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REFLECTIONS

readyabout

By readyabout
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readyabout

readyabout

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Across the Great Divide

 

I was only nine; everything looked so big and awesome; but no, this wasn’t actually the sea. That would come later. For now, this present challenge was big enough. Through the box girder rail bridge the thin line of the horizon was indistinct – maybe shrouded in a light mist – but it was there, somewhere out there.... On the left hand side there was an opening – an opening in that wide, expansive swing bridge; it was as if it was beckoning to me – to us – to go forth, the way the Saxon ships had gone sixteen hundred years before. Dad had the mast up, now; we cast off from the decaying triangular dolphin, caught the nor-westerly on a comfortable close reach and headed for the opening.

 

In the cold, pre-dawn gloom alongside that rusting quay heading on the banks of the lower Waveney, there is that mixture of trepidation and excitement as the wet warps are coiled and you push off into the unknown. It sometimes has to be this way because of the tides: bridge height and air draft are critical; and there is always that slight apprehension as to whether or not, once past the yellow post, there will be enough headroom.... But, long before that, on reaching the confluence where the Yare joins in, there is always a bit of confusion in the darkness because the posts are close together and the channel is narrow. It takes a few moments to sort things out and acclimatise; always best to take things slowly here, while the brain fully wakes up....

 

The wheelhouse on Broadland Dream was warming up nicely, Mary was at the helm while I stowed the fenders out in the cockpit - and then, out of the darkness astern sped the Broads Authority launch. They briefly dropped to our speed as they came level – and I could see that they were grinning at us; well, grinning at Mary, anyway. Then I got it! She was still wearing her flowery pyjamas! I waved across in friendly acknowledgement of their humour and they peeled off towards the lights of Great Yarmouth.

 

Out here, it was still pretty dark – but the dawn was starting to lighten the sky ahead and to starboard. You could just make out the higher ground to the south – and the thin dark line of the castle....

 

*******

 

It was a message – a message for the supreme commander. Nobody knew his real name; they just referred to him as ‘the Count’: he was in charge – in sole command – of the Burgh Castle garrison. His full title was Count of the Saxon Shore – and therein was the reason why they were all there: ‘Saxon Shore’, the northernmost coastal frontier of the vast collection of the Romans’ conquered lands before Hadrian’s Wall took over as a land frontier to seal in the very top of the largest empire the world has ever known. The message from the sentry was urgent – you could see that from the way the long shadows of soldiers moved rapidly in the early dawn light. The count had to be raised from his slumbers; delay was not an option. On the battlements, soldiers squinted into the low sun....

 

In his spacious quarters within the castle walls, the Count roused himself, sat up and stared at the messenger as he uttered the feared and fateful words: “Saxon Longboats!” The huge round lookout bastion projected out from the castle walls, fifteen feet above the hilltop. Within minutes, the commander was up there staring anxiously to the northeast across the Great Estuary that separated Lothingland from the Isle of Flegg to the north - and his sister-fort at Caister. For over half of a century, these two fortifications had staved off every Saxon raiding party that threatened the valuable cluster of ports that traded within the Great Estuary: they had grown large and prosperous; rich pickings for these Germanic pirates!

 

The Count strained to count the number of ships against the strengthening contra jour glare. To the west, the warning beacon on the high bluff at Reedham was already burning in the dawn light; and already the soldiers around him were talking in anxious tones – for this was clearly no ordinary raiding party; this one was massive....

 

*******

 

Sontay slowly approached the Haven Bridge, her engine rumbling at low revs. We were wondering if we’d left it a tad too late and would have to spend the rest of the day alongside the town quay. There wasn’t much current – but the plain fact was that the bridge clearance was now falling. We should’ve used the last of the ebb as we’d planned; too much after-breakfast chit-chat....

 

I couldn’t look – even if I’d actually wanted to – because I was inside the wheelhouse – but I did hear Mary gasp.

 

“Three inches!” she shouted in at me. Probably a slight exaggeration – but it did seem close. I felt the adrenaline start to rise; heart beating faster. The river was high. The two Bure bridges were next – it would be a close call. I steered slightly away from the east bank to avoid a nasty mud bank just before the yellow post. It seemed strange to ‘cross’ Breydon Water from this direction – and I wondered, momentarily how many times we would be coming in this way in the future.... but then it was time to line up for the next two. It was going to be close; and the relentless tide kept coming....

 

Made it! Another gasp from Mary; phew! Close one.

 

Four years previously, in our first Broads boat, the centre-cockpit Lady Emerald, we’d had our first pre-dawn departure from Burgh Staithe: it had been blowing a near gale outside – and the crossing was boisterous with the flattish hull slamming into the young flood with a following wind making for a choppy wind-over-tide situation. I could hardly believe the Bure gauge: six and a half feet – and still nearly five hours to go! In the time we’d take to get the wheelhouse down in the driving rain, it would probably have dropped to six. Besides, while we were dithering, we we’re being driven onto the eastern bank with its notorious mud flat. Time to beat a hasty retreat!

