Cromer, Biggles and Crab

We have just come back from a ‘magical mystery tour’ of Norfolk, largely because we had never been to Cromer and because I have always wanted to taste the fabled Cromer Crab. In choosing Alfa Coaches, we inadvertently discovered a fascinating example of entrepreneurship both modern and old. The first entrepreneur was Cromer born and would develop the hotel where we stayed.

The Hotel de Paris at night

The view from our window

The original premises were bought by Pierre le Francoise, the son of two French emigres who’d fled the French Revolution and settled in England. Pierre died in 1841 and four years later the hotel was bought by a local businessman, Henry Jarvis. Under his ownership and that of his son Alex, the hotel prospered as did its reputation. Lord Tennyson visited the Hotel de Paris in 1877. Later guests included Lord Curzon, the Marquis of Blandford, the Duchess of Marlborough, and Lord Ivor Spencer Churchill. 

The railway encouraged more tourism, more hotels were built and by the end of the century the Hotel de Paris was showing its age and so the Jarvis family knocked much of it down and built a new and even more grand hotel. It stayed in the family until in 1961 it was sold to a Mr Bush of Norwich who promised to keep the hotel in good repair. When he died in 1972, the hotel fell into the hands of various property companies, its golden days long gone. It might well have been knocked down, turned into flats, or even worse, fell into the hands of Britannia Hotels. 

Luckily it was saved by two entrepreneurs from Chorley, Tony and Peter Sawbridge, who in 1984 founded ‘Leisureplex.’ Their mission was to renew the once great but fading hotels of this country, realising at the same time they now had to fill them. 

So, in 1990 they founded Alfa Travel their new coach company completing a virtuous circle—supplying their refurbished hotels with customers and a fresh income stream to buy and refurbish new but carefully chosen hotels. Saving fine buildings and making money. They now have a fleet of fifty Mercedes Benz coaches and picturesque hotels scattered across the country. 

Back entrance to the hotel

The story is inspiring, the reality a little less so but this is purely subjective. Cruising on ocean or river is passive like coach travel, but on a ship or boat you can walk about, stretch your legs, have a drink, in other words do things. On a coach, once you’re strapped in, that’s it—the only distraction a trip to the toilet; stiff legs and a sore bum as you approach your destination. 

As I said, subjective, it suits many people, old people mostly, and I of course am not old—not to the extent of being in a position to compare and contrast the comparative merits of Alfa Hotels. Two of our fellow travellers had been to them all and were able to tell us which had the best architecture and which the best food. That is old.

 We were though spared the company of an ex schools inspector on the coach at least; not unfortunately at breakfast and dinner for he sat at the next table.

I’m convinced he took a deep, whale-like breath before he sat down, for he didn’t stop talking – not to us but his two unfortunate companions and anyone in earshot. It was a bit like the Ancient Mariner on speed with an opinion on everything: deep-sea fishing, the armed forces, the French, Germans, Chinese, traffic calming, taxation, the role of the state, immigrants. . .  We also gained an insight into his role as an Off-Sted inspector. He was able tell a good or bad school just by studying  the surrounding litter. To think of all those endless hours preparing documentation and lesson plans when all school needed was a caretaker on overtime.

 Having said all this, Alfa was excellent value and Cromer was wonderful.

In one of these streets was a second hand bookshop where I was able to buy a set of Biggles books at £3 ago.  My wife has told me I now have to read them.

The highlight for me was the Red Lion in Cromer, where I experienced a pint of Saxthorpe Bitter, followed by Cromer Crab in a sea front café. That and Biggles made the journey entirely worthwhile

Tai-Lin—— OUT NOW!

It’s not often you think what goes into a story. In the case of Belia and its sequel Tai-Lin, the influences, conscious and unconscious are there to be found. As a child, I was swept away by Stevenson’s Treasure Island, The Black Arrow, and Kidnapped; in particular, his exploration of villainy, its attraction and moral complexity. I didn’t know these terms as a child, but I most definitely ‘got it.’ I also ‘got’ Alan Garner, Susan Cooper, Moorcock’s Elric of Melnibone, and later I also ‘got’ history. 

I’ve often been asked my favourite period, and on reflection, it has to be the Eighteenth Century, possibly because it’s rarely taught in British schools. But for me, it’s the period when the world opened out in all its weird and wonderful glory. 

