Page 14 - Town & Around - January 2019
P. 14
14 Town & Around January 2019 Tel: 01485 540620 email: editor@townandaround.net
A Page from the Sage
ell here we go, another Page from from Colchester on the road from Ipswich to
the Sage for the month of January London. These droves generally contain from
W2019, and another new year. three hundred to a thousand in each drove so
As you all know I get lots of people ask me that works out at about 150,000 pass that way
things about all subjects about Dersingham each year, and yet this is one of the least
and Hunstanton; I was asked about passages. The numbers that travel by way of
Cumberland House at 28 Northgate, if it was Newmarket Heath, and the open country and
still there, I did not know much about it, in the forest, and also the numbers that come by
fact I had never heard of it so I put a bit in the Sudbury and Clare being many more in
November issue of Town and Around asking numbers.
for help. They have found it practicable to make the
It was not long before I had Neil Quincy on geese travel on foot too, and it is very frequent
the phone telling me all about it. Up to 1914 by now to meet droves of a thousand sometimes
it was apartments then during the war it was Dick Melton two thousand in a drove, they begin to drive
taken over by the army, then after 1918 it was them generally in August by which time the
again apartments then some time in the 60s or harvest is almost over and the geese will feed
70s it became the Tudor Rose nursing home, traction engines, the tooting of whistles, the on the stubbles as they go thus they hold on
it is now a block of flats, so there you are heat of the paraffin flares and the ornate old to the end of October when the roads begin to
Cumberland House is still there at 28 organs with figures beating on drums and get to stiff and deep for their broad feet and
Northgate. crashing cymbals to fill the air with short legs to march in.
I had another dear old gentleman ring me mechanical music. There were the galloping
up, Mr Wilf King who was an AA patrolman horses, Thurston’s Dragons and cake walk, A farming tale
for many years, he patrolled along the North the penny on the mat (helter skelter), there This is a little tale about an old boy that
Norfolk coast on his bright yellow motorcycle were the renowned swinging boats shamrock worked on the land 60 or so years ago, he was
and sidecar. On the morning of the first day and resolute, taking their names from the a man of enduring simplicity, his education
of February 1953, the day after the great flood yachts which competed for the America’s Cup had been basic in the extreme, if he bought
Wilf and some of his other AA patrolmen in the days when Sir Thomas Lipton carried something and the change came to three half
including a Mr Starling from Heacham had to the British flag to victory, and there was Billy pence, he insisted on receiving three
go round the coast of Norfolk putting up over Wood's International Boxing Academy where halfpennies, it was no good offering him a
one hundred signs telling people about foolhardy local lads risked life and limb in an penny and a halfpenny if he did not get three
diversions, flooded roads, sand on the effort to overcome the travelling pugilists, on coins he was sure he was being swindled,
roads and no entry signs. When I spoke to a more modest scale there was an absolute there was on one occasion when he bought a
Wilf he said he remembered it as if it was plethora of hoopla stalls, coconut shies, and cockerel from his boss on being asked the
yesterday. shooting galleries, not to mention the stalls price, his boss replied: well do you think a
I saw in the press the other day where a offering fairground rock in a wide selection of crown would be alright? Oh I don't about that
small seaside town down the south of England flavours and colours. Master, said the old boy, I was thinking more
had a small high street that was just over 300 The greatest variety, however, was to be like five shillings.
metres long had 14 coffee shops in that one found in the many booths which housed When he first started work for that
small street. A man put in a planning attractions as diverse as knife throwing acts particular farmer, quite naturally he’d been
application for another one in an empty shop and flea circuses, many offered a selection of anxious what wages he would receive, but the
but the council said no. We have a few coffee animal exhibits, from the biggest rat in the farmer had been quick to allay his fears, don't
shops here in Hunstanton but not that many; world (that turned out to be a coypu) to a you worry about that the farmer said, I’ll pay
there are lots of charity shops, cafes, selection of freaks of nature like a five legged you what you are worth. The old boy's face
restaurants, hotels, bars and a dozen fish and sheep. In some cases, however, the animals on fell, that’s no good to me Master, he said, I’m
chip shops, the one thing we do not have is a show were accompanied by somewhat getting more than that already!
public house. The definition of a public house scantily clad young ladies like Rona the Rat
is no rooms to let, the licensee living on the Girl, sharing her cage with crawling rodents, Addresses
premises, no food, no electronic music, and a or Tianga the Jungle Girl, who held up such In the press on Friday there was a planning
nice open fire with a piano standing up the things as lizards for members of the public to application for number 2 Marine Parade,
corner for anyone to play. inspect, those heady days have long gone and South Promenade Hunstanton, this puzzled
unfortunately will not return. me as I had not heard of Marine Parade
Travelling Fairs Hunstanton. The Southern Promenade
There are still a lot of travelling fairs about Taken from Daniel Defoe's, tour Hunstanton goes from the southern end of the
like the King’s Lynn mart, the Nottingham through Great Britain (1724) fair to the hump (Heacham boundary), there
Goose Fair, Hull Fair and many more but they Suffolk is particularly famous for is only one building along that stretch and that
are nothing like the steam fairs of old. furnishing the city of London and all the is the cafe in the power boat car park. The
In Norwich twice a year the Cattle Market counties around with turkeys, and it is thought length of promenade from the southern end of
and the Agricultural Hall were cleared at there are more turkeys bred in this county and the promenade to Johnson’s Slipway is the
Christmas and Easter to make way for these the part of Norfolk that adjoins it than in all Central Promenade and the length from there
fairs, the showmen would arrive and in no the rest of England. to the cliffs has always been, and still is, the
time at all both hall and the market would be A person living in this place has counted North Promenade. If the name has been
packed with every conceivable kind of 300 droves of turkeys (for they drive them all changed or a new road constructed, then
diversion with hardly an inch to spare in droves on foot) pass in one season over maybe someone will let all the good people
anywhere; it was still the traditional type of Stratford bridge on the River Stour which of Hunstanton know about this.
gathering, with the hissing steam from the parts Suffolk from Essex, about six miles Oh dear, I read in the paper where the