Visiting Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

This is a short travelogue I wrote for one of my MA courses. You might notice some of Paul Theroux's characteristics as we were supposed to follow his example.

            If Great Britain is geographically isolated, it feels sometimes that its character is so too, at least in England. It is true that its scenery, more particularly its houses, often resembles that of northern occidental Europe. The landscape does not dramatically change from one side of the North Sea to the other. East Anglia is often referred to as another Holland because of its low land and broads. So what does change? Its people? Indeed the constraints of accessibility from the UK to its neighbours seem to hinder the amplitude of the overview we have of each other. Crossing a sea is not as easy, quick and ‘cheap’ as crossing a terrestrial frontier, such as from France to Belgium or Germany. Since we can’t regularly observe what happens on the other side of the sea, apart from stereotypes we hear from our own culture which can sometimes make us more resentful and ignorant than anything else, we think these neighbours have nothing to offer us save from stupid ideas that don’t make any sense, such as windows opening on the outside, dishes that mix flavours which are not meant to go together, etc.

            Troyes is in the middle of the north east of France, in Champagne. It is in the middle of many places, accessible from anywhere by car, not so much by train. It is somewhere along the line Paris Est - Mulhouse. It used to be well-known for its clothing industries, which attracted shoppers from other regions. It still does today, but to a lesser extent. Nowadays it seems the town focuses more and more on tourists, luring them with its Alsatian-like timber-framed architecture and its mediaeval past. Troyes is now labelled ‘city of art and history’, which is the current pride of its inhabitants, my co-citizens. Still, it’s nice to get out of there from time to time and get away, not particularly from its timbered walls, which are rather pleasant, but from its quotidian, which never, never changes. Even its buildings change more often than its lifestyle. You go to work, you ignore people you don’t know and the week-end you go out with your friends, if you’re willing to take the risk of bumping into a bunch of idiots who are so bored with their lives that they will look for excuses to beat you up. Otherwise, you pathetically go to someone’s place and stay there for the whole evening; or, if you have a lot of money, you go to these expensive and sometimes pedantic places where these idiots can’t reach you, but where you might notice the judgmental glances of another kind of idiots.

            In Norfolk, an English county, people keep saying that Great Yarmouth is not safe. Then how come I feel much safer there than in Troyes? It used to be safer and prosperous, they will say, and I think its inhabitants still have troubles adapting to the change. The thing is that I am not scared of anyone in Great Yarmouth. Maybe the difference is that in Great Yarmouth people can actually stand my face. Or maybe it is that in Yarmouth, you only get in a fight when you want to. In Troyes, it isn’t that spontaneous; they decide they want to have some fun and they look for a smaller group (or person), they ask you for a cigarette or money, and hit you once just to have the pleasure of seeing you not responding to their hostility, so that for once in their miserable life they can feel superior to someone. If you’re unlucky, you’re missing your wallet, but half of the time they don’t take anything from you. Their main purpose is to feel a bit of power. Nasty and pathetic. But if you get punched in Yarmouth, you probably deserved it. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I don’t know this town enough to judge its violence, but I know that people always point to the same place: Marine Parade. Marine Parade is spread along the seafront and is kind of like a mini Las Vegas. It has two casinos and twelve amusement arcades. I went there a few times, but nothing bad happened, except maybe for the food in some of its restaurants. Sure, you might notice some unfriendly faces, but if you ignore them, they will just do the same.

            The journey is pretty long. If you decide to hit the road, you go to Calais, cross the sea to Dover, head towards London, Norwich, and arrive at Great Yarmouth (about 25 miles from Norwich). Otherwise you have to go to Paris first. There, you can take a plane. There used to be one which flew directly to Norwich, but unfortunately not anymore. You can fly to London, which is not worth paying more money than for the Eurostar if you include the time it takes to get to the airports and to wait for your luggage. So I took the train for the whole journey. Almost two hours to get to Paris Est, generally quiet. Gare du Nord, for the Eurostar, is only a few-minute walk from Gare de l’Est. Paris-London takes around two hours and a half. It was quite alright, but it’s not easy to get any good sleep on it. You’re squashed into one and a half cubic metres and hear some kids crying or complaining almost half of the time. Kids never like travelling, they just find it boring and it gets on their nerves, unless they’re travelling in a group " but that’s much more noise. There isn’t much to see on the Eurostar. You leave an ugly urban area to cross a land of fields and motorways, go through 20 minutes of darkness, cross a slightly different land than that you saw before the tunnel, and arrive in another ugly urban area with somewhat different colours and shapes. The parts of Paris and London you see on this train look pretty poor. The main difference is that one is dominantly grey-white and the other grey-red. Guess which is which.

