Flat: Cromer

Flat is a series of pieces on some trips I made into the heart of East Anglia with a little bit of music listening thrown in for good measure along the way. This is the third part of what will comprise seven posts and it covers the time I spent in Cromer where I had some pretty good fish and chips by the sea.

Blue sky day, wanted to hit the road, hit it big. Straight on up, due north and Norfolk bound, with a route something like M11, A14, A11, A1065. On Friday it was Essex, south Suffolk and then onto Felixstowe, Monday it was to be another trip into East Anglia. I set off with the intention that morning of going to Walsingham, ancient Norfolk pilgrimage place for Christians with its famous Virgin Mary shrine, holy destination for British kings and queens in years gone by, all the way back to the Anglo-Saxons. Yeah, that’s right, pre-Norman, pre-1066, pre-The Big One when so much of what came along is still here now.

By the time I got to Swafham which was about halfway up the A1065 I had changed my mind. Christian blessings for me? Really? Did I need to go to that kind of shrine? No, didn’t think so! Whatever it was which caused this change in thinking I just can’t say, spiritual arrogance most likely, but when the turning came for Walsingham, just east of Fakenham on the A148, I didn’t take it and carried on instead, even though I was suddenly unsure of where exactly I was heading. I needed to pull over, to double check, but as is so often the case in such situations I didn’t find the right place to take a pit stop, so I kept on going, with the warm Norfolk breezes blowing in through the open windows of my Prius, bringing on visions of eternity which seemed to be sittin’ behind me in the rear view mirror. Where did they come from, an’ where do they go? Well, who knows? The A148 was a fast road too, and with the time coming up close to midday I found myself bombing along through the open spaces of north Norfolk almost as if I was in a trance. I thought that Sheringham by the coast would be a place to aim for, but I just could not see any signs for it, none at all, not even a sheriff to help me, and therefore didn’t know if I was on the right track or not.

The recently burnt How Big How Bold How Beautiful by Florence + the Machine had been on the sound system of the Prius on my way up the M11 earlier that morning, but not for too long, maybe as far as Stansted, something like that; four or five tracks at most was all that was needed from the Florence Machinery on this occasion. Then it was Def Leppard, this time their eponymous Def Leppard album from 2015, a fine piece of work which in my humble opinion more than restored their credentials after its less than impressive predecessor Songs From The Sparkle Lounge, an album that came out back in 2008. If you don’t believe me, check out tracks like Let’s Go, Invincible, All Time High and Wings Of An Angel to see, or rather to hear, how good Def Leppard really is. As an immaculately produced slice of melodic pop rock cut through with a dash of metal, itshone in all its glory once I reached the A11, where on the luminous highway of a perfect day the voice of Joe Elliott reared up from over my shoulder, singing all about how We Belong.

You’re all that I am
You’re all that I do
The end of the rainbow
Is waiting for you
So tell me I’m right
Because this can’t be wrong
Back where we belong

Yes, those rock royalty gods Def Leppard who’d reached for the sun and struck gold back at the end of the 80’s with their Hysteria album, had got me at it again. Don’t know what it was that made me fall for their multi-tracked harmonic charms so easily, all I knew was that once I started listening to them I found it difficult to either stop or change the deck in the car to anything else. Call it teenage, call it juvenile, call it whatever ya wanna under an endless sky, it was what it was an’ nuthin’ more than that.

Just a few days before, on my drive up through south Suffolk, it had been the recently re-mastered High ‘N’ Dry, their Robert “Mutt” Lange produced hard rock classic from way back in 1981, which had caught my attention, leading me to give it more than one or two spins at high volume whilst riding along the edges of what was Constable Country. Neglected or just downright ignored by the critics in the UK, Def Leppard are deemed not to be very cool, probably because they made the mistake of finding fame and fortune on the other side of the Atlantic, where to this day they can still sell out stadiums at the drop of a hat. But I didn’t let all that bad smoke from those supposedly in the know put me off, I just concentrated on the fact that as far as I was concerned Def Leppard were purveyors of top quality life affirming music. Their records were made with a microscopic attention to detail, thus making Leppard beyond any shadow of doubt true masters of their craft who would never change their spots.

Once I got on the A1065 after the turning past Thetford the music was turned off for a while, quite a while in fact, all the way to Cromer as it happened, my eventual place of destination. This was because it was such a beautifully sunny Norfolk day and I was driving with the windows half open, warm sunlight streaming in and bathing me in its glow, a breeze flowing through which was cool, almost blissful. It was all I needed, more than I needed actually, because the A1065 was a road I had never driven on before and I soon discovered that as paths through the heart of this part of the country go, it was pretty much unbeatable. Yet after the A1065 it seemed that I just could not get off the A148, it stuck to me like glue, or to be more accurate I stuck to it. Found myself driving all the way to a place called Holt after I had given the turning to Walsingham a miss, and when I got there, Holt was clearly a magnet for culture vultures and fabulous foodies. By the time I found myself in its centre I was bursting for a piss because I had now been on the road for over two and a half hours, sitting behind the wheel of my Prius, eyes focused on my place of destination, even if I didn’t know where that actually was.

