Author Archives: Tim Lenton

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.

Erich Fromm, who described himself among other things as a “nontheistic mystic” (I wish I could come up with snappy phrases like that), had some interesting things to say about being awake. Possibly the most immediately accessible was this: “The paradoxical situation with a vast number of people today is that they are half asleep when awake, and half awake when asleep, or when they want to sleep.”

I can identify with this. My wife has been suffering with a virus which, among its many joys, features a persistent cough. The result of course is that she finds it hard to sleep and, being of one flesh and usually one bed, I find it hard to sleep too.

But there are other times when for no good reason sleep eludes me. I know many people are worse off: I have no wish to make you feel particularly sorry for me. I do sleep, quite often.

In any case I am more interested in the other half of Herr Fromm’s pronouncement – that we are often half asleep when awake. You can take this at different levels: some people are so dozy that they rarely have much idea what’s going on, for instance. This is probably the only thing that makes democracy work.

As I get older, however, I find it easier and easier to doze off at embarrassing times – during a sermon, for instance, or silent meditation. Indeed, I spend most of any meditation session that I happen to get involved in trying not to go to sleep, which is annoying because I’m supposed to be tuning into God. If I can sleep at such a time, what hope is there for me? It’s like dozing off while making love. No, I haven’t done that. As far as I can remember.

Even more surprisingly (perhaps) I often go to sleep while watching television. This happens even during programmes that I enjoy and which to other people are gripping. Dr Who,  for instance. Last Sunday I surfaced towards the end of the programme, slightly puzzled and thinking I had missed a crucial moment or two. But hey, the Tardis was back,  and the sonic screwdriver; so I got over it.

Later I re-ran the programme and discovered I had slept through a good half of it.

Falling asleep during TV dramas can be quite interesting. I have noticed on several occasions that my mind continues the drama after I have lost touch with it, and all kinds of things happen in my mind that never happen on screen. So I wake up thinking I’m at a certain point in the  narrative and find that not only am I somewhere else, but the bit of narrative I thought I was watching never happened.

If I was Erich Fromm, of course, I would see this as a valuable area of study – possibly source material for several books. As I haven’t read his books, he may already have sorted it all out.

But I have to do my tax return now; so I’ll leave it at that. Wake me up when it’s all over.

After I had got in the habit of turning the sub-titles on during TV dramas as a matter of course, I realised suddenly that it might not be the Geordie, Liverpool or New York accents  to blame after all. I might have a hearing problem instead.

So I went to the opticians – which is where you go nowadays if you have a hearing problem. Doctors do very little. They are too busy.

The hearing expert at the opticians had a good look and said she couldn’t do a hearing test because there was too much wax in my ears. I needed to get them syringed by a nurse at my local surgery. So I rang the local surgery, and it turned out that  they didn’t do that either. They said I should go to my opticians.

Odd, Holmes. This could be a tricky one. I rang the opticians back, and they said they didn’t do it (yet), but they knew a man who did. His name was Nick, and he didn’t have a surname or an address. Just a mobile number.

I know what you’re thinking. Bit risky. I didn’t want just anyone poking about in my ears. But what was the alternative? I took a deep breath and rang Nick, who sounded reassuring. He was a nurse specialising in ears, and he did have an address. Admittedly it wasn’t in the smartest part of town, but that might be a good thing, cost-wise.

The opticians and the surgery had told me to put olive oil in my ears for a couple of weeks, but Nick said this was a bad idea. I could get the job done straight away. It wasn’t a syringe; it was more of a vacuuming. He had the latest equipment.

A trifle hesitantly, I made an appointment, walked to the address and after a while, I found it. It was through an arch which looked as if it led nowhere, but in fact it led to a rather modern-looking glass door, behind which was a reception area. The idea, apparently, was to press a button, and the receptionist would let you in.

Unfortunately there was no receptionist.

Eventually a woman came up behind me, pressed a combination of numbers, and the door opened. I tailgated her. She didn’t seem to mind. I asked her about the ear man, but she had no idea: she was there because her son was having a music lesson. I scanned the reception area, but could find no indication of where anything was.

So I followed the woman upstairs. I am good at that sort of thing. We met a couple of guys in business suits, but they looked mystified when I mentioned ears. I tried various floors and then bumped into someone who looked as if he might have been a caretaker, though he probably wasn’t. He knew about the Ear Clinic. This was a reassuring phrase that I had not heard before. He directed me to it, and to cut a long story short, behind a door marked Ear Clinic (handwritten) I found Nick.

Nick was brilliant. He was calm, professional, explained everything and answered my questions. He then had me lie down while he vacuumed my ears. He warned me about the noise, but in fact it was quite a pleasant sensation. It cost £50.

I went back to the opticians, where I saw a different hearing expert. She reassured me that there was no wax now, and gave me a hearing test. It turned out I was marginal, though good at cognition. She gave me a hearing aid to take on a test run with my wife, but while I could hear the background noise more clearly, and my own voice much more clearly, it made little difference to my wife’s voice.

It would have cost a minimum of £500; so I decided to pass, and take another test next year.

I am quite happy about that, because I know where Nick is now, and sub-titles are not so bad.