            From London St Pancras I took the tube to London Liverpool Street, where I waited almost 40 minutes. Finally, I thought, I can have a cigarette. There’s a stairway to climb up in order to get out of the station. First thing you see when you get outside is a McDonald’s, on your left. I thought ‘why not. First a cheeseburger, then a cigarette.’ The weather was splendid. I wasn’t the only traveller who needed a cigarette break. It looked like this place was crowded with either young people travelling for pleasure and discovery or business people. Anyway, I should go back inside now and get on the train. The train was horribly packed. It looked like there was no seat left and I was lucky to get the last one. It was quite hot, but bearable. I imagine that in a full train like that in the summer it would be quite hard to breathe, only breathing in what people breathe out.

            It took two hours to get to Norwich. There was no waiting time at Norwich station because the train for Yarmouth waits for passengers from London. As London - Norwich had a ten-minute delay, so had the Norwich - Great Yarmouth. You don’t have time to go to the shops or smoke a cigarette. As soon as you get out of the first train you have to get on the other one. The train for Great Yarmouth takes about 40 minutes. It is the smallest train I have ever ridden. It looks like it is only made up of two carriages. I remember thinking: where the hell is their locomotive? It is actually a small cabin built at the end of the carriage (I think there were two cabins, one at the end of each carriage), taking only one metre of the carriage’s length. Inside, there is no more than two square metres of free space (and I think I am generous here), just enough to put two immobile people in it, though I think there was only one driver, fortunately. The ride was quite enjoyable. People are smiling at you (well, not all the time, but still), and often leave their newspapers on a table for whoever wants to read them. They laugh together for the smallest things, such as when I opened a can of lager that had been shaken a bit too much. But they don’t laugh at you " like you can see sometimes when the person laughing tries to hide it from you " they laugh WITH you, overtly, looking at you in the eyes in order to trigger a similar response from you.

            I spent my first night at a friend’s house, in Burgh Castle. It is rather lovely there. Green everywhere, horses in pastures. My friend John has a big garden and quite a small house. That’s normal in England. Even in town, people live in small houses so that they can have a few square yards of garden. John’s garden, however, must be four or five times the surface of his house, plus a wooded area almost as big as the garden. Brilliant. Another friend of mine was there, Léa. She needed me to drive her to Norwich for an interview, so we decided to go the following day and stay at a hotel, which would allow me a tour of Norwich, ‘a fine city’, as they proudly say. John made us his ‘famous’ roast chicken that evening, typically English: roast potatoes, yorkshire pudding, stuffing, gravy and cranberry sauce. Who said the English can’t cook?

            The following morning, I decided to go to the seafront, in Gorleston On Sea, just south of Great Yarmouth. The weather was quite good, although a bit cloudy and rather windy. The temperature would actually be much higher if it weren’t for the wind. No one was bold enough to bathe, but some of them were bold enough to tan themselves in the sun despite the cool wind. It’s amazing how you can see some people in Britain only wearing a T-shirt, even in winter, when others can’t bear to leave their jacket open. If you want to walk along the seafront, you can either walk on the sand or take the promenade a few yards above the sea. I chose both. The further you go south, the stonier the beach becomes, although it is still mainly sand " but walking bare foot there is not for the softest and most sensitive feet. Nothing much happened. People walk their dogs, others lie on the sand, and that’s it. It isn’t exactly the Riviera there: less bathing, more waves, less ice cream, more tea. But it is nice in its own way.

            Next to the beach, direction north, is the new harbour in construction, which will link Great Yarmouth to Amsterdam when it is operational. This new harbour is expected to boost Great Yarmouth’s economy and give it back a bit of its old prosperity. The only problem is the access to the harbour. The new harbour is indeed being built at the end of a peninsula, between the North Sea on its east side and the River Yare on its west side, only reachable from the centre of the town. There are thus proposals for the construction of a new bridge or tunnel that would link the new harbour almost directly to the A12 and A143, allowing travellers to pursue their journey without causing traffic jams. The thing is that no construction has started yet for a bridge or tunnel. They still haven’t decided on whether they want a bridge or a tunnel, or on where they want to put it. Ironically it sounds like these engineers and contractors don’t have a boat to catch. By the time they do something, the harbour will probably be finished. Anyway, this project is quite a generally felt new hope among Great Yarmouth’s dwellers. If this works, their pride might increase and get closer to that of the inhabitants of Troyes or Norwich.

