Hev Yew Gotta Loight Boy?

If you are old enough, you might recall a novelty act called the "Singing Postman" who shot to short lived fame on Opportunity Knocks, or New Faces. I can't remember which, but it was back in the 1960s and was the talent programme before Simon Cowell got in on the act.

Sadly, I am old enough, but if you're not, here he is in full glory if you click on the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqmXLkJ8Bwk

When I was in the Army, I had the dubious pleasure of sharing a room with a few lads from East Anglia; two from rural Norfolk and one from the wildest part of the Fens. I discovered that I could do a passable impersonation of an East Anglian accent. Well, to be honest, more of a parody. Ann's Mum also had a slight Norfolk twang on account of her own mother originating from Norfolk and despite living in the leafier suburbs of London, still spoke about going to a "Foo-neral on Toos-dee" and eating "Cooo-k-umber Sa-a-a-a-nd witches". Not that someone with a vestigial rural Hampshire accent is any position to take the Mickey of course!

What, you may ask has any of this to do with the usual theme for this blog? I was just getting to that: we thought a few days away in North Norfolk would make a nice break. It still being a major holiday area, we thought we'd avoid Easter and head off for a week or ten days around the May Day Bank holiday. With the heatwave last May day and the warm spell over Easter, we were looking forward to scorching temperatures and wall to wall sunshine. We got that slightly wrong with storms, torrential rain and temperatures well below average. In fact, the coldest early May Bank Holiday since records began.

So, on the Friday the week before the Bank Holiday, we hitched the caravan to the car and headed off, joining the M25 traffic jam at Wisley and not escaping until the A1 junction at South Mimms. Strange how the M25 was originally dismissed as a white elephant that nobody would ever use. The traffic jam continued through Hertfordshire following an "incident" requiring a couple of Police cars, a traffic "Womble" (I think they are called "Highways Officers", really - but they clear up all the stuff that the everyday folk leave behind, so Womble seems quite appropriate) and an ambulance. It all looked like a false alarm by the time we passed. Heading off at Baldock, passing Duxford and heading into rural East Anglia, the journey improved and we eventually arrived at the small village of Barney not far from a town that is spelt "Fakenham", but pronounced "Fa-a-a-a-k'num. Home for us was to be the Old Brick Kilns Caravan Park and we had a serviced pitch in an area reserved for Caravan Club members.

We've been to Norfolk before on a few boat holidays on the Broads; two in the 80s pre-children and once again in the 90s when the children were old enough to act sensibly around the water. Allegedly...

Many years later with children doing "jankers". David is now (May 2019) 31 and Lisa 35, so that gives a clue to how long ago this was taken.

With the weather forecast looking decidedly miserable, we revised our plans a little. Sunday took us to the small village of Thursford, home to a huge collection of traction engines, steam rollers, fairground organs and carousels, and the location of a huge Christmas Fair. Not in late April, obviously... It also houses a rare cinema organ with a virtuoso player who performs twice a day. Not entirely my choice in music, but the skill of the musician has to be admired, as does that of the craftsmen who built and maintain the organ. Naturally, at the end of the performance, it slowly sinks into the stage.

Someone just couldn't resist a ride on the Galloper

A Foden steam wagon, owned and operated by George Cushing who set up the collection

A magnificent fairground organ, just one of several in the collection

A Few National Trust Properties... And tea with Phil & Betty

Determined to get value from our National Trust membership, we found a selection of NT places to visit. First was Felbrigg Hall; dodging between showers, we were just about able to visit the walled garden - all 4 acres of it - and then do the tour of the house. A very informative guide told us that the house was owned for many years by the Wyndham family, amongst whom was the captain of the Mary Rose and the estate stayed in he family until lost by the last of the Wyndham's, known rather politically incorrectly as "Mad" Wyndham, he liked to dress up as a railway guard and cause mayhem on the local railway station. Once the Great Eastern Railway banned him from all their premises, he bought himself a Policeman's uniform and eventually formed a relationship with a lady of dubious repute who assisted him in bankrupting the estate.

The centre piece of the walled garden with a rare appearance of blue sky

Felbrigg Hall viewed from the front.

