Vaughan

I have just remembered what that peculiar bundle of pipes is in the photo, standing on the quay beside the boats. This was the portable electric pump that we used for pumping the boats while they were "taking up" after launching. The Ace of Hearts was always the worst : you had to sit up all night with her. She was built just after the War out of soft deal planking and opened up a lot in the sheds in winter. At least she closed up again quickly, in about a day and a half. The mahogany boats could take 4 or 5 days to stop seeping water but then they didn't open up very much in the first place! None of your electric bilge pumps and float switches in those days : the boats had a big brass Whale hand pump, mounted on the bulkhead beside the helm position. This was polished by the cleaners every Saturday.

The photo will have been taken from Carrow Bridge. Left foreground is Reids flour mills, followed by the Youngs and Crawshays brewery. The coaster further up, under the tall crane, is moored at Thos. Moy's coal yard. Next is one of Steward and Pattesons' breweries, which was later Watneys. Behind the white chimney is another tall black one which I think will be Bullards Brewery which was further up river, by St Benedicts. Can't remember what the white buildings were but there was a large furniture factory around there, followed by Jewsons timber yard and the Great Eastern Hotel, by Foundry bridge. The right bank of the river was all given over to the big Boulton and Paul factory, on the site of what is now a retail park. In the centre background (I think) is Norwich Castle.

Yesterday Mark (Ex Surveyor) sent me this photo by PM, which he had picked up from a public facebook group. He has posted my reply on facebook and we thought the forum would also be interested in the history behind the photo. This was my reply : Thank you very much for that and no, I hadn't seen it. I have been looking at it last night and this morning and there is a lot there to see. For a start, I notice that the yacht Three of Hearts has the nameplate and the cast Hearts flags missing from the transom. Some of the cruisers are also missing the cast playing card stem plates that they all carried. They also look rather smart, so I would guess this is in the spring ; they have just been launched from the sheds and the nameplates are still in Norwich being re-cast. I would guess that the photo was taken by the EDP photographer, Fred Low, for an article in the old "Clement Court" column about the coming of spring, and the hire fleets getting ready for the season. It would have been taken from the bow of the old gunboat Morning Flight, which in those days was moored on the front quay near the office in summer and was then towed across to the Thorpe Gardens quay for the winter. The cruisers in the back row, left to right, are the Knave, Four and Ace. In the front row are the Ten and the Queen. Missing are the Two, Five and Six and I remember they used to be in the far end shed in winter and have not yet been launched. The tide is low, so they are probably waiting till next day. The Queen is looking very new, probably starting her second season, so I would date the photo as 1950. The Four was sunk by a coaster in 1957 and the name Four of Hearts was passed to a second yacht. Both of these yachts are still going, as members of the River Cruiser Class. The Three of Hearts is now named Tea Rose. In the background is Hazell's boatyard with the houseboat they lived on and one of their dreadful old hire boats. They were members of Blakes (somehow) but were not good quality and went out of business in the early 50s. You can see what a great pub the Thorpe Gardens was in those days, when it had proper gardens instead of a tarmac car park! On the front quay is the slipway which led up into the long boatshed under the dance hall above. This was where the Frostbite Sailing Club used to store their Norfolk Dinghies, before they built their clubhouse out on the main river. Before that, it was where John Hart (who was landlord of the pub, then called the Three Tuns) kept his skiffs and half deckers for hire, before moving his business over to the island after the railway was built in 1844. Just off the photo to the right is the bungalow that the Hart family lived in, right up until my parents bought the yard.

Thanks very much - I did google that video but it doesn't mention any names. I was still a schoolboy at that time but I remember certain faces and this was someone who was closely involved in Blakes at the time and was a close colleague of my father, which is why I remember meeting him often. Was it perhaps Fred Brinkoff, of Brinkcraft? I have been google-ing him as well, but can't find any photos.

Even though you passed him?

