Book Club Review April 2026

The Book Club met on  Monday13th April to discuss The Masterful Mr Collins, Norwich’s City Engineer 1894-1925 by Matthew Williams   Independent Publishing Network 2004.

Thank goodness for geologist Matt Williams burrowing and tunnelling through Norwich’s underground history. Without his extensive research, and several publications, we would have little idea of the terrain and structures upon which the city rests.

With The Masterful Mr Collins, Matt Williams has brought together engineering history with a profile of the man who brought safe sewerage to Norwich from the 1890s until the mid-1920s.

When Collins arrived in Norwich, he called it a ‘waste heap’ and quickly applied his substantial experience to redesigning the sewers, which had defective brickwork, and the sewerage system that was not properly aligned with the topography. It is Mr Collins we must thank for the New Mills Pumping Station and the Whitlingham sewerage works and thus for a healthy and clean water system.

His work encompassed yard clearance, building innovative low-cost housing at Angel Road, cemetery extensions, bathing pools, road repairs and road drainage. He had an inventive mind and designed, among other things, street cleaning equipment, a concrete urinal (Barrack Street), and the ventilation system at the Norwich Technical Institute (aka The Art School, aka NUA). His outstanding challenge was the 1912 floods, after which he widened and deepened the Wensum and built several new bridges.

Mr Collins was indeed ‘masterful’. He assumed and deployed considerable authority in the city, and attracted a national reputation. In trying to appoint his son Harold as his assistant without due process, he took a step too far but he survived the tarnish to his reputation. Most importantly Collins committed himself to the city and stayed in post long enough to influence multiple areas of Norwich’s development during the crucial early years of the twentieth century.

The Reading Group would have liked to know more about Collins’ family life but William’s book is concise, well-organised and very well illustrated. At 62 pages, it is a nice little read. VM 14/426

Book Club Review February 2026

The group met on Monday 23^rd February to discuss The Lost Villages of Norfolk by Cameron Self. Additional material can be found in Deserted Villages in Norfolk by Alan Davies.

During the medieval period Norfolk was prosperous and densely populated. Sources such as The Domesday Book provide evidence for some 250 villages which have since been lost and Self’s work, which covers a selection of these sites, is intended as a popular introduction to the subject. The text is accompanied by superb photographs, the majority of which are the work of John Fielding

As well as The Domesday Book, Self makes use of a number of other historical sources e.g. Lay Subsidies, to identify places which have since disappeared. Many reasons contributed to villages being deserted, lost or shifted. Natural causes include coastal erosion and a changing climate which affected agricultural practices. Diseases, such as the Black Death, led not only to a decline in population but resulted in survivors moving to other areas. Landowners enclosed common land or engrossed (appropriated empty) land. The C17th onwards witnessed the process of emparkment, whereby landowners cleared villages to create country parks. The growth of large towns, and the city of Norwich, led to outlying villages being absorbed. During World War II places around Thetford were cleared for military use. It is, however, not always possible to determine why a particular village ceased to exist and, in many instances, the loss can be attributed to a combination of circumstances.

The bulk of the book is taken up with a Gazetteer. For this purpose, Self divides Norfolk into seven areas and for each provides an alphabetised list of lost villages, with accompanying photographs. Each village is given a brief biography which lists its location, the origins of its place name, its possible size, the historical sources consulted, potential reasons for its disappearance, any known archaeological evidence and how accessible the site may be for the public. Where he can, Self includes individual nuggets of possible interest. For instance, Lynford Hall (in the South-West Norfolk area) was used in the filming of Dad’s Army. In the C16th, a former rector of St. Edmund’s Church in Egmere (now part of the Holkham Estate) was accused of removing part of the lead roof. Whilst a churchwarden in Saxlingham Thorpe was responsible for the illegal sale of the church bells in the C17th.

The Gazetteer is a useful reference work for anyone interested in exploring these lost sites, although not all may be accessible to the public. In addition, the book contains a map of the deserted villages, a bibliography and a list of useful websites.

Book Club Report January 2026

Maritime Norfolk Volumes 1 and 2  by Robert Malster

Cromer, 2012; Poppyland Publishing.