Holt was little, hardly big enough to be called a town, but it was full of shops and crowded with people, the car park was damn near almost full despite it only even being a lousy stinkin’ Monday in early June. Fact of the matter is there are so many people around these days, pretty much anywhere in south east England you might chose to visit. Plenty of people with time and money on their hands to completely pack out supposedly out of the way places like Holt on any day of the week. Just seems people can’t get enough of them; coffee shops, tea houses, antiques shops, delicatessens and all the rest of it. Waves of irritation rose up inside me as I drove into the car park looking for a space and when I found one I stopped there just long enough to have my much needed piss in the public bogs before getting the hell out of town. No other reason for me to stay there, also no need to pay for a ticket because it was a pay and display and I was only in those bogs for a couple of minutes. Got to admit that what I was thinking to myself pretty much all the time I was there ran along the lines of: just who the fuck are all these people and where have they all come from? But then again, who the fuck was I? Was I really any different? No, really don’t think so! Simply realised Holt just wasn’t my kind of place, no, not by any stretch, and I also realised that if I carried onto Sheringham that it wouldn’t be my kind of place either, it would be more of what was in Holt, only this time by the sea.

Once I was back in the car and on the A148 I thought that I might as well go on to Cromer. Pretty much since passing through Swafham on the A1065, Cromer was the place which all the signs were leading to, fact of the matter was that it was the only place to go, being a town at the end of the line. Cromer was where the A148 ended, simply ceased to be, beyond it there was little else apart from some villages in a far flung corner of north Norfolk, villages looking out upon The Wash and the North Sea. Cromer was probably more my kind of town if I was honest, rougher edged, more washed up, less in the way of pretty perfect, more like Felixstowe in other words, or at least that was how I was imagining it to be. East of Holt the A148 became a really fast stretch of road, wide and empty, and I was simply bombing along, so much so that I found it all to be rather thrilling. There was still no music on the sound system, no more Def Leppard by Def Leppard because all I needed was just some more of that fresh Norfolk air blowing in through the open windows of my Prius, carrying with it the not so distant promise of the sea.

By the time I pulled up in the car park in Cromer it was close on 12.30, more or less a full 3 hours since I had left Woodford, a decent trek by any stretch. But it didn’t matter because I had been up for it, the weather was fantastic and I had been in the mood to see what lay on the far horizon. In this case what lay on the far horizon turned out to be Cromer, a strange kind of seaside town which I half recalled visiting once or twice in my childhood. That was when I had lived in Beccles, a market town on the border of Norfolk and Suffolk, lived there for a couple of years in the 1970’s after my father had been made port manager of Lowestoft out on the east coast. So coming back to Cromer, and in a rather unexpected way, was still pretty much what I would have expected it to be if that makes any sense, maybe a little bit smaller than what I remembered, but of course as someone famous once sang – I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.

The centre of town was pretty busy with what I guessed was a mix of day trippers and longer term tourists, but after my recent experience in Holt, the numbers of people didn’t quite take me by surprise, guess you could say it just went with the territory in that part of the country on any given day in early June when the sun was out. Apart from the seafront and beach, the main attractions in Cromer seemed to be fish and chip shops, ice cream parlours and lots of places to sit around and have a leisurely tea or coffee along with a sandwich. There were also a couple of amusement arcades tucked away down one of the side streets, probably owned by members of the Norfolk Mafia who no doubt had the local police in their pockets. There were also what appeared to be quite a few washed up locals on the streets, basically looking like they had been hung out to dry due to their life circumstances, possibly to do with drugs. I imagine that if you did end up in Cromer and you were not quite together in the managing your life department, then it might be a hell of a job getting yourself out of there again. Where could you go? Maybe King’s Lynn, or Great Yarmouth? Or maybe back to your local dealer for another fix? Who knows? Don’t get me wrong, if I was in such a position I would have been exactly the same, I ain’t no Miracle Man. Just the luck of the draw, slice of the deck, fall of the cards, whatever you wish to call it.

It didn’t take me long to make a couple of brisk circuits of the town, walking off the excess energy which had accumulated from sitting behind the wheel of the Prius for the last three hours. All on a journey which at times had seen me getting blasted to bits by some top quality Def Leppard by Def Leppard, their elevated music ripping into my consciousness as I’d sped through country scenes spread before me in the best possible way. Round and round the town I walked, and places which only 30 minutes ago I had never seen before in my life, or at least not for a very, very long time, soon began to look surprisingly familiar. Funny how that happened, rolling up somewhere and then within a very short space of time feeling like you had been there half your life, well OK, maybe not as long as that, but instant recognition of the unknown through simple repetition is more than possible.