            What happened to Great Yarmouth is that it lost its prosperous economy. During the 70s and 80s was an oil boom, which motivated the creation of the Norfolk Line, that is to say a maritime traffic between Great Yarmouth and Amsterdam. Employment was high, and so was the standard of living. Even Americans were attracted by Great Yarmouth. Unfortunately, the oil companies eventually relocated in Rotterdam and Aberdeen, and the Norfolk Line moved further south, becoming what is known today as the line Harwich " Hook of Holland. There was nothing left in Great Yarmouth. Even the Americans, who were mainly from Texas, preferred following the oil rather than staying. And as for those who left, they became poorer and nostalgic. You can understand from this why they are so eager to see that line open; and also why they all think that Great Yarmouth is not that great.

            Following the coast in the northerly direction, or rather the river, I stopped at the centre of Great Yarmouth and decided to have my lunch there. Now the most obvious idea since we’re in England would be a pub, but I heard that the pubs in Yarmouth were not that great. So I went to a small restaurant called Lazzarella, run by an actual Italian man who has been living here for forty years. Very nice. I mean the restaurant as well as the chef. I took garlic bread, pasta carbonara and some white wine, only for around ten pounds altogether. The chef noticed my accent and asked me where I came from.

            ‘I’m French. I come from the region of Champagne. And you? I mean, I know you’re Italian, but where from in Italy?’

            He pointed to a fancy map behind my back, the kind of colourful map with historic monuments drawn at bigger scale than the rest of the map.

            ‘Campania. Naples,’ he said.

            ‘Oh. How is it there? It must be nice?’

            ‘In the countryside, yes, but Naples is dirty.’

            ‘Really! And, do you miss it?’

            ‘Yes, a bit. But my life is here, in my restaurant with my wife.’ He politely pointed to her, and we greeted each other. ‘It’s different here, but I like it too.’

            He left and came back one or two minutes later with my dish and said ‘bon appétit.’

            ‘Grazie.’

            I might have pronounced it the Spanish way though, but he seemed pleased by my saying this, so maybe I shouldn’t worry too much about it. Italian and Spanish people are said to resent each other, and if that’s true, he probably wouldn’t have been able to fake that smile.

           

            I came back to Burgh Castle in the afternoon, prepared a few things and took my friend Léa to Norwich. Arriving at the Beeches hotel, a few minutes walk from the centre, we proceeded to the check-in. The receptionist asked, as many receptionists ask, ‘what is the interest of your presence in Norwich?’

            ‘I’ve got an interview at the UEA[1] tomorrow morning,’ my friend answered.

            ‘Well. What time is the interview?’

            ‘Nine o’clock.’

            ‘Oh. You’ll check out early then!’

            Did I say I was doing the interview too? No I didn’t. Then why did she assume I would leave the room too at 9 am? I suppose it might have been a misunderstanding " or just as likely it might have been a clever manipulation to get rid of me and have time to clean the room. After all, the check-in only starts at 3 pm (compared to 2 pm in most hotels), which gives them one more hour than other hotels. However, she really seemed nice, and I wanted to be out at about the same time anyway, so it didn’t really matter. She went on agreeably:

            ‘Do you know how to go to the UEA?’

            ‘Yes, we do.’

            We answered by ‘we’ because I was the one driving Léa, but I didn’t have an interview.

            ‘And in the town,’ now looking at me, ‘do you know your way? Would you like a map?’

            So it seems that she did consider that I might not go to the UEA! Was she aware of the awkward situation? She went on:

            ‘You can also visit our Victorian gardens. It’s free for the hotel guests.’

            ‘Oh, that would be nice,’ I responded enthusiastically.

            However, I did not plan enough time to do it the following day, but it did look quite lovely, coloured with blue and red flowers, and a nicely cut bright lawn surrounding serpentine pathways. I got into the room, made myself at home, and went out one or two hours later for a walk in the town centre, thinking I would have time to visit the gardens later.

