John Betjeman: "Norfolk"

May 2020

This article is given over to John Betjeman's poem about Norfolk, a county he grew to love from childhood holidays spent on the Broads. He really does manage to capture nostalgia very well. I feel a melancholic air about it and that perhaps 'the Devil' he speaks of is really a metaphor for having to be steeped in adulthood and the trials and tribulations that come with it.

Norfolk

How did the Devil come? When first attack? 

These Norfolk lanes recall lost innocence, 

The years fall off and find me walking back 

Dragging a stick along the wooden fence 

Down this same path, where, forty years ago, 

My father strolled behind me, calm and slow. 

I used to fill my hands with sorrel seeds 

And shower him with them from the tops of the stiles, 

I used to butt my head into his tweeds 

To make him hurry down those languorous miles 

Of ash and alder-shaded lanes, till here 

Our moorings and the masthead would appear. 

There after supper lit by lantern light 

Warm in the cabin I could lie secure 

And hear against the polished sides at night 

The lap lap lapping of the weedy Bure, 

A whispering and watery Norfolk sound 

Telling of all the moonlit reeds around. 

How did the Devil come? When first attack? 

The church is just the same, though now I know 

Fowler of Louth restored it. Time, bring back 

The rapturous ignorance of long ago, 

The peace, before the dreadful daylight starts, 

Of unkept promises and broken hearts.

It is probable that Belaugh St. Peter's is the church of Betjeman's poem since it seems to have made a great impression on him when he was young: 'I was eight or nine years old when I used to come here to the Norfolk Broads on the River Bure, sailing and rowing with my father. And I think it was the outline of that church tower of Belaugh against the sky that gave me a passion for churches so that every church I've passed since I've wanted to stop and look in.'

I too share something of that passion as my children can attest. I have frequently been reminded by their adult, mock child-like voices—'Oh, look, there's a church over there...'

​Belaugh Church by Stanley How

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James Fowler, mentioned in the poem, was a Victorian Architect and mayor of Louth. He was Diocesan Surveyor for Lincolnshire from 1871 to 1886. Best known for his work restoring and building Anglican churches, he also designed houses (mainly rectories and vicarages), schools, almshouses and other buildings.

Let's Support the Wool Industry

There's been some headology going on under Granny's bonnet. She has been thinking a lot lately about our environment and our impact on it...

East Anglia was once at the epicentre of the wool trade of the Middle Ages and was the second City of any great importance after London mainly because of thousands of flocks of sheep providing food, hides and of course wool. Shearing, cleaning, spinning and weaving were huge local industries that provided incomes for many families.

Worsted was one of several towns that made cloth that was much sought after. Its speciality was wool that was not carded and spun on a wheel but combed and spun on the distaff

resulting in a finer, smoother yarn which was woven and pressed into a fine glossy cloth.

One of the few to be exported, it was light-weight and more handsome than the coarser more common broadcloth. Not much good for clothing in our cold climate, vast quantities of Worsted were sent to the continent, particularly France, Spain and Portugal. At home it was used for fine clothing, hangings, curtains and coverlets.

A Scottish maid spinning with distaff and spindle.

This trade continued well into the twentieth century until the advent of man-made fibres such as nylon, terylene and later, polyester. The raw material for synthetic fleece is polyester which is made from two petroleum products: terephthalic acid and ethylene glycol. Some or all of the polyester yarn may also be recycled from plastic bottles. Various dyes also make up the raw materials, as well as other chemicals such as Teflon for waterproofing.

Fleeces have undoubtedly transformed our way of life. Cheap, warm clothing, rugs and blankets are available in every hue known to man. Unfortunately, what man didn't immediately realise was the damage the new industry would present. Apart from decimating the wool industry to the point where the carefully husbanded fleece of a Norfolk sheep now fetches in the region of 60p, scientists have recently come to understand that each time we launder synthetic fleece it releases millions of tiny microfibres into the Eco-system where it makes its way into the food chain and ultimately us!

Time then surely for us all to spend a little more on supporting a sustainable wool industry that will not damage our planet. It's a way of life that shaped the Norfolk landscape and funded many beautiful estates, buildings and churches. We're veering away from petro-chemicals in the car industry because of pollution, let's do the same for man-made clothes and furnishings and return to the soft, natural comfort of wool!

britishwool.org.uk

Second-Hand Rose

A delightful little charity shop

My dear mother was a strange creature in many ways and frugal. She had to be. There was never any spare cash for luxuries or new clothes though she always had an eye for quality. Her father was a London taxi-cab driver and had regular customers, among them a Russian lady who had fled the Revolution and had opened a second-hand dress shop called 'Pauline's'. These were no ordinary cast-offs however, they were high-quality outfits from film-stars and aristocrats and were shown off in beautiful glass cases and on elegant rails.

My mother was petite and slim and looked wonderful in the beautifully-cut outfits. Mainly it was evening dresses she purchased as she and my father taught Old Time Dancing as well as entering competitions themselves. I remember a number of the elegant long gowns, particularly an off-the-shoulder one with a boned bodice and skirt delicately beaded in amethyst on a soft green net.

A special out-of-the-ordinary treat when I was allowed to accompany her to London was always in store at The Angel, Islington. Called 'The American Shoe Shop', hundreds of pairs of glamorous high-heels were quite literally strung together and hung from top to bottom all around the walls. Pink suede, sparkly leather, peep-toes and ankle-straps. Everything English shoes were not, and with tiny feet Mum had more choice than most. I remember her wearing a pair of their ankle-strapped platform-soled high-heels with a little gold coin and chain at the buckle. A tailored black coat and close-fitting hat with an elegant tassel both from Pauline's made for a very classy outfit. She was with a group of ladies visiting the Houses of Parliament and looked more like she came from the Home Counties than from a council estate in outer London.

Such visits though from out-of-town Essex were a rarity and by the time I was school-age, most of my outerwear was bought second-hand either from the 'posh' houses nearby or from jumble sales where it was a sight to behold some women aggressively jostling others out of their way and rapidly up-turning heaps of clothing to snatch at anything that took their eye. Woe betide anyone who made a grab at the same time!

So, I grew up grateful that I actually had something to wear and fretful that my best friend (an only child), had everything new. I think my worst memory of being 'Second-Hand Rose' was during P.E. lessons one day at junior school when we stripped to vest and knickers, only mine weren't: they were pants with the opening sewn up, immediately noticed by the boys who teased me remorselessly.

Jumble sales are almost a thing of the past now and in their place are charity shops. Thousands of them. Gradually the realisation that they are very good places to shop on the cheap has been made acceptable. Trendy even. I don't think they are a sign of poverty either, quite the opposite. They are a sign of excess. Pointers that people by and large indulge themselves over-much in clothes and 'things'.

At the same time, the rise in high-street cheap clothing/furnishing shops means that factory workers on the other side of the world labour long hours to afford us 'affluents' cut-price goods which encourage wasteful multi-buys. At least with a growing concern for the health of the planet, many more items are being recycled via charity shops. Much better than dumped in land-fill.

So, thank-you Mum for your thrift. I too share the gene and am proud to say I still do my bit for the planet by 'up-cycling' and re-loving the 'pre-loved'.