Charity Walk February 2025

 Wells to Yarmouth

In memory of Amanda

My aim was to walk about 60 miles of the Norfolk Coast Path, from Wells-next-the-sea to Great Yarmouth, setting out on the first anniversary of my wife Amanda's death, and completing the trek within four days.

And my aim was to raise money for the National Brain Appeal.

Accordingly, my friend John drops me off in Wells early on Saturday February 1st, and I start out, a little nervously.....

It is a still, cool, grey morning, but there is hardly anyone about.  The path is puddled and slippery in places, but, despite some worries about my fitness and my knees, the miles begin to fall away.

I encounter a few birdwatchers - one of whom lets me observe a Peregrine on the beach through his telescope - and dog walkers, but through Stiffkey, and Morston, it is quiet.

In Blakeney I stop for a quick drink at the King's Arms, where I stayed with my late friend Lindsay in 2012.  It is unchanged.  Same family ownership; same cosy atmosphere; same beer [Surely a new barrel?  Ed]

Then across the marshes and on to Cley, where a pork pie from the Deli picks me up before the going gets tough on the shingle.

I was dreading this bit, and it is hard going, but the tide is out and so there's a firm strand to follow.  I walk to the rhythm of the plash, surge and withdrawal of the waves - splash, splurge, shlurp; plash, scourge and scrunch - my mind a polished empty plate, as feet and water merge along the miles of empty beach.

These are the deep waters of the German Sea -  Ah yes, what some call the North....  has long been known as the German ..... Pace Mr Strumpot: so little do you understand.

I spy some figures fishing in the distance, near Salthouse.  Then one breaks away and comes toward me, and, for a moment I see Amanda, her hair blowing across her smiling face.  But, all too soon, she is gone, and I am left alone again, thinking of those last few years, when her eyes, so long the sparkling sapphires of her soul, dimmed to dark pebbles in the depth of pools of sadness. 

I spend the night in Weybourne, sixteen miles into my plan, and hardly the worse for the first day.

In the morning the sun shines across frost, and my spirits lift a little.  Much of today is spent tracking the edges of crumbling cliffs, and it's by no means flat - between Weybourne and Cromer I ascend and descend 636 feet in eight miles. 

Amanda and I had a short holiday in Cromer many years ago and I return to the Red Lion for a drink - it hasn't changed much, though it is a sunny Sunday and there are plenty of people about.

Over the golf course, where she and I walked, to Overstrand, where the beach huts are firmly closed,

Then back up and along the crumbling cliffs to Trimingham.  I meet my shadow high above the beach - but I reach out to drag him back....

Another eight miles, and 580 feet elevation gain, and I reach Mundesley - not picturesque, but I have a comfortable room and rest.

Day three dawns bleakly. It is cold (two degrees) and misty and I follow the beach for a while, before taking the signposted cliff path towards Bacton.  What the signpost didn't tell me is that the path is closed at the giant Bacton Gas Terminal....

And it isn't possible to reach the beach from here, so I have to make a miserable detour, following the closely guarded and cctv surveilled fence for what seems like miles.  I then encounter a brace of armed policemen, who fortunately accept my excuses and allow me to traipse on along the busy main road before eventually rejoining the coastal path.

This isn't picturesque scenic Norfolk.  It is a mix of holiday camps, thousands of static caravans and chalets, and wartime relics.

But then the imposing church of St Mary the Virgin at Happisburgh hoves into view, and I know I can find sanctuary.

And as the clock strikes twelve the doors open and I find soup and ale in an old favourite of mine (another that hasn't changed over the years):

But it is all subdued.  There is no sense of summer.  The pub will be there, I am told, until it falls into the sea.....

Yes, some things are reminders of past times.  But....

What good are memories?  These little tombs of the past are dirty and spent.  Not so  very different from remains of the Roman occupation.  Not really so different from the occasional fossil that marks where some forgotten creature died, millions of years ago.....

However some quiet habitations bear traces of life, and I love the idea of these curious refuges:  Sandy Lodge - Sea View - Cliff Top -  Sea Breeze - Dun Roamin - Gulls and Buoys......