Volume 1 covers the villages and towns from the Wash to Cromer and then East Norfolk and The Broadland waterways. Volume 2 is wholly dedicated to Great Yarmouth.

Within the geographical organisation are subdivisions on the various aspects of maritime culture: commercial transport, maltings and mills, fishing, shipbuilding, seafarers, fishermen, privateers, smugglers, naval suppliers, beach companies, coastal erosion, wrecks and lifeboats and almost anything you can think of in between. This is an exhaustive account of Norfolk’s maritime culture and the lives and stories of the men and women involved from the earliest records to the present day. Malster’s sources include public and parliamentary records, the earliest and the latest histories of each location, local newspapers, interviews, and personal explorations. The result of his energetic research is two useful reference books.

Mr Malster is evidently a sailor himself and he includes a considerable amount of technical material about the construction, handling and navigation of boats and ships off our treacherous shores. This may not appeal to, or be comprehensible, to the lay reader. On the other hand, he is also capable of bringing to life many a forgotten drama of danger and courage - for example shipwrecks off Palling, Hemsby and Winterton - and giving colourful snapshots of coastal life over the last two or three centuries.

Who knew that in the 16^th century French and Spanish corsairs, known as Dunkirkers, raided and captured English ships off Yarmouth and threatened to invade the town? Or that during the peak of the herring trade that for every one fisherman there were hundred people on shore supporting the trade? Or that Nelson used the Norfolk dialect – which may rather alter the meaning of his recorded utterances. Or that in the 19^th century ‘Copers’ from Germany and Holland acted like modern-day drug dealers, sailing out to join the English deep sea fishing fleet in order to sell the seamen cheap tobacco and addictively strong alcohol, and divest them of their hard-won earnings.

This latter practice testifies to the personal hardships endured by the seamen that were caused by the harsh conditions with minimum pay. On a number of occasions, it was the local gentry, clergy, or aristocracy who stepped in to improve working practices and provision for rescue, either through charity or legislation – notably at Sheringham, Cromer and Great Yarmouth and Caister.

The books are plenteously illustrated although some of the pictures are grainy from having been overly enlarged. Both books are fully indexed, including lists of vessels, tugs and lifeboats. More and larger maps would have been useful, and more referencing of quotations would have been welcome. None of us came to the books with a background in maritime history or knowledge of seamanship so, they were a little overwhelming in their scope and would have benefitted from a more sustained overall narrative. There was a noticeable emphasis on the lifeboat and rescue services, perhaps because there are a number of existing published accounts. It would have been nice to see more of Olive Ellis’s famous photographs of the Sheringham seamen. Future historians and novelists will no doubt be grateful to Mr Malster for his recording of material that would otherwise be lost.

Vicky Manthorpe, January 15, 2012.

Book Club Report - October 2025

Managing For Posterity- The Norfolk Gentry and Their Estates 1450-1700 by Elizabeth Chadwick, edited by Jane Whittle.

We regretted not having allowed more time for this scholarly work which could have provided an entire term of study. The author, Elizabeth Chadwick, sadly died in 2020 before the book was completed. She had written the first six chapters leaving her editor, Jane Whittle, to work from her notes to complete the work. The later chapters perhaps read rather more as stand-alone essay but the change in style is not jarring.

The book’s focus is on the Le Strange family of Hunstanton, a family whose presence in England dates from the time of the conquest. There exists a rich family archive in which the author discovered a treasure trove of documents which had not previously been thoroughly studied. The stars of the show are Sir Hamon and his wife Alice who managed the estate in the first half of the C16th. Married as teenagers, a relationship which lasted over fifty years, they inherited an estate which was in ruin - a hall half built, derelict farmhouses and massive debt. With good husbandry they managed to turn things around within thirty years. Alice maintained detailed estate records and excelled at sheep farming.

The book also covers other Norfolk estates including Blickling and Felbrigg giving examples of estates that failed in contrast to those who have succeeded over the centuries. The group discussed what factors gave some estates resilience. A diverse portfolio of farming interests protected against disease, weather and variations in prices. Lucrative marriage contracts brought in money and created larger estates. A family ethic which stressed the importance of careful management might have avoided the heir spending everything on a flamboyant lifestyle!