Eighteenth century China marked the peak of the Qing dynasty dominating vast territories across Central Asia and Tibet. Neighbouring India saw the gradual decline of the Mughal empire and European incursion. In the forests of North America, you saw conflict between the English and French, Iroquois and Huron, and the tribes of the plains and faraway Rockies not yet knowing what was to come.

All of it reflected in the plaques, graves and memorials in obscure English churches; ploughboys and sons of gentlemen who met their deaths in foreign lands. An England of ex-pirates and highwaymen. It’s also the world of the Great Witch Belia, Tai-Lin, Rafe Sadler and Rosie his daughter, her boyfriend Jai from the far future.

And Tai-Lin, the book?

In a sentence:

A sweeping adventure exploring corruption, morality, and the pitfalls of time travel romance.

You want more?

Tai-Lin is a story set within three timelines: Wales in the C18th, present day Newport, and a far future world, where a pastoral 'Golden Age' is enforced by corrupt and ageless Shepherds—a world now threatened by demons in search of three quantum opals. Individually, the opals allow limited time travel. Used together they would allow the colonisation of time itself.

The demons have one of them. Rafe Sadler, an C18th highwayman and Rosie his daughter, hold the other two and are now being hunted. So too, is the brilliant but elusive Tai-Lin who created the three time-jewels.

A perfect present for yourself, your child or any passing ragamuffin.

A Church in a Meadow

 

Two miles from us stands St Peter’s church.

A Faerie Fortress

St Peter’s Church was already 300 years old when the young future Henry V was hunting boar in the forests of Monmouth. An ‘old’ church was mentioned on this site in AD 735 and was probably founded by Tydwg, a monk of the small Welsh kingdom of Archenfield, a stronghold of the early Celtic Church. In 1054 the church was destroyed by the Welsh prince, Gruffydd ap Llywelyn who devastated the river settlements along the river Wye. The church was rebuilt and dedicated to St Peter by the Normans in 1080, who went on to occupy the small Welsh kingdom of Archenfield.  Soon after that it was appropriated by the Benedictine Monastery of Monmouth and placed within the Hereford Diocese. 

Original Saxon 'herringbone' pattern stonework

Building work continued. The tower was completed by 1300. In 1420 they acquired a church bell cast in Worcester and transported downriver. No rush then. By the late C16th the church was falling into decay and it fell upon a local man, David the Hermit to repair it. In 1740 the vicarage was located in Wyesham across the river, and vicar and parishioners on that side of the river arrived for service by ferry and boat, the steps still in evidence on the riverbank.

Over the years, the river has proved both a blessing and a curse. The watery highway allowed monks to travel far  inland and establish the early Celtic churches along its banks. Wood, stone, and even cast-iron bells were transported via the river. The river though, sometimes went its  own way. Heavy rain often saw the surrounding  meadow flooded, the church built upon a small bump then appearing to float on water. Very heavy rain saw devastating floods when pews and pulpits crashed into the walls and each other as forceful torrents rushed through the church. Brass markers record the height of the varying floods, 1947 marking a flood level well above head height.                                                

And finally, one wonderful curiosity, a handwritten and hand coloured Bible.  The story behind it is so beautifully bizarre I simply invite you to read the accompanying information and wonder at one man's eccentricity. 

                                                                       

Footprints in the Sand.

There is mystery in a family tree. Who were these people? What were they like? What feuds and quarrels lurk there? What broken hearts to they hide? Family trees are very much like footprints in the sand. Nothing else is shown.

We have traced our family tree as far back as 1770,  the entire Keyton clan never straying far from Cork, but the longer I stare at their names, the more I want to know about them. Who were they apart from names and dates? Even so, dates reveal a lot. Look at old Jeremiah Keating 1770 - 1880 and  check the 1830 generation, you can see—surprisingly—they sailed through the Great Potato Famine and lived to a ripe old age, a mystery in itself. If you compare this to later dates, Keytons begin dying off like flies—that though is less of a mystery and summed up in one word.

Liverpool.

In 1865 John Keyton moved to Bridgend. It may have been to gain mining experience before moving on to Liverpool and then America, where wages were much higher than here. It was a well-worn path for those Irish born with a sense of adventure. 

In Bridgend, my grandfather was born and by the slip of a pen John Keating became John Keyton because the Welsh registrar wrote it how it sounded to him. 