 We also visited the Blickling Estate on a thoroughly miserable day, hoping to see the gardens but the weather rather put us off, so it was just the house. This is the birthplace of Anne Boleyn. Eventually, it ended up as the home of the Marquess of Leith. A member of the appeasement Governments of the 1930s, he was significant in the formation of the National Trust, allowing properties of significance to be left to the Nation rather than being broken up to settle Death Duties. The house contains a massive library.

Blickling Hall

Just part of the library. Didn't see any of my books here, though...

We realised that we have elderly, distant relatives with a nice country home in Norfolk. We call them Phil and Betty; we thought we'd pay them a visit. Oh, alright then... the house is Sandringham and we're as closely related as just about anyone reading this. No photography inside the house, I'm afraid...

Sandringham, main entrance. Us riff-raff are only permitted access to the ground floor 

Exquisite grounds. This is looking over the lake

...and looking over the lake to the rear of the house

You can't visit Sandringham and not visit the Church and there's a museum that does allow photography and which houses a collection of royal motor carriages.

the tower isn't really falling over - it's an optical illusion caused by taking the picture from a low angle. It's just an ordinary Parish Church that gets a very good attendance on certain services

The earliest car in the collection is a Daimler chosen by King Edward VII

I always wanted an Austin J40 when I was a boy, but sadly well out of my family's price range. This, allegedly, was Prince Charles' first car. It would appear he can drive better than his father

The estate used a number of coach built cars for transport on the estate (hence the term estate car). This Zephyr is longer and taller with an extra row of seats

A Ford V8 Pilot "Woody", ordered by King George VI with various modifications such as a floor mounted gear change. the roof mountings are for guns or fishing rods, but I'm sure it would be better with a surf board fitted and Jan and Dean blaring from the radio. "Well, I've a '52 Pilot and I call it a Woody. Surf City, here we come, etc."

Not all the Royals were provided with Daimler or Rolls-Royce cars for transport, minor Royals had to slum it in an Austin Princess. This is the car from which the kidnap of Princess Anne was attempted. It is said that having been educated in the correct use of English by her father, her response to the kidnapper was to "F*@k Orff"

On the subject of Austin Princesses it's time for a little anecdotal story. When Ann and I were first engaged, I was given the introductory tour of her family. We went to visit Auntie Ede and Uncle Terry, who lived in a vast mansion flat in Hampstead. Knowing of my interest in cars, my future Mother in Law said I should ask Terry to show me his car as he had "a lovely Austin Princess". At the time, the things that looked like this one below were current and so, out of politeness, I asked Terry if he would show me his car, fully expecting to see an almost new Leyland "wedge". Heading down to the garage block at the rear of the mansion block, he opened the double doors to reveal a "proper" Princess, complete with cocktail cabinet in the rear. It was their everyday car!

This Rover P5 3 litre is the personal property of the Queen and hence wears a set of number plates. It was used when at the estate to go our on little trips in her private capacity

Norfolk and no Boat Trip?

You can't come to Norfolk and not have a day on the Broads, can you? So we hired a boat for the day. Starting from Martham Ferry, we managed to take in Hickling Broad, Horsey Mere and the River Thurne as far as Potter Heigham bridge. We weren't permitted to pass through the bridge without a pilot as it was a hire boat. Although the first time we went through, it seemed small, compared to many canal bridges it is positively huge.

our little plastic Noddy boat for the day. I think it had started life as a holiday cruiser some years ago, but it made a very nice day cruiser for two

We thought we might see some wildlife, but had to settle for a large number of Great Crested Grebes and a few Cormorants perched atop navigation poles

a Cormorant having a rest on a pile at the edge of the channel across Hickling Broad. It is very close to the sea here, hence the sight of what are normally sea birds

A male Great Crested Grebe. Hunted almost to extinction for their head feathers that were used for ladies' hats, they are now back in substantial numbers

At the top of Horsey Mere, there is a narrow dyke that heads to a restored wind pump. Owned by the National Trust, we again amortised our annual membership fee! We both climbed to the top, but only I went out onto the balcony. I was about as impressed with the view as Mrs Richards was with the view from a Torquay hotel window. But I could see the sea and, yes, it was between the land and the sky.

