marshman

I have read more about the pub somewhere, but cannot remember where - its just old age!! It might have been somewhere like Wherries and Waterways! However I recall it was probably towards the top end of the workings, the Belaugh end and if you go over to "the Other Side" and type Little Switzerland into the "Search Box" there is a picture purporting to be of the pub on one of the links. I am sure Richard won't mind someone from here looking there!!!! However I am not convinced that that is the pub - it could be but evidence is v sparse. I cannot really see that the pub could have still existed so many years after the marl workings actually finished, especially as it really is in the middle of nowhere. However I could be wrong - like proof with any further evidence!

So in reality, perhaps there is no real need for them to have them - do they really make a significant difference in the speed of attending and indeed the sort of situations they attend are only occasionally a matter of life or death. Don't get me wrong, they do have a very worthwhile purpose in search and rescue but speed in itself, probably, rarely makes a difference. Or are we saying that their blue light response would make a significant difference between life and death?

I would suggest that in reality, the blue lights make little or no difference to the effectiveness of the call out - often it is well after the actual emergency that they arrive and speed is not necessarily "of the essence". Whilst, as Ian says, the crews may well be well trained, they are not trained blue light drivers, nor should they be given that authority.

Shhh - don't tell on me but I have "snuck" in there several times and had a poke around, not recently but a long time ago! In the middle was a big "flight" pen where pheasants were reared but the whole are is relatively overgrown with the Hi / Low Bridge a bit of a feature. It is now quite heavily wooded but the old dykes clearly discernible, and some still with water in the bottom. Seems a good use for the area, largely forgotten and neglected. Incidentally the wherries that worked those marl pits were a far cry from the two remaining wherries in size - some where as small as 30' or so making access very much easier - all in all an interesting topic which was discussed many years ago, on the other side I think.

For what its worth, fender socks have never been highly regarded and seemingly do more harm than good. Even after 20 years, its hard to see any damage ordinary ones do, and I cannot see the point. I accept white ones can show the dirt but its their functionality that counts - buy blue ones which don't show the marks!!!!

Or go down the pub!!!!!!

Not here certainly - my guess is we shall get more of what we have got!!!! Oh to be on the Broads in a typical Norfolk spring!!!!

Good - nice pub, nice place! ( If you can find it!!!)

The rhododendrons are a non native species, invasive and should be controlled - despite looking pretty when flowering. Himalayan Balsam also has a pretty flower, but it can quickly overrun areas and you should do all you can to control and destroy it. Indeed in Scotland rhododendrons are now seen as Scotland's worst invasive species. We have many pretty native flowers and shrubs which look just as good but rhododendrons are really difficult to control and thousands are spent trying to rid many areas of them if they get out of hand - they out compete our native plants, poisonous to many animals and underneath the dense growth leave a totally barren landscape. By all means grow them in your garden if you must but please please try and control them. Of course people will argue they are "pretty" when in flower and nurseries and specialist growers still sell them - just as many garden centres still sell, legally, some water plants which will readily grow and block our waterways if they are let loose! Rhododendrons are not a pretty flower out on the uplands, but a dangerous weed which has to be controlled.

I think you will find that toilet lights are set by automatic movement sensors. I seem to recall in the dim and distant past when I worked in Canary Wharf the overhead lights in even the large open plan offices, had sensors on them and if you fell asleep out of sheer boredom, your set of lights would go out. The sudden start as you then fell off the chair was enough movement to light them up again! Either that or when your feet fell off the desk!!

Fred - you are right about the "creep" but I think you have to choose your battles carefully! I hate this pervasive creep, amongst other things, of downloading Apps to do a lot of this rubbish - talking of which you can now download an app to tell you when your bin is due for collection in Broadland!! The trouble now as far as I am concerned, if I stand up for too long, I know I will just fall over - I just lose the will to fight and know the creep will continue whether I try to do anything or not! I have recently been having a difference of opinion over an issue one of my daughters came up against and I spent, cumulatively, over 4 hours discussing this with a major insurance company and making a formal complaint because of their intransigence. What did I get out of it? Bu**er all except a headache - even the Ombudsman agreed she was right but felt it was an issue they could not get involved in!!! I cannot argue with your logic but will fighting help other than hassle over a £10 charge - we should but as you get older, you would fight everything whereas the young just accept it and get on with their lives!! I am sure we can all find similar things to rail against - I am glad you think you may make a difference! Thank you for trying!!!!!