The Le Strange estate In Hunstanton still exists today owning a wide variety of assets including fishing rights, a hotel, car parks and the lifeboat station.

The book was rather dense and most members found it hard going at times but for those interested in the large Norfolk estates it is well deserving of a place on the bookshelf.

Book Club Report June 2025

Monday 2 June

This month we explored the life and death of Edith Cavell. There is a lot published about her, and as a local heroine she is of particular interest.

We based our main reading on Diana Souhami’s Edith Cavell (2010) pub: Quercus, an extremely thorough examination of Cavell’s life. The bare facts are that she was a British nurse, born in Swardeston in 1865, daughter of a fairly repressive Victorian rector. Her early life reads like Jane Eyre; an inadequate education, little chance of independence, becoming a governess and moving fairly regularly from one poorly paid job to another. At one stage she was governess to a wealthy family in Brussels, which provides the link to her later appointment to help set up a Belgian school of nursing.

She trained as a nurse in her late 20s, following her younger sisters, and was a dedicated, high-minded and deeply Christian nurse. Her big chance came when her Belgian employers recommended her for the post of organising the new nursing school in Brussels. Soon after this the First World War broke out, and she nursed wounded soldiers from both sides without discrimination. As the German army invaded and occupied little Belgium, Edith along with several others, worked to establish an escape route for wounded Allied soldiers to Holland.

She was, inevitably, eventually found out and imprisoned for many weeks. Her interrogation was conducted in German, badly translated into French, so was full of misunderstandings, maybe deliberate. She was convicted of treason and sentenced to death by firing squad. The pleas for mercy were too little and too late, and she was executed on 12 October 1915. The night before her death she said, Patriotism is not enough. I must have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone. Words which are quoted on her tombstone at Norwich cathedral.

Her ’murder’ was used vigorously for propaganda purposes, and figures show that the number of volunteer recruits nearly doubled in the following weeks. Her posthumous reputation grew to almost saint-like proportions, and the name Edith became very popular; apparently the French singer Edith Piaf was named after her.

Book Club Report - April 2025

The NS History Book Group met on Monday 7^th April to discuss Anna Sewell’s Black Beauty: his grooms and companions, the Autobiography of a Horse – Translated from the Equine (Jarrolds 1877) and biographies of Anna Sewell.

Books consulted:

• Black Beauty by Anna Sewell, first published 1877, Oxford World Classic edited by Adrienne E. Gavin (and other versions).
• Anna Sewell by Susan Chitty 1971.
• Dark Horse: A Life of Anna Sewell by Adrienne E. Gavin, 2004.
• Victorian Fiction and the Cult of the Horse by Gina M. Dorre, 2006.
• Writing Black Beauty: Anna Sewell and the Story of Animal Rights by Celia Brayfield, 2023.

Born in Yarmouth in 1820 to Quaker parents, Anna Sewell was crippled by an accident at the age of 14. She pursued modest studies, travelled on the Continent, taught Quaker evening classes to the less fortunate and helped her mother, Mary Sewell, with editing her popular moral children’s books. It was not until Anna’s return to Norfolk during her last years of invalidism that she slowly dictated the now world-famous story, intended for adults, about an often ill-used but compliant horse. Black Beauty has been translated into dozens of different languages and sold millions of copies, many of them through the international work of the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

The group discussed the various merits of Black Beauty and the three biographies of Anna Sewell. We talked about the social and political background of Sewell’s life, the pioneering philanthropy of the Quakers, the details of Victorian equine practices, and parallels between Sewell’s life and Black Beauty’s. Questions were raised about the exact nature of the authorship of the book, the relationship between Anna and her mother (whether benign or repressive or both), the publishing history, and the symbolism of horses in Victorian fiction and painting.

Book Club Report February 2025

Elizabeth Garrett Anderson

Jo Manton’s biography, ‘Elizabeth Garrett Anderson’, weaves its learning very deftly and our recent group meeting generally warmed to her book. As England’s first woman doctor and founder of the first women’s hospital in this country, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson’s (1836-1917) renown extended far beyond the East Anglian town of Aldeburgh where she grew up. Hardly Elizabeth’s least achievement was the steady pace and breadth of her achievements, not all of which are widely known. As well as being the first Englishwoman to qualify in medicine, and founder of the first women’s hospital in the country, she was also the first woman MD in France; the first woman elected to an English School Board; the first woman Dean of a medical school; and the first woman mayor in the country - at seventy-one! . From her evocative opening lines on the young family’s sailing up the Alde estuary to her depiction of the many stages of Elizabeth’s arduous medical journey and her final reforming zeal as mayor of Aldeburgh, Jo Manton’s well researched account formed a compelling read.