Day four and, after a touching conversation with part-time taxi driver Monica from Mulingar, who had recently lost her mother to dementia and who is now watching her father succumb to the same fate,  I start along the dunes, overlooking adult grey seals, grunting and moulting and relaxing after their parental experiences [I feel for them.  Ed]

I meet Larry, a Volunteer Seal Warden at Horsey.  He too has family and friends who are suffering from conditions of dementia, and, bless him,  he makes a donation to my cause.

On to Hemsby, where a sign simply tells me that the footpath is closed.  A cataclysmic tumble has brought the cliffs down to block both the beach and the upper path.  No direction home.  

I slog up past desperate  tattoo parlours and amusement arcades, chip shops and Chinese restaurants.  The bus stops offer no respite, but then a bus careers past me as I hike along the main road.  Fortunately Trivet, a man of about my age, who was born in his home, Dove Hill Farm, is gathering faggots for his wood burner, and he kindly directs me and allows me to pass through his garden to avoid the fearsome traffic.

And so I hit the coast path again, and wearily work my way along the sands toward Yarmouth, thinking all the while of Charles Dickens and Peggotty and David Copperfield and the author's comment that Yarmouth was the strangest place in the wide world and I hold my breath as I pass Caister and its Roman Camp,

And then here it is, part derelict:

Part wishful thinking:

And part fantasy:

But, 62.5 miles on, and barely a blister, and I have achieved my target, exorcised some of my sorrow.

As I sit on a bench and shake the sand out of my boots I reflect on my experience. I recall our move, four years ago, to Norfolk and how Amanda would sit confusedly on the bottom stair, in her coat and hat, with her bag (mobile phone, purse and sheets of pictograms) by her side, waiting for the door to open and somehow for her to be returned to her known erstwhile 'Home.'

And then the descent into incoherence, incontinence, inability to raise herself, feed herself or speak.  She swam slowly deeper into murky depths, encountering strange creatures that would loom out of the blur, and she would look at me, and her distressed eyes would implore me to help her in some way.  Please, I thought she said, dear lord, take me now......

So, there we are.  I have achieved this aim, though quite what it has meant I don't know.  At this point in time, some 100 or so + friends/supporters have donated £3,435.00p (with an extra £546.75p through Gift Aid - so total £3,981.75p) to the National Brain Appeal, either inspired by Amanda's story or by my walk, or both.  

I hope that there may be some more and that, perhaps, some who haven't yet contributed may now feel they can.....

Should you wish to be a part of this, please see my Just Giving page, at:

 https://www.justgiving.com/page/richard-gibbs-1735565578129?utm_medium=FR&utm_source=CL

Thank you

Richard

******

O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

W B Yeats

Among School Children

******

This is for Amanda, and my mother Anna, and Robert, and for all those who suffer from dementia and for those who care for them

In Memoriam G L Webster 09/03/1948 - 12/04/2021

We are glad you passed this way.....

G L Webster, Trajan's Forum, 1981

Sometime last autumn, when we weren't quite locked down, I was in a London street, and my friend Lindsay Webster rang me. He asked how I was, so I burbled on about my aches and pains and how life was tough, etc, and then I asked how he was..... Not so good....  He had been diagnosed with oesophageal cancer.....

The train has left the station....

Last Monday morning, April 12th, he died. He was just 73.

Kirkby Hall

I met Linds in Sheffield, in the late sixties.  He was at University with my older brother, and he was one of a small group of friends sharing a fondness for beer and curries, amongst other things.  

Linds and my bro, Simon, in Howarth.  We had a running joke about the exchange of cash. No idea why....

Over the ensuing years we met regularly, though sometimes in a fog, here, and there.  At our home, where my younger brother fondly remembers his signature raincoat, and in Kettering and environs, where he lived and worked, as a teacher, firstly at Tresham College and latterly at Brook House College, Market Harborough.

We made many trips together, including an early morning drive over the Pennines from Sheffield to Lancaster, empowered by bacon butties and mugs of tea from all-night cafes; and a particularly frenetic visit to Paris in the early seventies, fuelled by absinthe and steak tartare.

During a visit to Palestrina, with another great friend, Antonio, in 1981.  Note the raincoat.....

In 1980 he attended my alma mater in Lancaster for a Master's degree, and I recall waking him there with the snap and fizz of a can of beer - we had a common interest in the intellectual qualities of alcohol - and then subsequently, in '81 he came to visit me in Italy, at Christmas time, where we explored the delights of Ancient Rome and then, with a rented car, the wines and spirits of Siena, where, after a bitterly cold evening in the Campo, he barricaded the hotel door against imaginary pursuers, only to find, in the morning, that the door opened outwards.

