Author Archives: Tim Lenton

They tell me that Norwich City have the oldest football song in the world. If not, they almost certainly have the only one with the word “scrimmage” in it.

I suppose you could say I am a supporter of the Canaries. As a schoolboy (in the early 1960s) I stood in the South Stand on a fairly regular basis, and was part of the 40,000 swaying, cheek-by-jowl crowd who watched City play Leicester one memorable Saturday. The capacity for the current, rather larger, seated stadium is around 27,000, and my wife has a season ticket.

I don’t, which is why I wasn’t at the derby match against Ipswich Town recently. I do go to Carrow Road on occasion, but I am not a die-hard fan, slotted into the Barclay End, waving a flag, making up witty topical songs to fit the players’ names and being generally abusive to the opposing fans, especially if they come from Suffolk.

I am not against a bit of banter, such as the chant “You don’t know what you’re doing” directed at the referee. Similarly “Who are you?” or “What’s the score?” directed at the opposing fans or manager.

What I don’t have any truck with is the real abuse, verging on violence, aimed at small groups of individual visiting supporters. Mixed in there is heartfelt hatred, frighteningly close to riot and affray, causing real harm to real people who are just like us.

It’s one small step from calling Ipswich supporters “scum” to punching them in the mouth.

Admittedly, Ipswich is in Suffolk. But to be quite honest and risking personal harm, I have to confess that I quite like Suffolk, despite its nonsensical speed limits. Is there any real reason for Norfolk and Suffolk people to be at odds? How far are we from having a hard border, a backstop, bombing and other atrocities?

Bit extreme, you may say. All this violent talk is just a bit of fun. Maybe it’s a safety valve of some kind. No-one gets hurt.

But they do, don’t they? Words turn into deeds, and all too soon you have a little scrimmage, bones get broken, bodies cut and bruised.

I should emphasise that Norwich fans are not known for this sort of behaviour. But once passions get unleashed, almost anything can happen. It has in the past, and it will again. It stems from repeated insults, mindless abuse, creeps into hatred and without thinking – yes, definitely without thinking – it goes too far.

Just like Brexit, really.

My wife is an optimist. If she weren’t, obviously, she wouldn’t have married me, and things would have been very different. Oh, yes, they would.

I too have always considered myself an optimist in a general sense, but when I say this, she laughs. I guess the sense in which I am an optimist is too general to be of much use in daily life. I believe in life after death, for instance, and while this can and should colour what I am doing every day, you can’t always tell.

My wife’s optimism is sometimes frustrating. She actually believes that you can find a Sent folder in Outlook Mail, for instance, and she almost convinced me that one of the methods described on the web for finding it might actually work. To a realist like me, the fact that there are so many methods described on the web for finding it is an indication that something is basically wrong with Outlook Mail, but of course we all know that.

Why Outlook Mail finds it necessary to hide the Sent folder is beyond me. Possibly because it is designed by technicians, and not people. This is what will happen on a global level if Artificial Intelligence ever gets beyond playing chess. All folders will be hidden, and we will eventually starve.

Happily, I am not worried, because I have a Mac, which works well in adverse weather conditions, especially rain. And you can find the Sent folder.

Sorry, I got a bit distracted there, because my wife raised this problem with Outlook Mail (again) in the optimistic belief that I could fix it. Sometimes I can fix things, but not alien technology.

As a couple we have a few problems with time, but of course that is much akin to alien technology too. I work out how long it will take to get somewhere, my wife sort of agrees on a time to leave and is prepared to leave about ten minutes later than that, while I stand around in the kitchen trying to keep my blood pressure down.

To me, leaving late like this seems to be asking for trouble, because people drive so slowly nowadays that nobody can get anywhere in a reasonable time. But she is never worried, and quite often, against all the odds, we do get there in time, which is pretty annoying.

I am not complaining about my wife’s optimism. It is one of her many endearing features, like her beauty, her compassion and her forgiveness, and her willingness to let me choose a time to leave.

I am not leaving her, of course. I am realistic enough to know that. Why would I? She is optimistic about the whole thing. She also supports Norwich City.