Perhaps FF, you should fear for the next one just as much - we complain about this one, but the next could be a lot worse!! Vaughan will tell you, if he digs back into the depths of his mind, that the Broads have seen these "crises" of management time and time again, and indeed not just of management! Crisis come and go and yet the underlying beauty and peace and tranquillity continue to be attractions beloved by many and by those who have not even discovered these attractions yet. Whilst many of the "old stagers" have fond memories of the "good times" many of the problems seen in earlier crises often melt away and are soon long forgotten as new people come along and some will find new problems, yet others will go away thinking it is magical. People in this age of better and indeed instant communications have higher and and more exacting expectations but many will come and be happy with their memories of wildlife and wide open skies. I watch with amusement cars being towed away in Snowdonia where they think they have the right to park anywhere - they clearly don't have enough parking either in peak periods as indeed do many attractions, especially natural ones. What however I am absolutely convinced of is that a £10 charge for an overnight stay is not in the overall scheme of things, going to make the slightest difference. Thats what you pay for 4 hours parking at Wells and you cannot even stay overnight ! Perhaps at Ranworth it will reduce the "hovering" but I actually don't think it, by itself, makes a jot of difference in the overall cost of the holiday. Neither do I think the Broads are particularly badly managed but we have to pay when parking on roads that we "technically" have already paid for. Do I write to the Council and complain - no I accept it as a fact of life! How does the charge compare say, with the ULEZ scheme introduced in outer London Boroughs under the guise of alleviating pollution - its all to easy to find problems with the world and things like cancelled appointments and teachers breaching their pension limits, but nowadays I just tend to let it all wash over me, so to speak. Of much greater concern to me, is the fact that advancing age may mean boating is actually over - over the years I have had a boat, mostly around here, for almost exactly 70 years but will I squeeze another year out of myself - I think it unlikely! What do I do then other than sit and watch?

And FF if you cannot get on and off a train unaided or indeed in a car, should you be banned from travelling? FF - I think you have the vision of a dear old granny being trundled up a path in a bath chair! I think you are just so far from the truth FF and suggesting denying possibly many young and otherwise able bodied people the chance of a great holiday is a bit discriminatory. There are many forms of disability and many may welcome a firm path as opposed to woodchip.

Regular wood chip is a total waste of time as it quickly turns to mush and then mud - accessibility for all is the necessity I guess. I suppose you need a brush and slippers by the door - most boats have both and it just needs you to bend down! Those with wheelchairs I guess, will appreciate the fact they can get their wheelchair close to the boat

Chatting to a bloke down the yard today who is going to add rails to the back of his boat - however his concern is that as you jump ashore so he might get the ropes more tangled than previously - he was talking about making them so he could remove them but that to my mind, makes it flawed. I think whatever you do at the rear, there will always be issues. To my mind always try and work out what you are going to do , but be aware that the best laid plans etc etc but above all, WEARING A LIFEJACKET is the No 1 priority!

Are the Thames and the Gt Ouse just as expensive? Or more so?

My father used to moor our first boat there - he converted a 16' ex lifeboat with a transom stern in the front garden and we moored in the Yare dyke from about 1952/53. My enduring memory of that place is seeing my father bent over a British Anzani twin winding the rope round the top time and time again , trying to start the damn thing!!!!!

Sad to report that £20 is no longer outrageous for 2 large cod and chips - thats about what the Blofield one charges although its a tad under that! I have seen others in the City at a higher level! As we all get older we fall into the same old trap of forgetting what things cost in the real world - I can show you plenty of eating houses, nice ones I admit, that now charge £35 for a decent steak and its quite easy to ratchet up a bill of say, £150 for two! Its ok - I have noticed it too and whilst you can still get decent food for less than you might expect, as Ian will confirm, prices have risen steeply. For people who have access to two salaries, perhaps they are happy to pay, and indeed do, but it rather puts into perspective a £10 mooring charge. In times of inflation we do perhaps need to readjust our base line.

I got charged for stopping at Yarmouth waiting for about 45 mins for the tide to turn so, so everything is possible!!!!!!

But Vaughan - you have reopened it. Lets close it again - whilst I know your views, there were plenty with differing views including people with a lot more knowledge than I. Lets close it again once and for all!!!!!

Thanks Tom - as I suspected!!! Still - it gave several hours of fun for several posters to consider conspiracy theories. Me - I just carried on reading my book!!!!

If you were trying to pick up a buoy in a fairway, you would find a boat hook very handy indeed - they do have a function!!!

And get a decent gas boiler - don't waste your money on the cheaper brands!! Waste of money

Car parking charges anywhere are pretty undemocratic too but visitors still pay them without moaning - there used to be loads of places around the coast where I remember parking for free where I now no longer can! Its not as though you are forced to moor at Ranworth - as I have said its probably the last place I want to be BUT if you want to go to the pub or the tea rooms and can get a spot, I dont think £10 is unreasonable!! Perhaps if this encourages people to ask for dinghies, that trend will grow again - or you can buy my 10' rowing and sailing dinghy sitting on my front lawn!!!! That must be worth more now with this furore!!!

I don't think it will affect the shop or visitors to Ranworth - people mooring up tend to be in the minority compared to visitors going to the village as a whole which is generally rammed in the summer. Indeed as it seems lots of people won't bother to moor there now, it might reduce the crush of boats trying to!! If you dont want to pay, mudweight and enjoy the boats jostling to pay, after all what is a pretty modest fee. I pay rates yet have to pay to park in Norwich and I think that visitors will just pay, as they do at Norwich YS, Salhouse, Yarmouth, Oulton, and Beccles plus many other places. At least you don't have to download an app as you now do in lots of places. Neither do I think the Ranger will get a lot of abuse - people understand you have to pay to park your car all over Norfolk and quite frankly if you do abuse the guy doing his job you should be ashamed of yourself. As we get older we have to understand we live in a real world and not in one based on values some 50 years ago! Well thats my view despite the fact I have never ever moored at Ranworth!!!!