 

I couldn’t help wondering, as we turned into the dawn wind and back through the spray under Breydon Road Bridge, what it must have been like when all this was a wide open estuary and ships could sail in from the North Sea, straight over the bar and far inland....

 

*******

 

The year was 367AD. The Burgh Garrison Commander stared out to sea – almost in disbelief. The once mighty Roman Empire, already weakened from within by political squabbling, was now facing mounting attacks from the barbarian hordes along its north-eastern flank. The Count’s orders from Rome were short and to the point: Hold the Line at All Costs. He closed his eyes, trying to figure out a way to carry out his orders – to keep his honour. Already, as the sun rose, he could feel beads of sweat under the rim of his helmet.

 

Breathing hard, he tried to form a battle plan. Directly below him - and to the northwest - lay the ship harbour, an expanse of relatively shallow water that would one day become vast mud flats at the confluence of the Yare and Waveney Rivers. Right now, though, the harbour was full of merchant ships, coasters, barges.... a whole wealth of vulnerable transportation that needed protecting. Over to the east of the hilltop fortifications stood the timber-built ‘vicus’, the trade-support colony: a mix of local tribes and Roman civilians; equally vulnerable.

 

‘Soldiers, soldiers,’ the Count muttered to himself. If only he could have more soldiers! But it was a hopeless demand. Already the legions were spread too thinly – and he was lucky to have his Equites Stablesiani, a crack cavalry unit of five hundred highly trained horsemen seconded from the Rhine Valley, where they had cut their way through battle after battle with the Germanic hordes intent on crossing the Rhine and ultimately marching on Rome itself! As for his infantry support, that comprised a tough, loyal band of fierce tribesmen from the Slav eastern region of the Empire.

 

By now, the garrison was on full battle alert. The castle had been well sited on an outcrop of glacial till surrounded by sand, unlike the typical marshy, peaty fringe bordering other waterways in the vicinity. The barracks, kitchens, infirmary and his private quarters occupied much of the six acre site on the firm, high ground; the castle walls were eight feet thick – with bastions broad enough to take the giant ballistae catapults so feared by the Saxon invaders. ‘Some comfort’, he thought; that would hold them off initially....

 

The Count was aware of the presence of his forces assembled ready for battle on the parade ground behind him: the scrunch of footwear on gravel, the snort of horses readied for battle. He turned to face them all with his orders for the defence of the castle - but there was a slight tremor in his voice as he spoke.... Later, when the soldiers had all dispersed to their appointed places, he took a trusted cavalry man aside and issued him with orders to ride for the Reedham outpost with a sealed message.

 

*******

 

It was late October; daylight was in ever decreasing supply and shooting the Bure bridges at Great Yarmouth before nightfall was becoming more of a compromise. Lady Emerald sped on towards Stracey Arms as the twilight closed in on lonely marshes where isolated dalek-type forms stood derelict across the bleak landscape - as if the casualties of some forgotten war. It was difficult to realise that we were travelling along an ancient sea bed; above us once sailed the Saxon herring fleet bound for the fishing port of Acle. Even today, houses built on the eastern side of the present-day village - near the old North Sea shore line – can find sand in their front gardens and flints in their back!

 

A fresh sou’westerly had come up as we closed the dark quay at Stacey. We secured the bow smartly before the wind could take hold but the stern post was loose in its hole – probably the result of more of that old shoreline sand again - so we warped up a good boat’s length to the next set of posts.

 

We were on the point of leaving the next morning when a large cruiser charged in under the full force of the flood - alarmingly close to our stern - and took a bow warp ashore. I was about to warn them about the dodgy post but was severely distracted by the commotion aboard. As their tide-born stern swung round ominously towards us, a young woman of generous proportions grabbed the bow warp and walked it back down the quay heading in an effort to turn the boat into the stream. I think she must have lost it because she was yelling to a rather diminutive helmsman to drive ‘full ahead and to the left’ as she hauled. This had the effect of accelerating the pivoting motion of the tide. I watched helplessly as their propeller plumed the water at an ever closing angle and, predictably, they clobbered us squarely on our port quarter!

 

Ok, it was an accident – but no apology or words of contrition came from the hire cruiser; just a smug grin from the helmsman and a nonchalant shrug of fleshy shoulders from the woman; but that wasn’t quite the end of the story, for as we pulled away up the Bure we glanced back, alerted by cries of alarm and surprise from our brief mooring neighbours. The reason for this was clear: the reattached bow warp was now on the very same mooring post that had caused us concern the previous night - while the ever-increasing flood tide was in the process of pulling it clean away from the bank....