Before the Watneys monopoly, Norfolk folk reckoned that the best mild was Bullards and the best bitter was Steward and Pattesons, both brewed beside the Wensum in Norwich. After the Watneys "vice-grip" was relaxed, they brought out Norwich Bitter and Norwich Mild, which were supposed to be based on these original brews. They weren't too bad but they were gas powered all the same and not as good as the original real ale.

Being young at that time, I would say it was because we found ourselves with no other choice!

No I hadn't : thank you for posting. I cringed when the very first paragraph said that the EA was "working collaboratively with partner organisations". According to the press and TV articles I have seen, they and their "partners" are all denying responsibility and blaming each other! I do notice that on two occasions they mention the need for what I have always known as "washlands" but which they call "deliberate overtopping". At least they acknowledge it is necessary but fail to mention that there is nowhere near as much of this washland since their own flood banks (lobbied by the farmers) prevented this from happening. I still refuse to believe that river dredging would not relieve this present form of alluvial (rainwater) flooding. I get the overall impression that their attitude is just "Keep calm and carry on". Is this good enough?

Happy memories of the pub's great days, in the 60s. The boat shaped bar with beer pumps in the steering wheel was built by H.T.Percival of Horning and is now displayed in the museum of the Broads. Seated at right is Geoff Pleasants, who was landlord for many years and at left is my father. I recognise the man in the left background but can't quite be sure of the name. I think it is Don Hagenbach, of Windboats. Maybe @Turnoar can put me right? If that pub is now to close, no matter what we think may be the reason, there is no doubt it is a very sad day indeed for the north rivers.

Quite agree! MLWS is an international standard laid down by the Hydrographer of The Navy on Admirality charts, worldwide. As such, it is one of the oldest standards that exist.

Very interesting and thank you for finding it. I got a bit lost in all the jargon from about half way through. The map in section 6.1 shows that the whole of the navigable river Ant is significantly deeper than the Bure loop!

Here, you have pinpointed two separate problems. The Bure hump is more concerned with the hydraulic problem of maintaining levels during rainwater or surge flooding. But when you talk of "sailing" : if a Norfolk wherry can no longer make passage on the main rivers (which includes modern wherries in Oulton Dyke) then that is a failure by the BA to maintain "The Navigation". If not, what do we suppose navigation means, in this context?

A Norfolk Wherry, "loaded down to her binns" drew at least 6ft over the slipping keel. If those soundings are taken at MLWS then I contend the river is a lot shallower now than it always was! This is the wherry "Gleaner" which I believe was smaller than the Albion or the Maud. The load line is the height of the side deck amidships. Hence the saying "down to her binn irons". Drawing scanned from "Black Sailed Traders" by Roy Clark.

That is a very small scale map. All the same it shows the average depth in the channel to be around 5 feet. Deeper at the outside of bends but a lot shallower on the inside, as one would expect. No wonder the pleasure wherry Solace went hard aground around there, on her way to Oulton regatta a little while ago. Is 5 feet deep enough, for that part of the Bure to successfully let out all this rainwater flooding? I would think not.

I was thinking about Scaregap farm myself, as this is where the river bends sharply left and heads back northwards again. It is quite possible that this bend is, in itself, a constriction, as it is very shallow on the inside of the bend. This will slow down the flow so that the water drops its alluvial silt in the reach just after the bend. As the next bend is to the right, the main current will be spread across the width and the silt will form in the centre of the river and not to one side. It's not rocket science!

Glad you agree - I have been saying this for a long time. They don't need free made up moorings, either. Trouble is, I fear that this may be nearer to the truth than we realise.

The shallows at Stokesby are an old cattle swim with a hard gravel bottom. The same effect as at Runham Swim and Mautby Swim. They may be shallows but they have been there for centuries. I doubt if they form part of the present problems.

They objected to the plan for the Berney Arms Bistro as it might frighten their birds out on Breydon. So how do they suppose all these birds got on, in the days when Berney Arms and the big mill, were there to serve a very large cement factory, on both sides of the river? Those birds that is, that managed to survive the slaughter of all the wildfowlers coming out from Cobham Island in those days? A lot of places on the Broads are called "decoy". Perhaps the RSPB should look up the history behind that and reflect that their birds on the Broads live a very much safer and quieter life, these days.