Cromer was perched on a small cliff, where there were the sands below along with an old pier and the sea in the form of The Wash. Rather unfortunately the seafront was very unattractive, looking like it had been built at a time when pouring countless tons of concrete over everything was considered the height of good taste. It was enough for me not to want to go down to the bottom and take a walk by the water, it was all a bit too harsh and desolate to seriously contemplate. Sure I liked things rough edged, but I guess that only went up to a certain point, and for me Cromer seafront was past that point. Pity really because the pier from a distance looked quite attractive, if a little on the short side, but there you go, that was how it was. My circuits of the town were in danger of turning into something which was little more than aimless wandering. I needed to eat, to make a decision in other words; either to go into one of those sit down places and splash out some cash, or find something to have out in the open.

My walk around Cromer in the bright midday sun had stretched to the best part of over an hour, so I was definitely in need of nourishment because, when added onto those three hours behind the wheel, it had been a long time since breakfast. On top of that I’d pretty much seen all that I needed to see, so what I wanted now was grub. Guess in many respects the truth was that I was not really an intrepid tourist with an insatiable curiosity who was forever poking his nose into the darkest corners of whatever place he happened to roll up in and sniffing it all out. Eventually after a bit more walking, I went for a takeaway box of fish and chips from Cromer’s Number One Fish and Chip Shop, or at least that was what they stated on the signboard on the top of it. Whether it really was number one, or number twenty or number three was something I might never know, but there was a healthy queue of people outside so I decided to give it a go. In due course I came out with a box of fresh fried fish and chips plus a cold can of Coke, and all for just nine quid.

Rather than hang around outside the fish and chip shop I made my way to an open grassy area just off the cliff path overlooking the sea where all the seats and spaces were already taken by other punters, of which there were more than quite a few. The grassy green space lay on the other side of the road to the path however, and it all looked empty and quiet, somewhere for me to eat my lunch in peace and away from the crowds, which I guess was just how I liked it. Once over the road I walked across the green and sat beneath a solitary tree, ready to open up my box and get stuck in, licking my lips in sweet anticipation. Turned out that the fish and chips were pretty good, better than my sit down meal of fish, chips and mushy peas from the other day in Felixstowe at the Royal Fish, where on reflection the beef dripping they’d cooked it in was just a bit too weird for me to fully get my head around. This fish in Cromer was way better; not as big admittedly in terms of portion size, but really, really fresh. The chips were good too, fat cut chunky ones nice an’ crispy. I washed everything down with the cold can of fizz, and I have to say that all in all it really did make for an excellent lunch. Best thing I’d found in Cromer by some considerable distance and as far as I was concerned, I’d bought it from what was almost certainly Cromer’s Number One Fish and Chip Shop!

So I wolfed everything down with my usual street efficiency, feeling more than satisfied with my choice, even quietly giving myself a pat on the back for it. OK it might have been another meal of fish and chips, all within the space of barely three days, but really I was only doing what was logical when I was by the sea. And I’m sure that I was not the first person in the world to have done such a thing, far from it, I mean come on, there are probably countless thousands of people out there who eat chips every single day, so there was no point in feeling guilty about it. Around the sides of the grassy green were plenty of big houses, most of them looking like they were divided up into flats, maybe full of those possible horse riders I’d mentioned earlier on, living out their lives in the smacked up shadows of Cromer by the sea. No doubt it would all look a bit grim on a bitingly cold Monday in the grey of November, when those harsh winds rolled in from off the North Sea, but I didn’t really have to worry about that since I was there on a sunny day in June where blue skies high above me felt rather wonderful.

Once my fish and chips were done and dusted, plus of course that nice cold can of sweet sticky Coke, it was then just a question of deciding what to do next. For me there was something peculiarly unsatisfying about the view out to sea from the cliffs of Cromer, it seemed like a shot to nothing deal, all blue sky and water but with not much in it by way of passing traffic, just a distant wind farm on the hazy horizon in the middle of The Wash. In other words, dead end stuff. There was also the slapdash concrete sea splash down below on the seafront, all of which reinforced my lack of desire to go and take a closer look, or to walk on the sands and see what else there might be. Guess the fact of the matter was that I just didn’t fancy it! And since I was not going to do any of that, there was little point in me hanging around in Cromer for that much longer, no, not much point at all in fact.

Back in the driver’s seat of my Prius, feeling nice and full from another bunch of fish and chips, I looked at my road map and saw that if I got onto the A140 I could follow it all the way past Norwich and down into Suffolk. Not only that, because it joined the A14, I could then head east and go back to Felixstowe. Really don’t know where the idea came from but suddenly it seemed like a plan, a pretty good one as a matter of fact, and it immediately got me excited. Of course I had only been in Felixstowe a couple of days before, on Friday of last week to be exact, but it felt like I had some unfinished business there, namely picking up that copy of The Tantric Tradition which I’d seen in a book shop called Treasure Chest. It hit me full in the face that I might as well just keep pressing on, there was no need to go back to horrible Holt then Fakenham on the A148 before joining the A1065 to head back down to Swafham. Rather than doing all that I could just carry on where the A148 left off, which meant joining the A140 which began in Cromer, and to drive down into those southern reaches of Suffolk, all the way until it hit the A14 and the path back to the North Sea. Not only that, I could also have another quality blast of Def Leppard’s Def Leppard whilst I was behind the wheel. We’re swinging along boys, swinging along most surely!