Flat: Ridin’ Out to Yarmouth

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 sixth part of what will comprise seven posts and it covers my trip up into Norfolk to visit the quite rightly famous seaside town of Great Yarmouth.

Thought of going to Great Yarmouth, dunno why, someplace to go for a walk by the sea, somewhere different and another reason to take a ride into the big wide open of East Anglia. A few such journeys have already been written about – High ‘N’ Dry in South Suffolk, Port of Felixstowe – Port of Britain, Cromer, Return to Felixstowe – all of which were done back in June, and then there was Norfolk Shrine in September, an account of a trip to the pilgrimage village of Walsingham in yes, you’ve guessed it, Norfolk.

This was going to be another bit of open roadin’ East Anglia style, early October time now, and with the weather still so good as to be almost preposterous. Confess I do have dim memories of having been to Great Yarmouth once or twice before but that was many moons ago, a lifetime in fact, back in the days when my family lived in Beccles, Suffolk for a couple of years in the mid 70’s where dad was manager of the port of Lowestoft before he became port manager in Barry, South Wales and shifted us all down there. All of which has been written about in the Badlands of Beccles chapter of Golden Telescope, an account of the first 26 years of my life. From what I do remember of Great Yarmouth it had a massive rollercoaster on a seafront which went on for miles, plenty of seagulls, loads of amusement arcades and that is about it, apart from the fact there also seemed to be a lot of water close by, not just the North Sea, but the wide expanse of the Norfolk Broads which lay just behind and around it.

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Flat: Norfolk Shrine

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 fifth part of what will comprise seven posts and it covers my trip up into Norfolk to visit the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.

Walsingham is a village in Norfolk where there are shrines to the Virgin Mary following a series of visions experienced by an Anglo-Saxon noblewoman in 1061. It was a major place of pilgrimage in the middle ages until its destruction during the time of the Reformation, at the beginning of the 20th century the shrine was revived and it is once again a popular place to visit, primarily but not exclusively, for Christians.

It was a sunny Monday morning early September when I set off in my Prius to drive to Norfolk. Up until a couple of years ago Monday mornings would have been a different kettle of fish, back in the time before we pulled the plug on Wisdom Books, the small company where I had worked for the last 27 years, when I still bought into the daytime illusion that business was the meaning of life. I had originally planned to go to Walsingham a few months ago, back in June, but on my way up I had changed my mind just past Swaffham on the A1065 and ended up in Cromer instead, a seaside town in north east Norfolk where there was a curious mix of tourists and down at heel locals for me to view, a considerable number of whom appeared to be either on medication or drugs. Or maybe it was me who was on the drugs, just seeing things strangely after nearly three hours driving.

I stayed in Cromer long enough to have fish and chips by the sea before getting out of there, later in the day ending up in Felixstowe, home to Treasure Chest, a second hand bookshop from where I picked up a paperback copy of a book called The Tantric Tradition for the princely sum of three quid. Clearly on that occasion my need for redemption or whatever it was you are supposed to get from shrines, fizzled out along the way. Maybe I shouldn’t have played the music quite so loud on the Prius sound system whilst going up. Music by the way, which had been some high quality, firing on all cylinders Def Leppard by way of Def Leppard, their 2015 eponymous album. This time around there was no doubt I would make it, if only to see what it was all about, shrines to the Virgin Mary in the fields of north Norfolk and all that, with no need to participate any further if I didn’t feel so inclined.

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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.

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