            The sky was dark, despite the weather forecast, and it was drizzling. I passed by a bus stop, with two people sitting on the bench, waiting. What struck me about this bus stop was that the bench was not facing the street, but the buildings. How are people supposed to see their bus approaching if they are not facing the right direction? I suppose there might be some kind of reason behind this, even if it doesn’t make sense. I then crossed a footbridge and reached the town centre, witnessing, as many people must witness anywhere in the world, the egoism of the many who consider that only others have to make way " even this man with his grocery bag who only had to slightly change his angle when he first saw me (and I know he did) but instead forced me onto the road. What’s ironic here is that I did not even move to make way for this man. I did it to make way for his grocery bag. I also witnessed this phenomenon when shopping in Great Yarmouth, especially in clothing shops. Any day you decide to shop there, you are bound to see young women pushing prams in those aisles, where two people wouldn’t pass without making the effort to walk like crabs. The saddest part in all this is that some of them will give you a nasty look if you don’t react quickly enough to make way.

            The government in Great Britain gives more money more easily to unmarried mothers than does the government in France. As a consequence, it is one of the countries where it seems almost odd not to be a parent when you reach your twenties. One of the very few excuses you have not to be a parent is to be a student, which will cost you ironically much more than a child would.

            I arrived at Tesco’s, the same grocery store from which came the man with the bag. I bought some paracetamol (the weather wasn’t great and I was pretentious enough not to wear a sweater) at an automatic check out, and then headed to the tobacco counter. I then realized I could have purchased both items at the same time since the check out assistant was about to scan the paracetamol. I said I had already paid for them, she said to her colleague that she had a headache and mentioned something about aspirin.

            ‘You can take a paracetamol,’ I said.

            She kept talking to her colleague, seemingly aware that I said something, but I’m not sure she knew what exactly. ‘£5.87,’ she said. I gave £5.90, she resumed talking to her colleague while putting the money in the till, which took her at least fifteen seconds, then looked at me as if she were surprised that I was still there. I therefore said goodbye because I didn’t want to make a fuss over three pence, but I would bet anything she wasn’t even aware that she owed me any change. My opinion is that she really could have done with the paracetamol.

            As my two friends’ birthdays were approaching, I then decided to do a bit of shopping, or at least window shopping until I decide what to buy them. I find it hard to chat with strangers in this kind of situation, although I passed an older man in a nice suit who looked at me rather sympathetically, as if he knew me, but I still couldn’t find a good enough reason to bother him. I crossed a rather busy street, using a pedestrian crossing. One of the things I like in this country is the presence of belisha beacons " posts in black and white " on each side of the street in order to signal drivers that they are approaching a zebra crossing (well, I never saw the zebra crossing the street. Sorry, it was just temptful). The painting on the road alone is barely sufficient to leave the driver enough time to stop for pedestrians. Because of those belisha beacons, in the UK, cars stop much more often to let pedestrians cross the street than they do in France.

            The mall in which I did my shopping was called Chapelfield. Just over the entrance hung this huge screen broadcasting children stories, adverts and other things, but no one was actually watching it (except me " did it make me look stupid?). In front of the mall were an old church and its graveyard, with an alley in the middle, which is the commonest way to go to the mall. Now that is odd! In order to go shopping, or even to have a bite in Chapelfield, people have to walk through a dead corpse field. I guess that it the reason why they called it Chapelfield, seeing as they couldn’t exactly call it the dead centre of Norwich. But why would anyone build such a commercial superstructure right next to a graveyard? The truth is, and I learnt about it later on another day, that they did not build the mall next to a graveyard. No no no. They actually built the mall ON the graveyard. Yes yes yes. They smashed the tombs and dug up old bones and, according to Louise’s statement on the BBC website, they were even ‘laughing about it’. Well, having worked a few years on building sites, I guess I could have had the same reaction, or maybe not. When you’re a fellow citizen, like most of us, who has no other choice but to do as he’s told, even if that’s something stupid and outrageous, you would rather laugh about it than get involved in such matters and go deeper into a daily depression created by almost every single fact you learn about the world in which you live. The only other choice you have (if that is indeed a choice) is to protest for everything that seems worth protecting and take the risk of ruining your life, because people don’t often have the same grievances at the same time as you do and won’t support you. They will just care about it another day, because today, they care about something else, something which they think not enough people care about…

 

            The evening of that same day, I decided to take my friend to this very nice pub in which I had lunch one day (at lunch, of course), called The Mad Moose. The interior was furbished with wooden tables and chairs (made of beech if I recall well), with walls in the same colour tones (I don’t really remember the material with which these walls were made, but it might have been wood too). The staff was also quite nice and the food really good " not too cheap, not too expensive, although your plate would be a bit less full than it would be in another pub. So I bragged about it to my friend, thinking that during the evening it would be even better.