Fortunately for me, unfortunately for John’s immediate family, instead of moving on from Liverpool to America, they stayed, living in a disease- ridden slum. 

And in tribute to them I wrote the book, determined that these at least would be more than ‘footprints in the sand.’ 

The Pierhead from where so many sought a better life in America

Why should anyone else read the book? I could say it’s beautifully written and packed with evocative photos. I could say that. The truth though is much more. The Keytons and Parrys are  illustrative fragments of a far wider picture.

The former Walton Workhouse where my grandmother died

Five people were killed here during the Blitz

But ideal playgrounds for children- before ‘Health and Safety.’

A Liverpool Childhood is a spotlight on a moment in time. It’s a personal memory integrated into the social and cultural history of Aintree based on hearsay, gossip, ghosts from the past, a period of turbulent change. It examines the impact of war, the complex family culture dominating local factories, recession and renewal, schools, music, murders, and ghosts.

And where do you find local pubs like these anymore?

The Beatles 

The famous Aintree Institute built by the jam maker Sir William Pickles Hartley in the 1890s as a Christian community centre‚ the venue for many, many Beatles concerts,  and demolished in 2006  by worthy councillors for houses that twenty years later have still not  been built. A piece of history replaced by a pay and display car park.

In geological terms we are here and then gone. Some call it renewal. But here and now we have life and we have meaning, a shared history and one to be celebrated—even if, as George Harrison once observed, ‘All things must pass’—but not before reading this book 

The story of a cold church and a warm inn.

Positioned in the Cotswold village of Saintbury, St Nicholas’s Church is both forlorn and deeply loved: cared for by the local community who have been very proactive in maintaining a ‘decommissioned’ church, keeping it in good repair by finding other uses for it rather than allowing it to crumble and decay; forlorn because of its decommissioning into heritage rather than worship. It may also have something to do with visiting it on a bleak, wet day where it was colder inside than out. 

The face high above the door may have been a ‘grotesque’ beloved amongst masons, or simply the tradition of reminding those entering a church that there would be consequences for bad behaviour during the service.

Its history is almost geologically layered, from the original Norman door to the C18th  box pews, the intervening puritan period of white lime washed walls and plain glass windows, the Jacobean carved altar and altar rails. Catholic worship all but erased. The layers of history are best exemplified in the Baptismal font. 

The font possesses the early medieval star pattern along with the later dogtooth pattern associated with the mid to late medieval. It also has a pattern of large square roses increasingly common in the Tudor period, which indicates that it was presumably installed at around that time.

Fine example of a C15th nave roof

 

 

Confronted with a bier with its cheerful message we beat a hasty retreat to the Lygon Arms two or three miles down the road in Broadway. 

This was a small treat for ourselves, two nights immersed in history and log fires—immersion in the latter metaphoric. The inn itself was built sometime in the C14th but rebuilt as we see it now in the early C17th.  

Records in 1377  referred to it as the White Hart, which makes me wonder. Richard II didn’t adopt the White Hart as his personal emblem until 1383 and ten years later passed a law requiring inns to display a sign—many of which in a show of misplaced loyalty named themselves the White Hart. The 1377 date might be wrong, the innkeeper highly prescient, or perhaps just a lucky coincidence. Either way what became the Lygon Arms retained its association with Monarchy. 

Oliver Cromwell stayed there in 1651 before the Battle of Worcester; Charles I rallied his supporters there. King Edward VII visited as did his grandson, the unfortunate Edward VIII. Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor have stayed there, and other guests include Prince Philip, Evelyn Waugh and Kylie Minogue. It is unlikely that future historians will record that the Keytons stayed there in February 2026.

From the C17th onwards the Lygon Arms was a coaching inn and in the C18th a staging post for mail coaches on a route that connected London to Wales. 

The inner courtyard from our bedroom 

Twilight

Night

Looking out of our bedroom window, my wife remarked, ‘It’s like we're staying in Wolf Hall.’

I nodded. But less dangerous, other than to our bank balance.

In between beer and log fires, we explored Broadway

And I wondered how much these houses cost.

Above all we ate well. I put on a kilogram that the use of the pool, hot tub and sauna failed to reduce. Even a brisk walk through Broadway failed in that respect though it might have been 2kg without it. But who cares when you can sit in front of a fire with a pint of Cotswolds Brewery Shagweaver.