Horsey Wind pump

No Steam Train This Time?

Don't be silly!! There's a preserved line between Sheringham and Holt: the North Norfolk Railway. Normally, we would have gone for a trip at the weekend, but they were expecting a visit from a certain cheeky blue tank engine and a few of his friends. So, instead, we went for an evening meal, after spending the day in Cromer. A  town that describes itself as a traditional seaside resort. Think "Hayling Island", but with a bit less to do... We parked the car in Sheringham and took the modern train to Cromer. Or rather, we didn't as the entire line is being reconstructed, so we went on a rail replacement bus. Which was a bonus as it was free!

Cromer Pier. It faces north, so for someone who has lived almost all his life on the south coat, to be beside the sea with the light coming from behind is most strange

Sheringham is another traditional resort. It, too, was mostly closed.So we just hung around and enjoyed our meal on the train.

The "Blood and Custard" coaches in the rear will form our dining train later in the evening. Power for the train will be the loco shown here. For once, it is not one of those boring "Grease, Water and Rust" things, but an LNER, former Great Eastern engine. You just had to ignore the visitors who, seeing a green loco with the letters LNER on the tender automatically assumed it was Flying Scotsman. It is in fact no 8572 of the LNER, latterly 61572 in BR ownership and is of class B12, originally built to haul expresses from London, Liverpool Street to East Anglia

And, to finish this entry on another railway topic, the nearest town - if you could call it that - to where we stayed is Melton Constable. A sleepy, one road in and out large village that was home to a major four way railway junction, a railway company headquarters and locomotive works. Once it was the "Crewe of East Anglia", but now nothing remains from what was the home of the Midland & Great Northern Joint Railway.

A Week in the Cotswolds

My regular reader will know that I like photography and steam trains. A frequent pursuit is joining in group photo charters on preserved railways and the opportunity to join such an event on the Gloucestershire & Warwickshire Steam Railway was one not to be missed. How it works is like this: first, find 30 or so willing people prepared to chip in around £70 for the day which will fund the hire of the line and a train for the day. Then head off, taking photographs of the train during the course of the day. Of course, it is rather more involved, particularly as some of the photography takes place on a running railway, so a great deal of common sense is needed, plus complete compliance with the Regulations and directions of the safety marshals.

Rather than a mad rush to the railway for the day, it seemed like a good idea to combine the day's picture taking with a week away in our caravan exploring the northern edge of the Cotswolds.

We set ourselves up at the Caravan & Motorhome Club site on the edge of Broadway. That would be Broadway in Worcestershire, not the one in New York, just in case anyone is confused. We thought we would try out our circus big top sized awning as well. Being a traditional awning utilising steel poles to hold it in place, rather than the more recent innovation of using an inflatable frame, these awnings are sometimes known as "Divorce in a bag" as they have a reputation to be "challenging" to erect. Ours is an absolute doddle - but we did cheat a little by assembling most of the poles prior to leaving home.



We wandered into Broadway, a typical honey coloured stone village with more than its fair share of tea rooms, antique dealers and souvenir shops. But it all looks in keeping with the area and is quieter than other Cotswolds hot spots such as Burford or Bourton on the Water.  While walking into the village, we noticed a vintage Bentley being driven around the village. A little later, we spotted a second, this one had pulled up at the Lygon Arms Hotel (if you need to ask the price, you won't be able to afford it) where the driver declined the offer for the car to be valet parked. With a value in excess of £800,000, it wasn't surprising. It looks as though there was a Bentley Club event in the area.

The village centre at Broadway. Exactly how you expect a Cotswold village to look

Then, the main event....  A day on the railway. Starting from Toddington, the headquarters of the Railway, we joined our train and the star of the show for the day, number 7903 "Foremarke Hall". To all intents and purposes, it looks like a Great Western engine, but was not built until 1949 by which time the GWR had ceased to exist and was then part of British Railways. But it is a GW design with every detail that company was famed for, was built at Swindon, spend most of its working life based at Old Oak Common  running on services from Paddington and was finally withdrawn in 1964 and taken to the famous scrap yard at Barry to be cut up. Which obviously never happened and Foremarke Hall was fully restored to running order in 2004. 