            The pub was quite crowded, but not too full. We spot a few tables at the back, two of them were for bigger parties, so we didn’t dare take those. There was one table for two, but badly located: it was right behind the kitchen door. Seeing us hesitatingly going to this table, the waiter told us that we could go upstairs, that there was enough room, so there we went. It was indeed less crowded: only one table was already taken. It also looked very posh: white walls with shiny candle wall lights, a big golden chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and a silver mirror decorated with fancy light bulbs. The tables were made with dark brown wood, probably oak, which was the same wood used for the chair frames. The chair cushions were a clean white.

            It seemed strange that the decoration was so different from downstairs, but we carried on. When we looked at the menu, we suddenly understood why the difference: the prices were twice as much as downstairs, and the plates were even less filled than downstairs. No beer was served upstairs. I suggested to my friend that we made a move, but she was too embarrassed to do such a thing. I would usually be embarrassed too, but considering we’d been tricked into this by the waiter downstairs, I would have felt no scruples. I know we were dressed nicely, but it’s not good enough a reason to suppose that we’re loaded and give us a menu twice as expensive.

            When I asked for a cocktail, the waiter said they didn’t make any, but he said it in such an apologetic way we could have thought he had just made a terrible mistake. I said it was alright in way that implied something like: ‘come on man, you’re not my slave. I know you’re not responsible for this, so stop feeling so terrible.’ However, when we asked if we could get only one course each, he became almost hostile, although he confirmed that we could. The thing is that on the menu was written ‘two courses for £22.50’ and ‘three courses for £27.[something]’. Now the waiter told us that we could have only one course, but he did not say if we would pay less. I smelt a rat, but you don’t want to look cheap in this kind of place.

            Before the first course, the waiter kindly offered amuse-bouches to the party who arrived before us, and so did he to the party who arrived after us. We got bread and butter " but in a very posh way, showing us a selection of plain and poppy seed-topped bread. Then went our first course, which was the main course, and, naturally, we were still hungry. Suspecting that the bill would be the same, we decided to ask for the desert menu, which put a smile on our waiter’s face. While waiting for the desert, he kindly offered us a small but very nice raspberry sorbet. Then came our crème brûlée, which was delicious.

            The toilets were right next to us, behind a drape shaped as a half circle, as though you were going to a changing room. Then, big surprise: A ten feet corridor with two doors on its left, one for the ladies and the other for the gentlemen. At the end of this small corridor was actually the kitchen, with its door open. Who would have thought that such nice food could come from such a terrible place? The toilets in themselves were disgusting and half broken. The first one, which was supposed to be the ladies, was engaged by this big fella from the kitchen. And the second one, well, let’s just say I was happy I only had to do small business there. I don’t even remember seeing a sink, but then, I was in such a hurry to leave the place that I might just have missed it.

            Then came the bill, with our bottle of wine priced at £18.50 instead of £17, as was written on the menu, but the whole bill was so much that it did not change much overall. Despite everything, we decided to give the waiter a tip even before we were instructed to do so (it was stated on the bill that the service was not included), which was a bit more than three pounds (all the coins we had). Was it enough? Was he expecting more? He was smiling, which is a good thing, and also kindly apologized (without feeling terrible this time) about the fact that we couldn’t get any broccoli because the cook had dropped the whole lot on the floor " he had carried the big box of broccoli without any help. It was still reassuring to hear that they had hygienic principles, despite the rubbish toilets next to the kitchen.

            We then climbed down the stairs in order to get out, and saw a fully crowded room with a jovial atmosphere, which was much more attractive than this boring room where we had just dined. Anyway, next time I’ll stay downstairs, although I’m not sure at whom I should be mad; at the waiter downstairs who suggested to us to go upstairs without warning us about the prices, or to the boss of the pub, who might be behind this con and who would be the reason for me to boycott the whole restaurant forever. Why would it be the boss? Simply because, at the very time I am writing this, I have just googled The Mad Moose, and saw a sample of their menus: I did recognise the perfectly delicious homemade sausage of the week for £8.50, which I had downstairs for lunch one day, but regarding 1up (which is the posh room upstairs), they claim to offer you ‘two courses £15 / 3 courses £20’. You can’t imagine how amazed I am right now. I am really starting to think that it was a con.

