Third Party, Fire and Theft

In the medieval era, the rag trade made Norwich rich, making it England’s second city. But it wasn’t to last. The steam age killed off traditional weaving, and old Norwich gradually slipped down the rankings, unable to compete against northern upstarts and their dark satanic mills.

Down but not out, the city reinvented itself with a new trade – making money, lots of it. And what better way to make money in a city largely built of wood than fire insurance? And what better way to reduce expensive pay-outs than to employ your own fireman? And thus, in 1797, a canny banker with an eye on the main prize, Thomas Bignold, founded the Norwich Union Fire Insurance Office.

Fast forward a couple of hundred years and following a complex series of mergers, takeovers, re-names and rebrands, Aviva is now the largest general insurer in the land – and pretty big in other lands too.

The company dominates the city centre with offices everywhere. But none are so grand as Surrey House, the purpose-built head office opened in 1905. Designed by celebrated local lad George Skipper, the lavish interior is richly decorated in marble, some of which was originally intended for Westminster Cathedral.

Marble Hall image courtesy of Pat Jacobs.

The classy Edwardian pile shines like a diamond among a forest of run-of-the-mill utilitarian Aviva office blocks.

To find out more, we joined a friend for the Marble Hall tour run by The Shoebox Experiences*. The people at Shoebox know how to tell a good tale, punctuating history with tasty nuggets and fun facts – and their tour was simply brilliant.

*The Shoebox Experiences run a number of city tours. All profits go to their social enterprise which creates supportive places for vulnerable people. We last joined a tour on their fascinating Hidden Street gig.

Oh, I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside

What better way to spend a sunny spring afternoon than a trip to the seaside? We’d never been to Southwold, the classy resort on the Suffolk coast because, without our own wheels, it’s a bit of a trek. So an equally classy neighbour took pity on us and offered to take us. We had a fine time frolicking around on the eccentric antique arcade games at the old pier, strolling along the beach and scoffing scrumptious scones topped with the must-have clotted cream and jam at the posh Swan Hotel. Liam even went for a paddle. The bracing wind blowing in from the North Sea didn’t put him off.

First mentioned in the Domesday Book* of 1086, the pretty town is notable for several things, not least a bunch of bible-bashing, buttoned-up puritans who, in 1637, emigrated to Hingham*, Massachusetts. Southwold was also the teenage home to author George Orwell. His most famous novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four, warns of the slide into totalitarianism. I see a connection.

On a lighter note, the town is also home to the famous Adnams Brewery. These days, I prefer the grape to the grain but Liam tells me they brew a quaffable ale. The afternoon ended with traditional fish ‘n’ chips down by the old harbour. All in all, a fun day out.

Some images courtesy of Pat Jacobs.

*The Domesday Book was commissioned by that bastard William the Conqueror to price up the realm he stole.

*The Massachusetts town was named after Hingham, Norfolk, from where most of the new settlement’s first colonists came, including Abraham Lincoln’s ancestor, Samuel Lincoln. A bust of old Abe takes pride of place in Hingham’s St Andrew’s Church. The Norfolk Hingham is also where Liam worked at the medical practice for a few years to keep the wolves from the door after we returned from our Anatolian misadventures. It’s a small world.

Banged Up at the Bridewell

The various galleries of the Museum of Norwich at the Bridewell chart the city’s journey from its humble beginnings as a few muddy huts by a river bank to a UNESCO World City of Literature. As I wrote when we first visited in 2017…

“It’s a ripping yarn of churches and chapels, friaries and priories, martyrs and merchants, weavers and cobblers, chocolatiers and mustard makers, fire and flood, black death and blitzkrieg.”

The Museum is a splendid way to spend an afternoon, come rain or shine. But it wasn’t the exhibits we came to see on our most recent visit, but a guided tour of the Undercroft, the vaulted cellar beneath the Museum. Norwich is stuffed with medieval undercrofts – they often escaped fire and the wrecking ball. Whereas the current Museum is mostly 18th-century Georgian, the Undercroft itself – the largest in Norwich – dates from the 14th Century.