After that he was particularly anxious not to miss his flight home, so I accompanied him to Rome Ciampino airport, and he took off in the hope that a beautiful Polish girl would be waiting for him back home.  After taking a taxi from Luton airport, he found that he was indeed in luck, and not long after he and Anna married, to enjoy forty years of life together.

Ten years ago, Linds and I began a series of July excursions, fitting in a few days walking and a few nights beering between the end of term and either a holiday with Anna or one of his many journeys to the Far East or Asia Minor to recruit students for his college.  

Our first such adventure, in 2011, was to Lindisfarne, which I then commemorated in a blog piece which ended thus.....

The Holy Island of Lindisfarne’s name originates as the island of the people from Lindsey or Linnuis (OE Lindesege) which was the name of a small Anglo-Saxon kingdom, which lay between the Humber and the Wash, absorbed into Northumbria in the 7th century.  The name Lindsey itself means the 'island of Lincoln' which derives from the fact that it was surrounded by water and was very wet land and had Lincoln towards its south-west corner.  A fitting name all round. (The picture shows old friend Lindsay thinking about St Aidan, and the dangers of water.)

The following year we stayed in Blakeney, Norfolk, and walked (some of) the Norfolk Coast Path.  It was not the first time we had visited here, as this next photo reveals - a youthful Linds near Wells-next-the-sea - so many years ago now that I don't recall the details, except that he had 'borrowed' a tiny cottage and it was only in the early hours that we discovered that the owners were not entirely aware of the arrangement.....

In 2013 we ventured to Suffolk; in 2014 to the Peak District, where our advancing years began to show ascending Jacob's Ladder, and even more on the subsequent trail down a very rocky gulley. 

 The year after that we stayed in Stratford-upon-Avon, took in Volpone (in a hospital bed) and wandered on the Malvern Hills, checking out Elgar's cottage and his last resting place. In 2016 it was the Cotswolds, where we followed in the feetsteps of Laurie Lee. 

2017 had us in Leeds and the Yorkshire Dales, on the trail of J B Priestley. In 2018 we stayed in the glory of Tracey Emin's Margate, breathing in the dust of T S Eliot, and then, in 2019 we were in Essex, savouring the salt at Great Maldon but also admiring John Constable's country.

The pandemic blew us off course in 2020 and that, sadly, is that, for now, though in addition to the July sorties there were also meetings in London, Manchester, Sheffield, and in the vicinity of his home town of Kettering. 

 

Kirkstall Abbey, Leeds

Much of all this was informed, subtly, by Lindsay's erudition.  He was well educated - a classmate had been David Hare - and his relationship with professor William Empson was not solely steeped in spilt drinks.  Indeed, on March 9th this year, Linds wrote to me (with reference to something I had written):  Before his annual poetry reading we used to take him out. Me, "Prof. Empson, can I get you another drink?". Him, "Another. You're politely reminding me it is my round."  Double gin and peps for all followed.  Later as he stumbles over the threshold of a Chinese restaurant he puts his hand on the head of a bemused Chinese child saying, "I wish I could tell you something but you know it all already".  Needless to say the reading was always entertaining if at times difficult to follow.  I gave a copy of his poems to someone inscribed with a note.  When she asked him to sign the book, "Someone has already signed it.  Are you sure you need me to do so?"  !  His shadow provides lasting shade.

Linds himself was very well read, though his interest in international affairs and politics was lightly worn.  We would walk and talk, and apart from his engaging relations of adventures in China, Nigeria or Kazakhstan, he would always be ready with a quotation or reference to literature stored accurately for appropriate use.

I should also record that Linds was a proper European. His father was an upstanding Englishman. His mother a resolute Irishwoman.  His wife a native of Poland.  

But behind that Linds was a true cosmopolitan. There were no boundaries. As a youth he had worked on a Kibbutz in Israel, and travelled in North Africa and the Middle East. In later years he went on numerous recruitment trips for his colleges to many countries, from Viet Nam to Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, often extending his trips at his own expense to explore the culture and history of the region.  (And, quite recently, giving helpful advice to my daughter before she herself went to work in Azerbaijan....)

