Normal for Norfolk?

[steepholm]

My mother and I were listing places in the country where we'd never been, and so of course I mentioned Norfolk, which remains terra incognita for me. My mother on the other hand visited in 1939, when she went to see her newly-married sister and brother-in-law in King's Lynn. They visited nearby Sandringham while she was there, and she tells me that she was struck by the number of men in the village who looked exactly like Edward VII. You'd swear there was a family resemblance, apparently. This is the kind of thing that doesn't make it into conventional histories, so I set it down here for us all to ponder upon.

(Meanwhile, the blatant way in which the latest wodge of cronies has bribed its way into the House of Lords has been remarked on even by the BBC.)

Comments

[ladyofastolat.livejournal.com]

I've never been to Norfolk, either. In fact, I think it is the only county in England which I haven't visited or at least travelled through. I wonder how common this condition is. There could be millions of us, all united in seeing Norfolk as the last surviving outpost of unexplored mystery.

Rather like Bembridge. I lived on the island for about 6 years without visiting Bembridge. I remarked on this to quite a lot people, expecting them to mock me. Instead, I found that many of them said, "Ooh! Bembridge! I've never been there, either!" and spoke of it as a mysterious, distant, alien land.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Now I want to go to the Island specially!

[larryhammer]

My company's UK office is, of all places, in Norwich, making Norfolk the most likely county for me to visit (there was even once a chance I'd be sent over to do some training, but that hasn't surfaced for a while).

---L.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

If you ever get there, do tell me what it's like!

[sheldrake.livejournal.com]

It's nice! I work in Norwich and live in Ipswich, so I mostly experience Norfolk through a train/office window, but every now and again I'm allowed out.

I recommend the North Norfolk coast too - really beautiful.

[wellinghall.livejournal.com]

I am amused :-)

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Other half's family has Great Yarmouth connections, Scot though he is.

Bit rich for that twerp Farage to talk about an 'insult to democracy' though, innit?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

He was only upset because he wanted more placemen for himself.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I keep track of these things too, and Norfolk is one of four English counties I've never been in, the others being Suffolk, Devon, and Cornwall. It's the far corners that are the toughest part.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Devon and Cornwall are handy for me in Bristol, and I like them both a lot. Suffolk I've made only brief forays into (Stowmarket, Aldeburgh for the festival): I have little sense of the county as a whole.

My other major omssion in England is the Lake District. I've been saving it up, but perhaps I'd better go while I'm still ambulant...

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

It is beautiful country, and also a great place to indulge in William Wordsworth tourism, whether you want to or not. (Also, there's a pub in Cockermouth called the Fletcher Christian, which startled me for a moment until I remembered that Christian was also a Cumberland man.) It's not such a great place to buy local wool as I'd hoped. It was easier to find wool in the shops in York.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I lived for a couple of years in Norwich, but never felt at home there though it is a beautiful, interesting and historical city. Since then I have only been back once for an OU summer school at the UEA.

It is well worth a visit to the area and the broads are also worth exploring. I think its little visited status comes from the fact that it's not on the way to anywhere else, so you need to make a special visit.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I'd like to go - the broads in particular sound rather lovely.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

That's the only reason I've been to Lincolnshire - it is on the way to somewhere else.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Entered in handcuffs after being ghosted from Essex.

They didn't mention that on the tourist brochure.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

I am reminded of Mr. Weissbach in Rebecca West's This Real Night, "an elegantly dressed gentleman in middle life, silver-haired and neatly bearded and closely resembling King Edward the Seventh." However, he was almost certainly too old to have been a byblow of same.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

"Byblow" was just the word I used to my mother. I didn't think it was still current, though.

[ethelmay.livejournal.com]

Nay, I can byblowviate upon occasion, and currently, too.