The Bridewell Undercroft was originally used to store and display the precious wares of the filthy-rich merchants who lived in the fancy mansion above. It was a dry and secure place to show off the goodies to potential buyers and keep out thieves. But ironically, after the monied merchants moved out, the building became a ‘bridewell’ – a ‘house of correction’ – where those who had fallen on the hardest of times would find themselves incarcerated – the ‘criminalisation’ of the poor, as our guide put it.

Our guide certainly knew her stuff, bringing the story to life with gossipy titbits from the past blended with the serious stuff as she walked us through the suite of underground rooms. The tour provides a fascinating insight into not just the building but also the ebb and flow of the city’s fortunes. The Undercroft was even used as a bomb shelter during World War II.

From a strong room to a prison cell, a place of punishment to a place of safety, the Bridewell Undercroft tells it all. And yes, I bought a fridge magnet.

Dwile Flonking

A couple of summers ago, I wrote a tongue in cheek piece about Dwile flonking, a notorious East Anglian pub game involving two teams of twelve players, each taking a turn to girt (dance) around the other while attempting to avoid a beer-soaked dwile (cloth) flonked (flung) by the non-girting team.

Imagine my amazement to find out that the Locks Inn Community Pub, a gorgeous country tavern in the parish of Geldeston, has resurrected the boozy ‘sport’ as a trial of strength between the north folk (Norfolk) and the south folk (Suffolk) of old East Anglia. The Norfolk pub sits on the north bank of the River Waveney looking down on Suffolk on the south side.

Alas, we didn’t find out about it until afterwards and don’t know the result but I hope the merry folk made it a good clean fight. Okay, what I really mean is I hope Norfolk flonked our rivals into the dirt. And don’t even ask about the turnip tossing.

Totally flonking bonkers.

Lest We Forget

We joined the enthusiastic crowd of locals gathered on Church Plain in front of the Loddon War Memorial to celebrate the 80th anniversary of VE Day – the end of the Second World War in Europe. The organisers did a splendid job. So too did the kids from the local primary school who serenaded us with a medley of wartime songs made famous by forces sweetheart, Vera Lynn.

On the very first VE Day, millions took to the streets for a monster party which was followed, no doubt, by a monster hangover. It’s hard to imagine the immense sense of relief that must have been felt on that momentous day by those who’d lived through six long years of conflict. And also the immense sadness for those who didn’t make it. There are few people still alive today who have direct experience of that terrible war. And soon there will be none.

‘Jaw, jaw is better than war, war’ is a famous Churchill misquote from the Cold War. But with so many hot wars burning around us and the disturbing rise of nasty fright-right nationalists, I wonder what those brave souls died for. Lest we forget? Tragically, I think we have.

On a much lighter, brighter note, the good burghers on Loddon Town Council have compiled a fantastic history trail of local WW1 and WW2 sites hereabouts. It’s a fun and fascinating glimpse into all our yesterdays.

Wartime TrailDownload

Spuds, Spies and Something for the Weekend

The renaissance of the iconic Battersea Power Station and its surroundings isn’t the only radical regeneration along the old Thameside rust belt. Virtually the entire south bank from Grosvenor to Vauxhall Bridges has been transformed by new fancy offices and posh flats along Nine Elms Lane. At the Vauxhall end once stood Market Towers, a typically seventies block with the Market Tavern on the first floor. It was added for the traders who fancied a pint or two after a hard day’s graft shifting spuds and sunflowers at the nearby New Covent Garden Market*.

Come the weekend, though, an altogether different trade was transacted. The pub doubled up as a gay bar, particularly popular on a Sunday afternoon because the boys just loved to booze and cruise after Sunday prayers. I should know, I was one of them. I misspent many an afternoon there during the nineties and noughties. As did Jean Paul Gaultier during his Eurotrash years. But I was never tempted to try my hand in the very ugly and very derelict Nine Elms Cold Store next door. Many a randy lad came a cropper cruising its dark and dank corridors. Plunging down an unlit crane shaft was not good for anyone’s health. Ironically, it was built on part of the 17th-century Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, which had pleasured Londoners for over 200 years. Both Market Towers and the Cold Store are now gone, swept away by redevelopment. Ah, the memories.