 

*******

 

The horseman pulled up at the ferry point, his lathered mount’s breath condensing in silvery clouds against the remains of the evening light. He peered across to the lookout post, waving the sealed document that he had carried all the way round from Lothingland; but the soldiers of Reedham had little concern for the messenger, or his message. They were staring with horror at the large red glow on the high ground the other side of the estuary.

 

*******

 

As we surged up the channel between the avenue of posts, Dad was singing sea shanties – or, more accurately – parts from them! The sails stretched, the spars creaked – and David and I were at once amused and excited at the sing-song mix of skipper and rigging. It was, to us, our first ‘sea voyage’; well, at least the water had salt in it!

 

As soon as we had moored, the four of us went on a family outing to the ruins. It was exciting, visiting a seriously old castle, especially in the balmy late-afternoon light of a glorious summer’s day. The next month, back at primary school - at the beginning of the autumn term – a classmate proudly showed me an ancient coin that he had found while searching the dusty soil beneath the castle walls. This was at a time before official excavations were begun in the late fifties. I was impressed. That little coin made me realise just how close in time are the events that shaped our history when compared with the age of the ground on which they happened!

 

*******

 

The struggle for power at the castle continued long after the Romans had gone. The Saxons had their reign of seven hundred years before the Great Invasion from the South changed the course of history yet again. In the interim, there are tales of bloody fights with occupying Danish warlords and of the slain displayed on posts along the castle ramparts – and of a white flag of truce being used to strangle its bearer before the body was thrown savagely from the top of the castle walls. These stories have been handed down from generation to generation down the ages.

 

In Victorian times, quarrying for the nearby brickworks ate into the foundations of the crumbling west wall and it fell away completely; the remains of the wharf that served the brickworks can still be seen along the river bank. Today, unwary cruisers can end up using their props as shovels on the shallows that once marked the Roman Harbour entrance.

 

Many travel on by, often oblivious to the heritage that overlooks them: past the crumbling walls with their blood-soaked stones washed clean by the rains of history. Perhaps, one day, with the ever changing patterns of climate and the inexorable rise in sea levels, the castle remains might once again look out over an inland sea; and if you peer closely past the red and green channel posts on a bright summer’s day, you might just catch the glint of a warrior’s helmet on the battlements, sparkling there in the sunlight....

 

 

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BroadScot

BroadScot

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In my younger days as a Electrician Apprentice, we did work for a lady author Elizabeth Kyle, not her real name I may add. On the kitchen wall notepad board, were those exact words Polly....Polish, edit but ended get it off to the publishers! She was a regular frequenter of trips to Sotherbys, so must have made a few quid out of writing.

 

 

cheers Iain.

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  • 2 months later...
readyabout

readyabout

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Bridge of Sighs

 

It is as if life anew has been infused into the ageing structure when the low evening sun reflects off the pale medieval stonework on the south side of Potter Heigham Bridge - while the river flows on quietly through the narrow arch. Nature will take its own course while mankind vies in its attempts to take charge for all sorts of ulterior reasons: power, ownership, self-interest.... even for the control of nature itself! The fragile beauty that comprises this windswept corner of northeast Norfolk may be eternally shackled to the whims of the weather or temporarily bound by the possessiveness of landowners – or even the intransigence of conservationists. One way or another, this boating paradise seems always at the mercy of something – or someone - be it north or south of the historic crossing point.

 

On a mad March day in 1949, long before the early spring sun had rotated far enough round from the east to illuminate that ancient masonry on the down-river side - and long after the Broadland waters had been cleared of their anti-seaplane hulks – a motley band of brothers had embarked on a mission: Blackhorse Broad was barricaded from what was perceived as rightful entry as part of the waterways transit by all except a seemingly inflexible landowning family. Most would regard what happened that day as a rescue mission to untie the bonds that had remained after all reasonable missives had failed to budge some old stubbornness in a brave new post-war world.

 

There is perhaps an air of impermanence about Broadland that harks right back to the peat diggers of an England before the Great Plague – when East Anglia was the populous powerhouse of a pre-industrial country. All that has changed – as so easily could the future.... The banks down-river of the bridge are lined with dwellings that seem to reflect this precariousness. Arthur Ransome, writing his pre-war children’s adventures, made a small literary reference to these riverside habitats as: “.... a long water street of bungalows, built on the banks that have been made by dredging mud from the river”; is there an air of impermanmence in this remark – as if the dwellings aren’t quite up to the level of the more traditional residences, like the stately homes around Horning that sweep down expansively from higher ground to the banks of the Upper Bure, where, perhaps, the landed gentry have lived?