Our talk centred on the sources of Elizabeth’s success - starting with her background family’s support. Between them, Newsom and Louisa Garrett’s wealth, energy, faith and determination meant that Elizabeth never wanted financially, and the freedom they granted her to roam from her home in Alde House as a child in the seaside town instilled respect for ordinary folk and confidence that never left her. In accounting for her career she herself pointed to the boredom for daughters who were confined to domestic life and the impact of reading Dean Stanley’s life of Thomas Arnold. Her readiness to override public opinion and defy convention further reflected her father’s forthrightness and assurance. Her successive persuasion of established doctors to take her on as a student in the several medical specialities, in the face of strong opposition, demonstrated more of her mother’s tactfulness, and in this conciliatory approach she was greatly encouraged early on by a like-minded young woman, Emily Davies, who was later to found Girton, the first women’s college at Cambridge. Other such pioneers and sources of solidarity were found in the women’s societies Elizabeth knew in London, such as the Langham Place Ladies, and the Kensington Society. Even her boarding school’s emphasis on French was ingeniously turned to good account later as Elizabeth circumvented British resistance to her eventual registration as a doctor by securing it instead through examination in Paris.

As her career journey had entailed travel between England and Scotland and the Continent, It’s hard to conceive such a pioneering career would have been sustained at such pace and breadth - or at all - without the benefit of the railways. Had we had time to press further, the role of modern publications and publicity in furthering women’s equality would also have been explored. For now, it seems worth mentioning one incidental discovery from our meeting, related to a house from which Elizabeth’s London work and entertaining was done - the discovery that one of the group had lived in the exact same house as a child! Perhaps this will spark more writing on the unjustly neglected pioneering doctor from Aldeburgh.

Book Club Report January 2025

Margaret Catchpole

The History of Margaret Catchpole Richard Cobbold 1848
Scapegallows Carol Birch 2007.  A Picture History of Margaret Catchpole edited Pip Wright 2009

This well known local heroine of the Suffolk coast was the subject of our first meeting of the year on 13th January 2025. Kala was leading the session and had promised us a light read for the Christmas break. Those of us who read Scapegallows enjoyed it very much and were not too hung up on the degree of mixture of historical truth and fiction. Carol Birch, the author, presents it as fiction but incorporates most of the items of Margaret Catchpole`s legend. Her character unlike in Cobbold`s version does not dwell on moral and religious aspects and the book was the more appealing and agreeable to read as a novel. Cobbett claimed that most of the material he uses is “substantially true, but embellished it to make it more entertaining”. The most recent book is “a reduced-text” of book - all the group also found Cobbold a tedious read – and wonderfully illustrated by watercolours by Cobbold himself towards the end of his life for a new edition.

Most of our enjoyable discussion was to do with how much the Catchpole material was true, what the evidence was and why it had been treated in these various ways for a wider readership. We all found the historical background round the River Orwell, with the Excisemen, smugglers, prison escape, social hierarchy, fascinating and romantic. Fresh interest is provided when the narrative moves to the penal colony in Australia and a satisfactory ending for Margaret. But is it true or just Cobbold`s wish to have virtue rewarded? To quote Wright, “we have a rattling good tale” that refuses to die. I`m sure there will be another version. The parts are so much better than the whole.

Book Club Report November 2024

The Paston Letters

In November the NS Reading Group tackled several different approaches to the Paston Letters, the famed 15th Century documents, first published in their original Middle English in 1789. They provide a primary source of information about life in England during the Wars of the Roses. The letters (and wills and other documents) were written by five generations of the North Norfolk Paston family as they struggled to hold on to their estates and, upon the death of Sir John Fastolf, to acquire Caistor Castle in the face of opposition from, among others and at various times, the Duke of Suffolk and the Duke of Norfolk.