Alongside the ribbon of luxury riverside high rises sits the HQ of MI6, the UK’s spymasters, as featured in a number of James Bond films. And not far away is the new, fortress-like US Embassy, which looks like it sits on a lazy Susan. No doubt, both buildings are bristling with various top-secret ways to detect and deter, disrupt and destabilise. Is their proximity to one another just a coincidence? I wonder. Let’s hope they’re keeping us safe from Tsar Pukin and his deadly cronies.

MI6
US Embassy

*The old Covent Garden in Central London is now an uber-busy tourist hotspot, so you won’t find Eliza Doolittle flogging flowers and warbling ‘Wouldn’t it be Loverly’ on the steps of the Royal Opera House.

Lift 109 – What a Ride!

We like a spectacular view, and they don’t get much more spectacular than the view of old London Town from the top of one of the chimneys at Battersea Power Station. Back in the day, the coal-fired turbines lit a quarter of the city. But by the eighties, dirty old King Coal had been deposed by cleaner (though not clean) energy. Fully decommissioned by 1983, the magnificent building – one of the largest brick structures in the world – fell into near ruin. That was then.

This is now. The building has risen from the ashes, phoenix-like, repurposed for the modern age as an upmarket playground for the well-heeled. The magnificent turbine halls have been restored and are now stuffed with posh shops and designer eateries, with price tags to match. Take your plastic, you’ll need it.

The cathedral to power is the centrepiece of a Thameside renaissance along a lengthy stretch of the once-destitute riverbank. We alighted at the brand spanking new Tube station to an avenue of fancy flats, no doubt obscenely priced and not meant for ordinary folk. As we passed, we spotted a gang of hunky modern-day steeplejacks in hi-vis, hanging around and rubbing their shammies.

We were there for the main event, to ride Lift 109 up that chimney for that view. And we weren’t disappointed. With hardly a cloud in the sky, we could see for miles and miles. It was amazing. Liam had planned on whistling Chim Chim Cher-ee from Mary Poppins as our egg-shaped glass conveyance emerged from the stack, but he got distracted by the jaw-dropping wow factor, much to the relief of our fellow riders – and me.

And yes, we bought another fridge magnet.

What Have I Done to Deserve This?

I do get some weird and not so wonderful spam emails. We all do. It goes with the territory, I guess. Many are littered with schoolboy errors – sloppy punctuation, terrible grammar and lazy formatting. And some also promise riches only a fool would refuse/are too good to be true (delete according to level of gullibility) like this one…

Mrs. Maria Elisabeth Schaeffler, a German business magnate,Investor and philanthropist. I am one of the owners of  Schaeffler Group . 25 percent of my personal wealth is spent on charity. And I also promised to give the rest of 25% away to individuals this year 2025. I have decided to donate 4,800,000.00Euros to you.

If only I’d known about this before our trip to expensive Gay Paree. A few extra Euros stuffed into my bum bag would have come in very handy.

The thing is, Maria Elisabeth Schaeffler really is a German business magnate. I wonder if the good lady knows about all this funny business going down in her name?

And then, as if things couldn’t get any weirder or less wonderful, this fake news dropped into my spam folder…

Really? Do I look like a bible belt trumpeteer or a redneck devotee of that other total fruit loop, the malodorous Musk? What have I done to deserve this?

That leads to a very tenuous link to the Pet Boys’ 1987 hit with the late, much-lamented Dusty Springfield. I was a huge fan of them both back in the day.

Well done to the Boys for giving Mary O’Brien one last crack of the whip.

Gay Paree, Ooh La La!

We had a ball in Paris for our double anniversary. It was my first trip to the City of Light since 2003, and I’d almost forgotten just how drop-dead gorgeous it is. Back then, I was wandering along the side of the Seine taking in the view when Lindsay Wagner – yes, I do mean ‘The Bionic Woman’ – cycled past. Since then, the whole cycling malarkey has really taken off. The locals, young and old, big and small, have hopped on their bikes with typical Gallic gusto, and many of the wide avenues now have dedicated cycle lanes. Best keep your wits about you.

We chose well, hôtel-wise, a distinctly quirky and deliciously personal boutique B&B in the Marais District. Our innkeeper’s mother had a pair of French poodles which spent their days curled up on the bottom two steps of the trés élégant staircase like flokati scatter cushions. I was amazed no one trod on them, particularly after a few sherries. Ok, I mean I’m amazed we didn’t tread on them after a few sherries.