 

It was to the Upper Bure that those men were bound on that fateful day. The air was probably cold and crisp, as is so typical of Broadland in March. Thirty men clambered aboard a rugged vessel. You could probably hear the ***** of wood axes and heavy bolt cutters as they were tossed into the boat; maybe the aroma of pipe tobacco as polished briar was tapped against hard gunwales; no doubt there was some friendly banter as camaraderie turned into resolve. As the engine fired up into life, some of those aboard may even have been familiar to the sound: the sound of a World War Two landing craft starting up; they may even have had raw memories of the rumble of the angled bow door descending into the damp sand of Normandy as all hell had broken loose around them. That was then; this was now - a war of an entirely different kind.

 

By sunset, the obstacles to access of Blackhorse Broad were no more. Gone were the barricades of driven piles, tree trunks and chains. Gone was the impasse, to be replaced instead by more reasonable conditional access; and this was all down to the perseverance and leadership of one man: a humble boat builder; but not just a humble boat builder; a humble boat builder with rare vision. He had seen which way the wind was blowing and was determined to make a stand against outmoded, outdated tradition; and he had won; maybe not the total victory that he envisaged – but at least a partial one.

 

His was a vision that had driven him to buy out his boatyard partners amid the stock market panic of 1929 - and that had created one of the country’s first operational marinas and created one of the largest hire fleets on the Broads. Tragically, five years after the Blackhorse escapade, Woods was dead.

 

And then it was just one year after he died, and my brother and I were sat on the opposite bank from the boatyard, up river and in the late summer evening shadow of the ancient bridge, under the cool of the foliage that hung at the water’s edge, our little legs dangling off the edge of the wooden seating. Presently, Dad emerged from the side entrance of the Bridge Hotel with drinks for all of us. It was always a treat to get given our fizzing glasses of Bulmers Cydrax and a packet of Smiths crisps - the ones with the ‘blue one’ in it - probably just freshly delivered from the Great Yarmouth factory.

 

Dad seemed preoccupied; perhaps it was the prospect of shooting the dreaded bridge that was playing on his mind. Would we get through safely? Would the boat sustain damage? Fear, as I would later realise, was part of the sailing lifestyle. Back then, it was a low medieval bridge; later, it was the Chichester Bar and the Alderney Race; and then, just a few years before Dad died, it was to be the mighty Chanel de Four on the edge of mainland Europe - with a strong Atlantic swell knocking us around. There would always be something.... I remember Dad being momentarily distracted by the on-coming wall of fear that The Bridge represented to him: as he cautiously opened Mora’s throttle on the approach, he managed to get himself into a hilarious tangle with the yacht’s running rigging as we passed under that striated arch – completely unscathed!

 

Once through, it was like entering a different land: an idyllic water world of narrow meandering channels lined with reeds bending – no, whispering - in the breeze; paradise to an eight-year-old. I remember the convoluted awkwardness of Meadow Dyke – trying to catch the wind – and then the sudden, unfettered freedom of Horsey Mere as Mora heeled to a fresh North Sea breeze! I remember hearing the disengaged prop shaft whirring madly beneath us as we charged across the broad under full sail. Then there was the Great Trek across the marshes to the coast - and the wide blue horizon emerging over the line of sand as we climbed to the top of the dunes. Finally, as the heat of the day took its toll, there was the welcome of The Nelson Head - ever waiting for us with more Cydrax and crisps!

 

But these are now distant memories, harking back to a time when the waters past Heigham Sound were clear and healthy; a time before the charred skeletal remains of the Bridge Hotel were carted away to leave just a soulless car park in its place. Once, the old trading wherries sailed the length of Hoverton Great Broad; today it has become a nature reserve. Today, also, there are plenty of pressures to convert more land to nature reserves, often with complicit landowner approval.

 

Herbert Woods had taken direct action in his fight to save the Broadland waterways for all. It was blatant civil disobedience – but sometimes, when all else has failed, perhaps we earn the right to take direct action. Woods certainly thought that at the time and had the courage to follow through – and it worked.

 

Will future generations gaze through high powered binoculars from the relative comfort of a secluded hide, across to the northeast - above the bridge – out over the sprawling marshes of what may become one of the largest and most prolific wetland bird habitats in Europe? Will there be anyone ready or willing to make a stand like Woods once did?

 

Sadly, Herbert Woods dropped the baton of his pioneering spirit while still in his prime; perhaps it still lies languishing in the soft Norfolk mud, waiting to be retrieved.

 

One can only hope for the future of our boating heritage.... but anyone who does care to pick up that baton is probably going to get their hands dirty....

 

Very dirty indeed.

 

 

 

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BroadScot

BroadScot

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Oh dear!

Unexpected ‘PC’ issue.... :shocked

Just noticed the five asterisks in the text of my latest post?!

The word in question is as defined here:

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/*****

Definition No. 2: “a high pitched ringing sound”

cheers 

Paul

 

Are you sure it wasnt Chicken Fried Rice Number 3? :naughty:  Sorry Paul, not yours or our fault, just a forum thingy. :dance

 

 

cheers Iain.

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