Author Archives: Tim Lenton

This has been an exciting week for me. I found something I have been looking for for many years.

When I say looking, I admit I have not been spending all my spare time on the project. It has been a rather intermittent search, not carried out in the most efficient manner. If you know me, that may not come as a surprise.

But then I realised that I could get professional help. Not a therapist in this case, but the people at the Norfolk Record Office. And they came up trumps. A very nice man on the end of an e-mail not only located my mother’s parents’ grave in general terms, but gave me a reference number.

Two reference numbers, to be precise. And while one of them was not very helpful, the other one was. Now I knew that the grave was not only in Norwich’s Earlham Cemetery, but in which much smaller section it could be found.

I had tried looking round Earlham without the reference numbers, after my sole surviving aunt on my mother’s side told me the grave was off Farrow Road, straight in and underneath a tree. This was not as pinpoint as you might think, especially as Earlham Cemetery lies on both sides of Farrow Road and contains a veritable forest of trees. Typically, I explored the wrong side first.

When I got the numbers, I realised it was on the other side. So this week my wife and I took a sunlit stroll in Section 55, and eventually we pinned it down. As the NRO man had predicted, my grandmother’s name was Rosanna, not Rosa, as I had thought. The grave was under a tree. It was a nice moment.

I already knew where my father’s parents were buried, because their resting place is almost within an arm’s reach of my parents’ grave in the Rosary. I also know where two great-great grandparents are buried (Harlestone, in Northamptonshire). Nice grave, actually. If you happen to live there, or nearby, it’s near the church door, and their names are William Archer and Elizabeth Benson. I also have a great-grandfather buried at Folksworth, near Peterborough. His name is Henry Lenton, and he married William and Elizabeth’s daughter, Jane.

Sorry, boring. Other people’s family trees are usually not very exciting, and mine is particularly dull. I would not make it on to Who Do You Think You Are? though I would love to have all those historians at my beck and call. I am fascinated by where I come from, because as one someone of WDYTYA said this week: “If you don’t know where you’ve come from, how can you know where you’re going?”

Not sure about the connection, but it sounds good. And really, I would love to know more about my ancestors, especially if one of them did something remarkable. My father’s mother used to say she was related to the founder of the Salvation Army. Her name was Booth, but that was about as far as it went. I would like to go further.

To be honest, I was a bit underwhelmed by Dippy the Dinosaur, now in his (or her) last month at Norwich Cathedral. The sheer size was certainly impressive, but then I discovered that it wasn’t a real dinosaur. It wasn’t even real dinosaur bones – just plaster casts. And from several different dinosaurs, apparently.

Emerging latish from a Free Church background, I have always had my doubts about church relics, but this was not even close. St Dippy? I don’t think so.

I had a similar revelation when I visited a museum at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk and saw what I thought was breath-taking workmanship on weapons and other artefacts from the 6th and 7th centuries AD, around the time of the jolly King Raedwald and his unnamed queen. My wife then pointed out that they were reconstructions.

You may think I was a bit naive to expect more, especially given my reputation for scepticism. But if I am told that a number of huge mounds in a field contain (or once contained) ships, bodies, gold and silver, what am I supposed to think? Do I just take their word for it?

I’ve always thought that if you want to build up a reputation as a scientist, the two obvious fields to be in are archaeology and geology. Both deal with the distant past (the difference being one of scale), and so no-one is going to be around to say you’re wrong. You can come up with any theory you like, especially if it’s more or less the same as everyone else’s.

This may be a rather sweeping conclusion, but geology at least seems to be entirely based on the theory of uniformitarianism – which states that the same natural laws and processes observable today have always been in operation on Earth and in the universe, and at the same rate. To me this is quite absurd. How do we know? We don’t.

This principle is also the key to dating; so it spills over into archaeology. It probably spills over into other things as well, which would explain statistics. Or maybe that’s a conspiracy theory.

Still, it reminds me of a quote from someone called Barnabas: “I would feel infinitely more comfortable in your presence if you would agree to treat gravity as a law, rather than one of a number of suggested options.”

Maybe some scientific laws survive only because we agree to treat them as laws. Is it time to think of other options?

Maybe the lockdown has softened me up, but it struck me that I was taking on two rather risky adventures in a matter of days when I put myself down for canoeing on the Wensum and then crossing the border by road.

The river that snakes its way through Norwich is not widely feared for its rapids and waterfalls, but you never know. It is tidal, and it could rain.

In the event, it didn’t rain, though it threatened to, and as is well known among psychologists and chess players, the threat can be stronger than its execution. I took a raincoat. Surplus baggage, I think you call it.

I was accompanied by my two grandchildren and my wife – an enthusiastic and lively walker who also plays the violin. You may think this irrelevant, but it involves a lot of arm movements, as does canoeing. In the event it wasn’t the arm movements that did for her, but the restricted leg space. She stuck with it a long time, but in the end she disembarked rather athletically, climbing a ladder on to the riverside path not far from Carrow Road. 

We were on our way back at the time, and she is very keen on Norwich City, which may have had a bearing. It proved a blessing in disguise, as she was able to get some rather nice pictures of the remaining three of us paddlers, two of whom were making excellent progress. I was quite pleased with my steering.