 

            I checked out from the hotel a bit before nine in the morning, as the receptionist skilfully foresaw. The weather was lovely; not a single cloud in this beautiful blue sky, but it was quite chilly in shady areas. Wandering in the streets around the market place, I looked for a nice place to drink coffee, which I found. The Vanilla Bean House, on London Street, not far from the castle. It is a nice little place with tables right in the middle of the pedestrian street.

            I took a cappuccino and an ashtray, and sat at one of the tables outside. At two tables from me was this older man (maybe in his sixties or seventies) smoking a pipe and reading some sheets. I looked at him a few times but was not comfortable enough to bother him, as he probably came here to read in peace " many people who don’t live alone like to find peace elsewhere than at home. He might be one of them. The shop’s structure seemed to be made of wood panels, painted in wood colour to make it look more like plain wood. You would do that, wouldn’t you? Next to it was a bank made from big polished stones. Stones, wood and glass windows were the usual material of the front of the shops in this area, but from the first floors up to the roofs you would mainly see red bricks. All kinds of pedestrians passed by; some in a suit, others in casual clothes… there are nonetheless some commonalities. In Norfolk (or maybe even in the whole country) you can always see someone wearing a yellow reflective vest, even in the middle of a shiny day, and I’m not just talking about road workers.

            A man came, probably in his forties, not particularly smiling, and approached the old man smoking his pipe at the table close to mine, and asked ‘have you got a light?’ He sounded a bit rude and didn’t say anything like ‘sorry’, ‘please’ or ‘thank you’. The poor pipe smoking man did the favour but he didn’t seem so pleased with such a cold attitude, and I don’t blame him. Some people just don’t want to make the effort of learning good manners, even when they need something from you. The next minute, the pipe smoking man stood up and entered the shop. He left two minutes after. As all tables were in the shade, I was a bit chilly and decided to move towards the market place, looking for a sunny spot.

            The stalls in Norwich are actually some kind of sheds that can be locked during the night. They are all small cubicles aligned in rows, the whole of it forming a big rectangle. In the back row, many people were leaning against the wall or sitting on the ground with their back against the wall, drinking tea or coffee and chatting friendly, but in a poorly enunciated way, like some old mariners. I wasn’t able to understand anything. When I went to the toilets, I courteously let an old man enter before me, and he said something to thank me, but even that I wasn’t able to understand properly.

            A good thing about Great Britain is that they still have public toilets, and whenever you’re in a town centre, you can find one. A bad thing about public toilets in Great Britain is that they all stink. But there is the possibility of using the toilets of parking lots, which don’t stink. I suppose it must be a matter of finances. Parking lots make lots of money, so they can afford to clean their toilets regularly. Public toilets are financed with tax money, so the maintenance naturally has to be cheap. Not knowing what to do, I looked for a bench in a sunny spot, since I was still a bit cold. Only a few benches were dry, in the sun, but they were all small individual benches. I therefore sat alone, rolling and smoking a cigarette. I was pleased to see that in ten or fifteen minutes (the time I rolled and smoked my cigarette), six people came to the two bins close to me to throw something in it. One of them even threw something that he’d found on the floor and that wasn’t his. So it seems that inhabitants in Norwich are clean. This observation prompted me to look at the ground in order to see if that was really true, and I mainly saw cigarette butts, along with only a few small pieces of paper. The irony in this is that, while I was approving the general effort to keep the place clean, I was about to throw my butt on the ground. But what other choice did I have? Throwing my butt in the bin was taking a risk to set it on fire.

            Another characteristic of the market place in Norwich is the huge number of old fashioned cabs. There might have been one or two scores of them. An old woman was crossing the street in front of a cab that had stopped for her and, as the driver kindly signalled that he was letting her cross the street, she signalled to another old woman opposite to her that she could do so. Now this might mean nothing to some of us, but I find this kind of attitude very pleasing, and it is because it doesn’t happen often enough (except maybe among older people) that I so easily rejoice when witnessing such attitude.