In their battle to establish themselves as freemen and landowners they aligned themselves with the law and the knowledge of the law and hence their attachment to documents and letters. Originally published in 5 volumes, these were superseded by more extensive versions edited by James Gairdner of the PRO in 1896, 1900 and 1904. An edition of 142 letters in modern English edited by Norman Davis was published by OUP in 1963 and this was expanded in 2004. It’s available in an Oxford World Classics paperback: The Paston Letters.

Blood and Roses by Helen Castor (2004) provides a detailed narrative that closely follows the content of the letters within the context of the politics of the day. It is a thorough and illuminating piece of work by a prominent Cambridge historian; if it is a little heavy-going to read that is because the Wars of the Roses took so many awkward twists and turns and because the country quickly descended into mafia-like rule by land-owning magnates. The Pastons had to deal not only with violent times (vicious attacks in the streets of Norwich), treachery (seizure of their houses by force) and malice (theft of their property and deliberate lies), but also plague, sickness and everyday misfortunes. They were remarkably single-minded and resilient and eventually secured the political advancement, and at least some of the lands they claimed.

The Paston Women: Selected Letters by Diane Watt (2004) is a well-organised and annotated presentation in modern English. It examines the difficulties of translation at a time when English was changing, the importance of vernacular writing in ME, and women’s writing in particular. Each of the letters is preceded by an introduction and she also provides a section on the lives of the eight women. The emphasis is on domestic concerns and relationships. Watt has also written God’s Own Gentlewoman which focusses on the 107 letters written by Margaret Paston (d. 1484). The book includes some noticeably more speculative comments.

Virginia Woolf was inspired by the Paston letters to write a short story, The Journal of Mistress Joan Martyn, and also an essay called ‘The Pastons and Chaucer’ which imagines John Paston reading The Canterbury Tales. There is an ongoing project called Paston Footprints - https://www.pastonfootprints.c... - that links the original material to landscapes and walking routes. For information about the family and the key places in Norfolk and Norwich that are associated with them, see www.thisispaston.co.uk

Book Club Report October 2024

Julian of Norwich: Revelations of Divine Love Intro and short text, ed. Barry Windeatt The Book of Margery Kempe ed. Windeatt

What these books and their writers share:

Both were writing in the late 14th-early 15th centuries. Both are female writers writing in the vernacular i.e. English. Both were mystics in a tradition going back to the 12C. They prayed to be there, to experience the passion of Christ, almost for out-of-body experiences. They were drawn into the ‘inner life’ of God. Both had a spiritual awakening following serious ‘illness’. Both risked being seen as heretical.

Differences between the two writers: Julian, who is the older of the two, is theologically complex, and though she is ‘ignorant’ she can write well in English – but not in Latin. It is the earliest known work in English. We know very little of her, though she appears to be a Norwich woman, of a comfortable background. She was locked away as an anchorite at the age of 47, blessed by the bishop of Norwich, in what could be seen as a funeral service. She was there to contemplate and write about the revelations she had received from God when she was 30. During her 26 years locked in her cell, the Black Death was raging through England, there were the Crusades, heretics were burnt, the Peasants’ Revolt happened – life was tumultuous. Yet she was visited and consulted by many people (including Margery Kempe, 30 years her junior) as her fame spread. Her writings were honed and polished, the earlier ‘short’ text later becoming the long text as she lived to be 73. Her most quoted words: ‘All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well’

Margery Kempe was from Bishop’s (later King’s) Lynn, daughter of a successful merchant who was five times Mayor of Lynn. Unlike Julian, she was completely illiterate, and hired young scribes to read and write for her. She married comparatively late, at 20, and had many pregnancies before her conversion to a spiritual life. At about 40, she refused further sexual relations with her husband and set out on numerous pilgrimages. Part of her communion with God made her cry continually, in a way which would greatly annoy other people. She was in constant dispute with others, saw devils tempting her to commit sin, and was frequently being shriven (confession). She returned home to nurse her sick husband until his death, then travelled again with a new amanuensis to transcribe her visions and many conversations and arguments. A thoroughly annoying character, but one whose vitality and fearlessness come across as she refers to herself as ‘this creature’ in the first autobiography in the English language. There is something of Chaucer’s Wife of Bath about her.