At school I was shy and hated speaking in public. I remember having to give a five-minute talk to my class on railways: the idea of it terrified me, and the execution was even worse. The fact that I knew next to nothing about railways didn’t help. I was on the wrong track from the outset.

A couple of weeks ago and roughly 60 years later, I performed my own poetry four times in a week, to four different audiences. I am not boasting: it just happened like that. But it shows that if you’re born shy, it may not last. This may be good news for someone.

The first performance was on a Friday at Halesworth, at what is known in some quarters as a Poetry Café. Originally this group of mainly Suffolk poets led by Mike Bannister met at an actual cafe – Pinky’s – but it burned down a few months ago. So now we meet upstairs at the White Swan, while pool and darts are played downstairs. So I guess it’s a Poetry Pub.

Yes, I’m a Suffolk poet, though I live in Norwich. The second reading was at the Seagull Theatre in Lowestoft, which is still a Poetry Café, though it’s really a theatre foyer – a smaller gathering run by the genial Ian Fosten, who used to live and work (as a URC minister) in Norwich, which is where I first met him.

At the Seagull I have also been known to sing my own songs, a phenomenon which my teenage self would have viewed with horror.

My third outing in this fearsome week was on the Tuesday at Jurnet’s Club in Norwich, where a Norwich poetry group meets. It’s not a real café either: it’s the ancient undercroft of the Music House, rumoured to be the oldest house in Norwich (it’s on King Street, once called Conesford Street). And it was once owned by the Paston family.

Which is a rather a neat link to my final outing, which was two days later at the Maids Head in Norwich. No poetry café, this, but something much grander. The event was a celebration dinner organised by the Paston Heritage Society, of which I am a trustee, to mark the anniversary of the first mention of the Maydes Hedde in a Paston letter, on 22 November 1472.

For this I not only had to perform but also dress up and, truth to tell, I still don’t like doing that. Between courses we performed a number of poems and some excerpts from the famous Letters – and enjoyed some excellent food and wine.

In all this I steered clear of railways. I don’t know why.

Until quite recently I thought the most fascinating thing about Cley, a small village on the North Norfolk coast, was whether you pronounced it Cl-eye or Clay. Even locals disagree about this, and they are all sure they’re right. So they probably are.

However, I recently spent a week living in a house fronting on to the narrow street that twists through the village and forms part of the coast road. This particular street is a Coasthopper and HGV challenge second only to Stiffkey – and don’t get me started on how you pronounce that. But there is much more to Cley than traffic jams.

I already knew about the stunning coastal walk leading from Cley to Blakeney and on to Morston and points west. I also knew about the Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s lovely nature reserve and visitor centre just down the road – marsh harrier, anyone? – and the long, beautiful trudge out to Blakeney Point starting at Cley beach. Ladies and gentlemen, I had tried them all, and they were all good.

But I was less familiar with the village itself: the tiny harbour by the windmill and the intricate and cunningly crafted little brick paths that snake round the back of the 3D jigsaw of beautiful old houses and keep you away from the traffic. The paths on the edge of the marsh and out to the beach road. The “inland” way to Blakeney through Wiveton Hall farm.

I was also unaware of  the delicious smoked fish obtainable from the Cley Smokehouse almost next door. And although I knew of the strangely named Picnic Fayre deli, I had forgotten the delicious range of pies, cakes and Pastonacres bread that can be purchased there – among many other delights. It was close by, and we were in and out. Who cares that you can’t buy a daily paper anywhere in the village? You can buy Sunday papers, but that’s another story. Several other stories, in fact

There’s also the George (no Dragon), the Crabpot Bookshop and the church – safely positioned way above sea level and a home for the Cley Contemporary Art Exhibition. And if you’re into art there’s the Pinkfoot Gallery and the Wildlife Trust’s visitor centre – at the time of our visit home to a series of stunning photographs.

The views in and around the village are classic and irresistible, as many a camera fiend will tell you. But if you still think the most fascinating thing about Cley is how to pronounce it, my preference is for Cl-eye, because I rather like the establishment that sells binoculars and telescopes and calls itself Cley Spy.

My friend Dave “Swacking” Cuckoo claims that a Broad Norfolk pronunciation of Clay  comes out pretty close to Cleye anyway. But then he would.