No, Jack wasn't, but he was a wonderful man who many remember. He was the sort of operations manager although he didn't have that title, and for all the yards off the Broads, on the canals and the Thames, Jack "was Blakes". He was the only one they knew and he did all of the negotiations on their behalf, spending most of his time out on the road visiting member boatyards. He was one of life's real gentlemen and I only saw him lose his patience on one occasion : CBL had one of our boats on a stand at the Dusseldorf boat show and Jack was helping us with a Blakes sales kiosk on our stand. He got "buttonholed" by a local man who who spent ages telling him how much he knew about boats, the business, the common market and all the rest of it and Jack couldn't get rid of him. In the end the man asked him if he had been to Dusseldorf before. Before Jack could stop himself he replied "Yes, a couple of times but I didn't see much of it as it was dark, and I was at 15,000ft in the rear gun turret of a Lancaster Bomber". He mean't it as well : he was ex Bomber Command aircrew - and had the moustache to prove it.

It is indeed interconnected in many ways (Just look at the Broom family) and James Knight is also my brother in law. Which means I am related by marriage to Len Funnel, which has given us some amusement on occasions! When you say they have no influence within BA this will be because those in the business who took the trouble to get involved in BA over recent years have either left in exasperation or been eased out because they dared to say something.

I am posting this here (took me a while to find it!) in support of Griff's new thread called "Dredging lower Bure", where the author says they have heard of a sand bar across Breydon but have not seen it. Well, here it is, in bright green and yellow! We can see how the deep part of the river going under the Breydon Bridge is to the north, on the outside of the bend in the channel. This is just as you would expect in an alluvial river. There is also a pronounced sand bar right across the channel just above the Bure junction. This, to me, is quite clearly caused by the fact that the tide turns on Breydon an hour before it turns on the Bure. So the last of the ebb coming down through GYYS is diverted up the Yare by the incoming tide and drops its alluvial silt as it slows down. So we have a "Yare hump" as well as a Bure hump!

I have also described it as sinister. Perhaps we are beginning to see one of the underlying and historical problems of the Broads : that is, that we pay for it through our river tolls, but we don't own it. I should think well over half of the Broads area is owned by the Landed Gentry on the farming estates*, who can charge what they like to moor on their river banks, with impunity and at the same time use enormous political influence. Probably most of the other half has now become acquired by the bird watchers and/or the National Trust, who quite clearly have their own vision of the future. It was the farmers with a strong political lobby who forced through the building up of the flood banks in the marshes and it is the RSPB who now wish to close off all of the marsh and wetland that they now control, in case the public frighten their birds! Or beavers, or sea eagles. It is not a very healthy future for Broads boating as we have known it and it has now become almost totally un-democratic. We have not voted for the BA, the EA, the farmers ; nor the bird watchers, but they are the ones who now call the tune. * This is not a criticism as such : I am just identifying the status quo.

When I look back to all the debate about a flood barrier, back in the 70s, (when it almost got built) I can see how right we were, in Broadland, to protest strongly enough to get it cancelled. It was quite a fight at the time and our fear was that once it was built it would be a perfect opportunity for all the "experts" to come along with their own agendas and mess about with it. Imagine if you are a farmer, you would want to lower the water level so as to grow more crops on the land. But if you are a birdwatcher (owning such a huge amount of Broadland as they now do) you would want to raise the levels, so as to "re-wild" the wetlands and provide a habitat for the beavers. Just imagine if we had a barrier today, and just how many committees would have to sit and "work with partners" before anyone actually summoned up the courage to work out which button to push.

As one of the grey haired old men that has been mentioned above but who was nonetheless quite heavily involved in the running of Broadland "in his day", I can look back and say that in fact the BA was supposed to be more than a mundane harbor authority (the Commissioners), so that more decisions could be made in one place, rather than seeking them from several different committees and agencies. This was the promise that was expected of them, despite a great deal of local opposition to the idea at the time - including mine. Sure enough and just exactly as we all feared, they have reneged on that promise and have become the beast that we see today.