Book Club Report April 2024

For this last session of the season we each chose a 20th century artist connected with East Anglia. Ian Collins` beautiful and comprehensive books confirmed what a wide field this was. We spent some time pleasurably browsing and discussing if there was an East Anglian style. We concluded that a response to place was the dominant connection rather than a specific style.

We then explored the lives and work of three particular artists: Alfred Munnings (1878-1959) , Edward Seago (1910-1974), John Craske (1881-1943). Fortunately the books were well illustrated, inspiring one to go and look at the real thing. The social context, the artistic influences, success (or otherwise) and the characters of the artists made for fascinating comparisons.

These were the books we used:

Ian Collins, A Broad Canvas: art in East Anglia since 1880. 1990

Water Marks: art in East Anglia. 2010

James Russell, Edward Seago. 2014.Stanley Booth, A.J.Munnings an appreciation of the artist and a selection of his paintings. 2011

Terry Davy and Carolyn Selby Coleman, The Life and work of John Craske Fisherman and Artist . Revised 2021 (this 28 page booklet has over 30 pictures some never seen in print before)

Julia Blackburn, Threads The Delicate Life of John Craske. 2015 (winner of the East Anglian Book of the Year Award 2025)

Book Club Report Februrary 2024

We have been following a roughly chronological plan and had arrived at the Second World War. There were many ways of tackling this but we focussed on Thorpe Hamlet. We used two books which depended on primary evidence, the oral memories and objects belonging to the people who remembered that period. The Thorpe Hamlet History Group had previously produced a book in memory of those who died in WW1 and wanted to do the same for WW2. The results of course were different as there were more people alive to remember WW2 but also because the wars had very different effects on the population. One example that struck me was that most of those who died in ww1 were young men away on the battle fields whereas in WW2 the bombs did their destruction on Thorpe Hamlet and on the young and the old. The book was moving but also had the liveliness and personality of individual memories. The organisation of the information, photographs and maps made this a coherent and involving read.

The other book also included memories and experiences of those living in Thorpe Hamlet. The aim was different. Mary Ash`s history commemorates Thorpe Hamlet`s beginning as a separate parish in 1852. WW2 is one of many chapters. Both accounts enriched each other. Mary Ash`s gave the reader a deeper context and had a very strong sense of the place. It made you want to go and explore. In fact two of the group members did exactly that and with the history of it fresh in our mind found it a fascinating place.

At the meeting we were delighted to have Mary Ash attend and describe how she collected and organised the diverse material, a demanding but rewarding experience.

Thorpe Hamlet History Group, A History of Thorpe Hamlet in the Second World War. 2020

Mary Ash, Memories of Thorpe Hamlet Norwich. 2004

Book Club Report January 2024

After the Christmas gap there was another meeting of the History Book Group on 17th January 2024. The book we discussed was Colman`s of Norwich Stories of Former Employees 1935-1995 WISE Archive.

We have arrived mid-20th century in our reading plan. Colman`s, of course, has recurred previously from when we encountered Jeremiah Colman buying the Bawburgh watermill to make mustard in 1803. We had read of the Colman family`s rise in political and social position.

This compilation of individual memories by a voluntary oral history group brought to life the experience of 26 of those directly involved. The description of working conditions was fascinating and horrifying. It also showed the effect of technical development. You could follow how piecework changed into the gradual dominance of the conveyor belt and into automation of whole lines, especially in the contributions headed The Tin Room and Baby Food. It showed at a personal level the growth of departments, office work and quality controls. Out of the individual experiences the national and global trends of industrial and economic change can be seen.

Nearly every contributor mentions the camaraderie, the social and sports life, the pension (for women as well as men),the annual bonus, the Luncheon Club and canteen, the housing in Trowse and Bracondale and the ability to buy your house. "Colman`s was known as a family firm " begins one report. This could refer to Colman`s paternalistic approach originating in the Non-conformism of the 19th century and it is clear that even under the pressure of global changes ( takeovers, mergers, depressions etc) some of this ethos survived. However, the reference here was to the generations of families who encouraged their children to work there, found their marriage partners and lifelong friends in the factories and offices and social clubs. More than one contributor echoed a version of "I loved working at Colman`s" in their report. There was also in the 60s "the real Colman`s life started to go". But even when Colman`s was reduced to just a brand name there was at least "a very generous redundancy package".