Let's have some pictures:

Pulling away heading northwards from Winchcombe, the slope and curve creates a challenge for 7903 and its 8 carriage train

This young lady's quite picnic was interrupted by first by a horde of photographers and then by a steam train

7903 and train burst out of Greet tunnel

Our lady picnicker waits for her train.

The Great Western built a large number of "Hall" class locos and it was rumoured that the final one to be built was to be called "That's Hall".

On Saturday, Ann also wanted to visit the railway - so I had to go back for a second go. Life can be very hard and the things that we do for marital happiness :-)

Saturday's Motive Power is a more work a day 2-8-0 goods engine, more at home on heavy coal trains, number 2807 was built in 1905 and is thus 114 years old. Another to have been rescued from Barry.

Rather more modern, D6948 is an English Electric Type 3 diesel-electric loco, later to become a member of British Rail's class 37. Quite a youngster - it is only 54 years old.

At last - a former Southern Railway loco, this one being 35006 "P & O Line", a member of the "Merchant Navy" class and regularly used on express trains from Waterloo to the west of England. These magnificent locomotives were used on the last regular steam hauled express passenger services in the UK

So, what should we do on Sunday and Monday? We've recently joined the National Trust and are suitably motivated to take advantage of our free entry into their properties. One local to Broadway is "Snowshill Manor", the former home of a certain Charles Wade who was an avid collector of stuff. The Manor house holds his collection, while he used a small estate cottage as his home and workshop. We thought we'd make a visit. 

Well, that was the plan...

The sign at the entrance saying that they were expecting to be busy was a bit of a give away. The full and overflowing car park was another. It is Mothering Sunday, it is a bright sunny day and everyone has turned out for a visit. So we'll abandon that visit until Monday and visit Evesham instead. I always find it interesting that the locals pronounce "Evesham" with 3 syllables - "E-ve-sham". It was a regular stopping place for us when we had our narrowboat.

Not much of the Abbey remains, just this huge bell tower which still houses working bells. To the left and right are two Churches; the one on the right dating back to Saxon times

A lovely black and white timber framed building that is now a branch of Nat West Bank. How on earth did they ever get permission to put that sign up?

And then we made it to Snowshill on Monday

The Manor House at Snowshill

and the small cottage that Charles Wade used as his home so that the main house could house his collection

Just one of thousands of items in his collection

Our next trip will take us to Norfolk for a week or so. Watch this space...

Two go off in a Caravan (with apologies to Enid Blyton)

Another long gap since the last post in this random collection of loosely non-connected thoughts.

Many years ago when Ann and I were first married, we bought ourselves a tent for holidays and had a couple of enjoyable holidays; one to Carcassonne in France and another touring Portugal and Spain. In a tent. With everything crammed into a Volvo 340, just creeping into view in the picture.

Our tent photographed while camping in a park on the edge of Lisbon in the summer of 1982

After Lisa was born, we thought that camping in a tent with a very young child would be too much like hard work, so managed to scrape together enough to buy ourselves a caravan that was delivered early in 1984 and immediately was pressed into service with a trip to the Brecon Beacons at Easter of that year. It was simple and basic, even by the standards of the time, but served us well for three years travelling around England for holidays and weekends and for a three week holiday in Brittany 

1984 model Sprite Alpine caravan with our VW Passat (the second of many) in the background. You'll notice that there's a nasty dent in the rear of the car. I found this on returning to the car in a public car park, but was pleased to see a note had been left under the wipers which I thought might contain contact details for whoever had caused the damage. It didn't...  It read "I have just hit your car. The people watching think I am leaving my details. I'm not. Hard luck"

The holiday in France was enhanced with an awning to give us more space and we spent the three weeks at Carnac on a very comfortable site surrounded by other English and Welsh families.