Sadly this is over now.  His store of knowledge and anecdotes of crazy hospitalities are archived.  

But all is not lost. 

While it is sadness crystallised to lose someone, especially if it is sooner than expected, we must know it will happen to all of us, and what remains is the love we had all along.  We remember the kindnesses, the laughter, and, in some cases.... the drinks.

I was going to see Linds again in London when lockdown eased.  Anna was planning to bring him to see us in Norfolk for some sea air and we would have met again.  We have to accept this cannot now happen, but instead we have to reflect on how much we enjoyed what was allowed to us all.

The process of dying is the difficult part. But, whatever faith one has, death itself shall have no dominion. What is done is done, and everlasting peace is the gift of the deceased.  

{I have tried here to paste in a video of some pictures taken on trips with Linds over the years.  It may well not work for all, if any, so apologies if not....}

I have been privileged to have had good friends. Between us we will suffer individual deaths, but we will forever share the laughter and twinkling memories of lives that have not entirely been wasted....

With apologies to both Luke Kelly and Michaél O'Caoimh, I quote a few lines from Luke, A Tribute, sung by Christy Moore.  I met Luke Kelly in Dublin when I was a very young thing, and heard him sing.  He left a deep impression on me, and when I heard this song, some time after he died (in 1984) I couldn't help but weep.  

The sentiment still applies to Luke, but transfers just as well to my dear friend, Lindsay:

I still can clearly hear your voice

Though your time with us is o'er

For memories are all we have

When we think of you today

Your name we'll always honour, (Linds),

We're glad you passed this way

Somewhere in the Yorkshire Dales.  Pies, mushy peas, and pints of ale.....

Norfolk

Blakeney and the Norfolk Coast Path

It is exactly 100 years since the National Trust acquired Blakeney Point and established Norfolk’s first nature reserve. This Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty has something for everyone.

Peter expertly pilots his clinker-built craft close to the shore of Blakeney Point. Young pups swim around us, watching us with their deep eyes, while their parents laze on the sand, smiling for the cameras. A little way away a gang of teenage seals, common and grey, hang out by the water’s edge, as teenagers do. Peter, born and bred in Blakeney, points out courting Sandwich Terns, and Little Terns that plunge from flight to catch sand eels.

Seal-spotting and bird watching are two of the great attractions in this National Nature Reserve, which celebrates its hundredth anniversary with the “Tidal Lands” exhibition in Blakeney Village Hall from August 18th this year. The Reserve, managed by the National Trust, covers some 1000 hectares including the four mile long shingle spit of Blakeney Point, freshwater marshes by the river Glaven near the village of Cley, and saltmarshes carpeted with common seablite, samphire and sea lavender. There are also extensive mudflats at low tide and dunes held together by marram grass, where colonies of Terns nest and Oyster Catchers, Ringed Plovers and Redshanks strut to feed.

Along the Norfolk Coastal Path, which runs through Blakeney for forty-six miles from Hunstanton to Cromer, Linnets and Yellowhammers frequent the gorse, and Skylarks fly high above the grasses. Flocks of Brent Geese winter here, and Cormorants can be seen fishing in the tidal creeks.

Although Blakeney’s heyday was in the seventeenth century, when it rivalled King’s Lynn as a port, it was still a busy harbour until a hundred years ago. A Lifeboat Station was built on the point in 1898, but it was decommissioned in 1935 when silting and longshore drift finally put an end to its viability. The building now houses the National Trust information centre and provides accommodation for the wardens. At high tide it is a laborious walk to the point on the shingle, but at low tide vast areas of hard sand are exposed and in fine weather you can imagine you are Robinson Crusoe on a deserted coast.

Blakeney is home to about eight hundred people, though that number must double in the summer and probably quadruples on a sunny day, when children splash in the creek or fish for crabs from the quay. There are two major hotels and two pubs, the Kings Arms, a traditional inn with showbiz connections through hostess Marjorie Davies and her late husband Howard, and the White Horse, where Francis and Sarah Guildea have introduced a twenty-first century touch to local ingredients.

Although walking is a great way to see the area, the Coasthopper bus service can take the pain out of the return journey, with services every half an hour in summer between Wells and Cromer. However the easiest way to admire the coast is from a boat. Look out for Peter from Bishop’s Boats; he will introduce you to this spectacular world!

http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/blakeney/things-to-see-and-do/events/