It goes without saying that my grandchildren are athletic and wield an impressive paddle. I will not say who they take after. To put this into perspective, they are not children: one is 19 and the other is 17 next month. I soon realised they were taking me for a canoe excursion, and not the other way round. 

It was a lot of fun, dodging paddleboarders and boats with what appeared to be engines, which seems to me far too easy an option. We got as far as Thorpe Old Hall, which I take a professional interest in because it is a former residence of one of the Paston family, and I’m a trustee of the Paston Heritage Society. Pretty much a sleeping trustee nowadays, but a trustee nevertheless.

I mentioned the border crossing, and you’re probably thinking of electric fences, passports and quarantine. For some reason, none of this occurred, though we were crossing what is often a hostile frontier between Norfolk and Suffolk. By car, not canoe.

We do not often go to Suffolk, though it is admittedly beautiful in many areas. For one thing, I struggle with their absurd speed limits, and my wife has an allergic reaction every time we come across the word “Ipswich”. On this occasion we were meeting friends from Nottingham, who usually go to Blakeney but for some reason had decided to give Woodbridge a shot.

I had never been to Woodbridge, even by canoe, but was very pleasantly surprised. This was despite the esoteric parking system: I spent some considerable time downloading the app, registering and then paying. A policeman at Southwold with whom we struck up a conversation had told us it was quick and easy, but three or four people approached us as I was struggling at the meter and sympathised. I wouldn’t say they were contemptuous of it, but nor would I say they were singing its praises. Happily I know somewhere in Southwold where you can park for nothing.

Both Southwold and Woodbridge are easy on the eye, especially in the September sun, and some of the restaurants in Woodbridge are open, even on Tuesdays. May I recommend a tea and coffee shop called Honey & Harvey – for the name, the olive tree and the quality of its tea and  cakes. 

We didn’t stay long in Suffolk. We made it back across the border by taking the much underrated back road from Halesworth, where I once lost five minutes of my life. But that’s another story.

I am just back from Wales. Normally I would be just back from Scotland, but that seemed too far away. I mean, you don’t want to be quarantined by Nicola Sturgeon, do you? And if the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital did decide to wake up and aim to take my gall bladder out, I didn’t want to be so far away that I couldn’t respond in time. That’s the sort of thing that can set you back five years on the waiting list.

So we went to North Wales, which is one of my favourite places anyway – especially Corwen. Not many people say that, because as a small town it seems to have a number of drawbacks. For one thing, the A5 cuts right through the middle of it, and crossing it is a bit of a challenge. For another, it’s a bit too far from Snowdonia, if you’re a perfectionist. And the pubs do not serve food. Never have, and never will. If you want to know what an English pub used to be like, go to Wales.

I still like it, though, partly because it houses a large number of my wife’s cousins, who are totally different from me and therefore very agreeable company.

Our hotel in Corwen – a 17th century coaching inn with certain updates – comes as close to the A5 as it is possible to get without blocking it. It has no parking, and no evening meal, and no cooked breakfast. It has narrow, steep stairs and no lift. Our room on the top floor was so small that we had nowhere to put our clothes – it was exceeded in smallness only by our bedroom in the caravan we moved on to later.

We loved it. The couple who were running it at the time were wonderfully welcoming and would do anything for you. And who needs a cooked breakfast?

Corwen also has hidden bonuses. It is surrounded by hills – most notably the Berwyn Mountains, which are vastly underrated,when they are rated at all. It also has Caer Drewyn – a hill fort. Among other things. And it doesn’t have many tourists, except the ones passing through.

This turned out to be a huge advantage. Everywhere else we went was sprouting tourists out of every lane and lay-by. We went to the centre of Snowdonia and discovered there was literally nowhere to park. I have never seen so many cars in one place. We went to the delightful little coastal towns of the Llyn Peninsula, and found them full.

Fortunately the caravan park in Chwilog was not full. And after a bit of reconnoitring (or getting lost, as some might put it), plus a bit of advice from certain cousins, we found some delightful spots. I will mention them in case you happen to find yourself west of Snowdon.

One is Llanbedrog. Ignore the beach and go to the art gallery. Free parking, a delightful cafe and a stunning if quite demanding climb up to and along the cliffs. Another is Morfa Nefyn. They closed the short path to the beach; so there was a long, long walk up, down, along, over, up and down again to what I was reliably assured was the third most famous beach pub in the world – the Ty Coch Inn. Since you ask, Ty Coch means Red House. I’m not sure who came up with the degree of fame: probably the same genius who worked on the Covid statistics.

Lastly – and I do mean lastly, because if you don’t stop here you will drive into the sea – is Mynydd Mawr. Go left a bit after Aberdaron (full of parked tourists again), and you will find yourself on a ridiculously narrow and steep road, signposted Uwchmynydd, which appears to have been lifted from Lord of the Rings. The road seems to go nowhere. But it takes you instead up on to a rocky outcrop at the bottom of the peninsula – a memorable viewpoint with Bardsey Island poking out of the sea as the sun lowers itself into the water.

I wouldn’t tell you all this if I thought I would be inviting hordes to descend on these beauty spots. But fortunately I know hardly anyone reads this. So it should still be wonderful when you get there.