones are weathered and eroded. The doors are sealed. One corner has sunk into the soft sub-soils of the farmland on which it was built.

At first sight, the scene could be one of abandonment to the powerful elements of nature. The cemetery surrounding the tower is rustic and uncultivated. No attempt is made to groom verges or walkways. Instead, the woods’ claim is staked and granted; the ground could have been a forest floor. Tombstones lay where they fell. Yet this is not a forsaken burial ground.

Far from it – the cemetery has tended gravestones, old and new. Some are eroded and scarcely legible now, but a few gleam in dark marble and stand testament to recent interments. The old graveyard is still very much in use. And then we found the stone plaque hoisted high onto the tower’s time-darkened wall. The old St Peter’s Church has friends.

To be precise, The Friends of Friendless Churches has adopted the tower. Apparently, the organisation accepts responsibility for some 40 disused churches throughout England and Wales. Essential maintenance is carried out to ensure that the old church continues to be accessible to the public, even if services are no longer held within the precincts.

St Peter’s Church at Saltfleetby started to subside sometime between the 14th century and 1875. A faculty was granted to allow the church to be demolished, the stones subsequently being removed to a nearby field known as Willoughby’s Close, and the new (and existing) St Peter’s Church was built from salvaged materials. The tower was to serve as a cemetery chapel until such time as “funds were available” for it to be demolished. Fortunately for the curious visitor, the money was never found. The tower remains as a monument to philanthropy.

In 1976, the decrepit tower was taken into the avuncular custodianship of the evocatively named organisation – The Friends of Friendless Churches. And so it remains - a sequestered fastness hidden away and available to be seen only by those willing to see. I’m not into contemplation, but if I were, here is where I could do it very effectively: TF 43592 89941.