A lively detailed well chosen collection made for an enlightening read and a good discussion.

Book Club Report October 2023

We discussed Norfolk Life by Lilias Rider Haggard(1892-1968) and Henry Williamson and Yesterday Morning by Diana Athill. They followed on from Notes from a Norfolk Farm and Akenfield, reflections by individual authors of their experience of rural life in Norfolk in 1930s and 40s. All were written for publication and for different audiences.

Norfolk Life originated in Lilias` regular column in the EDP (Williamson`s contributions were his invaluable highly sellable name and the small rather bossily factual footnotes). Norfolk Life was published in 1943 and went into three impressions immediately, appealing to those at home and those away fighting, evoking what they were fighting for. Lilias` personal experiences of the North Norfolk Coast and Waveney valley mostly avoid the drawbacks of routine rural journalism. Her loving observation of nature sharpens sentiment by noticing the dilemmas of the interaction of wildlife, gardening and farming. The recurring references to current events, historical anecdotes, folk lore and language, local individuals and verse are set in an awareness of the obstinate traditionalism of parish councils and farm workers, rural food poverty and the WI. Lilias was brought up in great comfort, not especially well educated, but in a family that engaged with the world and people. She went on holidays abroad and was a VAD. We liked her.

Diana Athill (1917-2019) was a close neighbour of Lilias, a generation younger. Diana was extremely well educated, full of a confidence that took her to London to an outstanding publishing and writing success. Her perceptive often disconcerting description of her childhood on the Ditchingham estate is personal and conveys the exclusiveness and wealth of her upbringing, the distant relationships within the family, the thoughtlessness towards servants, the combination of required acceptable behaviour and huge freedom to roam. Norfolk has many extensive estates with comparable status and varied histories. Diana`s account illuminates a moment in time, prewar, on the change. It is beautifully written. She wouldn`t care that we couldn`t like her.

Book Club Report September 2023

Another season begins. We had five sessions to plan to take us up to April 2024. There was an abundance of ideas and books with the short list organised and posted on this newsletter.

Akenfield was our summer reading. We all enjoyed and were moved by it. Two of us had not read it since it came out in the 60s and were impressed at how well it had stood the test of time.  But as it turned out a vital question of what sort of writing was this? Non-fiction, realism, poetic, truthful, how much rearranged and fictionalised. On the surface this could be a simple anonymisation of recorded interviews of the villagers to respect their privacy. . The Introduction and Tables suggest a factual, historical examination, the quotations at the beginning of the sections suggest a wider poetic context, the nameless author and interviewer assumed to live in the village gives a brief low key context before most of the voices. These voices. Where do they come from? The chapter title conjures up a typical group - The Craftsmen , The Law, The Young Men, Good Service, Four Ladies . The stereotype is not necessarily exploded but the inner life of that individual is revealed and the way rural life has changed. Reading it now 54 years later we also notice the changes. Examining the treatment of the source material was of course the historical approach. It is an extraordinary book. I should have read more slowly with longer gaps between to absorb and remember more. 49 people. They felt real, poetic creations, truthful to time and place.

Book Club Report May 2023

At the end of May we met for our last meeting of the year, to discuss Henry Williamson’s The Story of a Norfolk Farm. The range of material covered in this autobiographical account of Williamson’s purchase and early working of a farm in Stiffkey in the years before the outbreak of war in 1939 developed some of the themes of our year’s reading as well as our agricultural understanding. So we learnt of the complexity of land law, village life in North Norfolk and the state of agriculture in this pre-war period, as well as the involvement of women in politics, the spread of Fascism, and the increase of motor transport. Also, quite what cottage renovation entailed in the 1930s. Williamson proved an interesting figure himself, combining visionary idealism with pragmatic realism and demonstrating a naturalist bent with literary skill. Despite his obscuring both persons and places, it was quite easy to identify the real-life bases for these, and indeed at least one edition of his book provides a map of his land in Stiffkey.