Car, caravan and awning at Carnac. Notice the must have 1980s car accessory - the pop out sunroof. I wonder what happened to A738 VMR? It's one of a very few cars for which I can can recall the registration

Storage was reasonably simple - we just parked  on the driveway. Actually getting the caravan onto the driveway was the stuff of which divorces are made! Our driveway, as you will see was loose gravel and sloped uphill. It was just about wide enough to get one car alongside if I could get the 'van tucked in tight and behind the roses. I'd widened the drive a little, but had not increased the width of the drop kerb. To make life even more fun, we needed to turn into a road almost opposite, but slightly offset from our drive and then reverse back making a gentle S bend in the process. Now, with a motor mover and remote control, it would be so much easier.

Eventually we managed to get the caravan onto the driveway. This is at our house at Great Linford in Milton Keynes. We seem to have driven the neighbours away, though. Just around the corner is Ann's Ford Escort Popular finished in NHS hearing aid beige

I swapped jobs and lost the company car; the Escort was not up towing, so we bought ourselves an MG Maestro, which was probably less able to tow than the Escort would have been. The less said about that car, the better; it was quickly replaced with another Passat! I swapped jobs again and had another company car, so the sale of the car paid for an upgraded caravan. A Bailey Maestro! This one had a heater, but was before the introduction of cassette toilets and fitting of showers - and hot water, but it was 14ft 6in long and so much more comfortable than the Sprite.

The Bailey with very large Isabella awning on holiday in France in 1987. Ann was very pregnant with David at the time and the holiday was timed so that we got home on the last day that we could get holiday insurance. Another dreadful car - Sierra 2.0iS; the poor man's XR4, rapidly replaced with yet another Passat following another job move.

Everything fell apart in around 1989 or 1990 when we were struggling to find the money for the mortgage. The long and the short was that we moved house twice in a very short period for my job and did the second move on a "Gentleman's Agreement" that the bridging loan costs would be met. While I may be a Gentleman, my boss was not and the agreement was reneged. Something had to give and the caravan was sold. A sad day 😢😢😢.

We move forward many years and a trip to the TR Register International weekend, where at too much of an advanced age, we again went camping.

I don't know why we ever thought that little tent would be suitable for two middle aged adults! The Triumph 2000 and TR6 you will recognise as the cars we used to own

And then if that little tent wasn't daft enough, I went to Classic Le Mans with my good friend Nigel and for this event bought a single berth tent from Tesco.It was smaller than the bivouacs that we used when I was in the Army, but it did the job. Actually, not entirely true as it ended up in a skip on the second visit to Le Mans to remind me not to even think about using it again.

The world's smallest tent. Luckily, it didn't rain at Le Mans that year, but it did the following time

For other events that both Ann and I went to, we did buy ourselves a comfortable camping tent, but I really struggle to say that I enjoy camping in a tent.

The Komfy Kamping tent on a site in the Dordogne region of France

Along the way, we've had a couple of enjoyable holidays in a rented motorhome and of course, six weeks in 2017 travelling around the US in a giant RV. We have an investment in a motorhome rental business that allows us a few free weeks each year.

In France (again) with one of the rental motorhomes in 2011

The RV rented for our holiday in 2017

We rather like motorhomes, but found a couple of problems. First they are very expensive and ones that are large enough to be comfortable are too big to go out for the day, so you need to tow a car along with you. We found this in the USA where we ended up renting a car for a few days.

And then a few weeks ago, I just casually suggested to Ann "shall we get a caravan again?" It may have taken Ann a nanosecond or so to consider her reply, but the upshot was that we found ourselves searching on the Internet and spending a day at the NEC a couple of weeks back.

We knew exactly what we wanted and how much we were prepared to pay. Last week, we were lucky enough to find exactly what we were looking for, having been told by several dealers that we would never find what we were looking for and should instead purchase what they had to offer. Perhaps I should attend exhibitions with a badge that says "I used to sell things for a living and know all the tricks". A deal was quickly negotiated and we will soon be the proud owners of a very lightly used huge nearly new caravan.

Pictures of our purchase (images originally formed part of a review on the web by "Practical Caravan" Magazine (I hope they don't mind - it was a good magazine 30 years ago and still is...)

The only slight problem being that neither car was suitable for towing a caravan that weighs around 1.5 tons laden. So if you've seen Ann's Facebook post saying goodbye to "Hans" and "Carmen" - our cars have always had names - and saying hello to "Katy", now you know why.

Yes... it is another Mercedes