This trip, we didn’t sight see – been there, done that, bought the fridge magnet. Besides, the weather was way too good to spend time on high-brow pursuits. Instead, we people-watched in pavement cafés. Unlike many big cities these days, everyday people still live in the centre of Paris and it was fascinating to observe ordinary Parisians going about their business weaving through the wide-eyed camera-clicking set.

Our favourite watching spot was opposite the gloriously industrial-looking Pompidou Centre – or Popadom Centre, as Liam likes to call it – which looks like someone’s gone a bit mad with a giant Meccano set.

Much over-priced plonk was consumed and I got a touch of sunburn. Parisian waiters have a reputation for rudeness. This is something I’ve not experienced either this time or before. A smile and a few words of schoolboy French can help oil the wheels and fill the glass.

So, no Eiffel Tower or the Mona Lisa and no Arc de Triomphe or Sacre-Coeur. But there was one must-see: Notre Dame Cathedral. Lovingly rebuilt, with no expense spared after the devastating 2019 fire, Our Lady has risen from the ashes reborn and renewed. We just had to take a peek, along with the thousands of others. It was well worth the very long queue.

The old girl looks magnificent. And yes, we bought another fridge magnet.

Okay, You, One Sentence Should Do It

Our double anniversary has sneaked up on us again – 19 years since our eyes met across a busy West End gay bar fit to bursting with a gossipy after-work crowd, and 17 years since we got hitched. This year, we’ve decided to push the boat out and paddle down the Seine. Yes, we’re off to gay Paree for a gay old time. For these gay old timers, this means a gentle stroll along the handsome boulevards and a big slice of café culture rather than painting the town pink in our disco pants. Our tush shaking days are long gone.

In the meantime, I stumbled across this old Faceache post written by him indoors to mark our seventh anniversary. Liam was challenged to say it all in a single sentence and he did it in style. He wrote…

Seven years ago we met in that bar in Trafalgar Square, shared that Sloppy Giuseppe and over-priced Pinot Grigio, argued about the bill, eventually went Dutch, courted for months like a pair of 1950s Catholics (for heaven’s sake), collapsed out of exhaustion into the world of jiggy-jiggy (terribly messy but strangely exciting), fell madly in love, got married (nice suits), moved in together (delicious scandal), watched the curtains twitch (mostly nets), gave up everything sensible and moved to Turkey (what was wrong with Spain?), fell in-and-out-and-in-and-out of love with an extraordinary (no, challenging, misogynistic, homophobic, primitive and God was it cold – okay I loved it) place, you writing ‘that’ book, ‘that’ book getting critical acclaim and big sales (cha-ching) but ‘that’ book largely ignored by those close to us (discuss?), coming back to look after our own (good call), becoming poor, well poor-ish (bad call), discovering the great city of Naaaarwich (nuff said), having more jiggy-jiggy (apparently unnatural, but terribly good with central heating and an injection of Radio 4 LW), re-discovering UK culture like a long lost friend but afraid to tell the expats how wonderful it was in case it came across as boastful (fine line), you becoming ‘properly’ recognised as a ‘proper’ writer (hurrah!) not to mention radio star (OMG), me re-learning Bach fugues (they are SO hard to play, even harder than Mozart, you really have no idea how my fingers ache), both of us weeping like candles at the latest Cinema City flick (okay, mostly Dame Maggie and thank God for the discounted tickets and blood-warm Merlot at the bar), getting over-excited about that converted railway carriage in miles-from-nowhere (yes, I could wash my bits in a sink with a view like that), improvising those make-shift nappies during the messy norovirus days (thank you Blue Peter and Morrison’s super-padded 2-for-1 kitchen towels, we owe you), people-watching at the Playhouse and longing to be young (clearly, we need to avoid Death In Venice comparisons here), gasping at Bonnie Langford’s amazingly flexible crack (and boy, can that Dolly can write a tooone) but most of all, keeping our focus, always, on making sure our glass is resolutely full. I’d say it’s been an extraordinary seven years, husband.