Book Club Report April 2023

Our April meeting in the Britons Arms discussed Sylvia Haymon’s 1988 account of her childhood in the 1920s, ‘Opposite the Cross Keys: an East Anglian Childhood’. This was indeed not confined to a Norwich upbringing, for much of the book centres on the time Sylvia spent with the family of her nurserymaid, Maud Fenner, in a village whose description suggests, but disguises, Horsham St Faith The book memorably describes the close-to-subsistence existence of the Fenner family. The living room was ‘dirty. Not, be it said, ‘dirty’ uttered as a moral judgment, but purely as a style of interior decoration….It was called Poverty’. In acute detail we learn of the flapping wallpaper, the sulphuric dust, the broken furniture, the stench and so much else; the village had been known for its horsehair weaving, and one way and another Sylvia conjures ‘the place where they had manufactured poverty’. Yet the detailing of attitudes, activities, characters and relationships transcends the poverty through the warmth and bravery of the autobiographer’s experience in this alien environment: the relationship with the gypsy girl who worked in the fields, the awareness of the half-concocted family tales, fierce loyalties and arresting village norms. The account of Norwich characters - not least the quirks of the dedicated Maud - and incidental details also hold much interest. Without exception, then, we found this a compelling and lively read and were minded to learn more of this author who later established a career in broadcasting as well as writing.

Book Club Report March 2023

The March meeting in the Briton Arms broke with our usual format by doing without a lead speaker. The discussion focused on the topic of Norwich, Norfolk, and the First World War, drawing principally on books by Stephen Browning, Frank Meeres and Neil Storey. We were, throughout, haunted by the sadness of the War, accentuated by the bleak lists on the local World War memorials, and the poignant contrast of the term ‘thankful villages’, evidently applied to villages where none had died. We considered much of the local nitty gritty of wartime in Norfolk in the early C20, aspects that we had scarcely registered before: the cycling brigades; the black-outs; the turn to wartime production by local companies, including production of ‘the Royal Air Force boot’; the requisitioning of horses; the role of air combat and the particular menace of zeppelins crossing the county. The proliferation of ad hoc organisations anticipated the growth of State intervention subsequently - presumably intensified by the frequent disorganisation of the war effort. Gratifying connections were discovered with earlier subjects we have explored. The next meeting is scheduled for April 26th, on Sylvia Haymon’s ‘Opposite the Cross Keys: an East Anglian Childhood’.

We welcome new members: anyone who wishes to try out the meetings should contact Kala Nobbs.

Book Club Report - January 2023

Our first meeting on January 18th was sadly depleted but nonetheless stimulating. In an upstairs room at the Britons Arms we discussed Under the Griffin’s Wind by Frederick Cobb, and The Days of the Norwich Trams, by Frances and Michael Holmes.

Much of the Holmes’ book had been condensed in an online talk that they had first delivered at the Norfolk Record Office. Their book is amply and fascinatingly illustrated, and extensively researched in general. The trams were evidently quite late to come to Norwich and lasted from around 1900 to the early 1930s, when they were superseded by motorised buses. The narrowness of the city’s streets meant that many buildings were demolished to make way for them, not least in Orford Place, their terminus. Yet for thirty odd years the trams successfully conveyed a growing commuter population from the suburbs to work, school and onward travel. Indeed, it seems this modern form of transport was a precondition of the development of the estates that surround the city centre.

In Frederick Cobb’s autobiographical book the trams scarcely figure compared with the more lasting transport system of the railways. Cobb’s fifty-year employment started with joining the Great Eastern Railway Company as a clerk on leaving school before the First World War. Through Cobb we learn quite how enveloping such organisations were for their employees, from their football clubs and musical provision to more one-offs, such as the train that started off around 3.00am. to provide a day of film-viewing while travelling. Besides elaborating how the railways operated, Cobb incidentally tells of much else, not least the sheer variety of transport available to a resourceful worker in his out-of-work hours. So we learn of his first acquisition of a motorbike after the War, his subsequent purchase of a car and then a boat. Further life details make this book altogether a most rewarding read - for example, his side-line as, in effect, a valet whilst still at school; his experiences at home and abroad after enlisting as a soldier in the First World War. Such a broad account prompted unaccustomedly broad discussion of historical processes.