 

            As I did not feel comfortable with bothering strangers for no reason in the market place, I decided to have a drink at the students’ Union Pub, at the UEA. I arrived around eleven thirty and my friend, who was having her interview at the same university, was supposed to leave at one o’clock. In front of the pub is some kind of square with steps arranged in an amphitheatre shape. They redid it to make it look like it was before, except for these words carved on the ground: ‘innovation’, ‘understanding’, ‘knowledge’, ‘independence’, ‘learning’, ‘scholarship’, ‘integrity’, ‘culture’.

            The pub was rather quiet, but I think it was half-term or some other holiday. There were two young women, the only ones chatting, two old men, who looked immobile, and another middle-aged man near the pool tables. They were showing clips on TV, and played music that was not from the clips. As it was the spring, the pub’s surrounding was flourished with daffodils and blue bells. Inside the pub, it wasn’t that beautiful at all. Apart from the two girls talking, the atmosphere was kind of sad, especially with the two old men doing nothing but drink their beer and stare into space. I thought they could be retired professors who came here out of nostalgia. One of them, the one who looked almost antipathetic, went out to smoke a cigarette, so I followed him, thinking that maybe I could get some words out of him, since smoking is supposed to facilitate social contacts. But nothing. I could not even think of anything to say that would start a natural conversation. We went back in shortly after the other old man came out to smoke his cigarette. I did not have the lungs to light another cigarette just to try and speak with him. He was small, slim, and looked fragile. He had a scooter parked near the entrance " the kind of scooter you often see in England but not in France, for people who can’t or don’t want to walk.

            Then came my opportunity, as the poor man was so ‘petite’ that the automatic doors wouldn’t open for him when he tried to get back inside. He looked desperate. So I came in front of the doors to trigger the opening mechanism. He muttered something, but the only words I recognised were ‘thank you’, so I did not quite know what to answer apart from ‘you’re welcome’. Ten minutes later, he was putting on his coat (the other man smoking outside again), and as he did so, I noticed he had trouble doing it. People don’t like to be taken for cripples, so I allowed a dozen of seconds before finally coming to help him. He said ‘thank you’ again, ‘what would I do without you.’

            ‘Oh, I was only here 5 minutes. It’s not that much.’

            He kept saying that he appreciated my help, and I could suddenly understand him. He was probably adjusting his pronunciation as he realized I was not English. So I took the opportunity for a conversation:

            ‘Do you often come here?’ I asked.

            ‘Yes, almost everyday. I also go to the Farm House sometimes.’

            ‘How is it there?’

            ‘The pub is nice, the landlady isn’t. But she has big tits.’

            I think I’m starting to understand why he comes here. ‘Do you like Norwich?’

            ‘Yes, it’s alright. I’ve got friends here. There, that’s Rony,’ he said, showing me the other old man " though younger than him " who I realized was a bit smelly. He was wearing some old checked jacket.

            Who would have guessed that they knew each other! I had been sitting there for almost an hour and I did not hear any of them uttering a single word. They had not even exchanged glances, nothing. They must have been really bored; at least they looked like it. Does Rony like Norwich?

            ‘Yes, it is nice.’

            Well, that’s what they all say. Whether that or ‘fine’, as they put at the entrance to the town. Norwich is indeed known to be ‘a fine city’, phrase which probably originated from William Cobbett (1763-1835), but became famous because of George Borrow’s travelogue Lavengro. Here is an excerpt of the description that is responsible for this phrase on the town entrance sign:

A fine old city, truly, is that, view it from whatever side you will; but it shows best from the east, where the ground, bold and elevated, overlooks the fair and fertile valley in which it stands. Gazing from those heights, the eye beholds a scene which cannot fail to awaken, even in the least sensitive bosom, feelings of pleasure and admiration. At the foot of the heights flows a narrow and deep river, with an antique bridge communicating with a long and narrow suburb, flanked on either side by rich meadows of the brightest green, beyond which spreads the city; the fine old city, perhaps the most curious specimen at present extant of the genuine English town.[2]

            Anyway, our oldest friend said goodbye and left on his scooter. I kept talking to Rony and decided to mention the general opinion about Great Yarmouth " that it was depressive " in order to check if he too felt that big difference between the two towns.

            ‘Yes, it’s depressing. There’re always fights and all.’

            I also wanted to ask him if he used to work at the UEA.

            ‘No, I come here for the pub.’

            So I guess he shared the same motivation as our oldest friend. I went to the toilets and when I came back, he was gone. Ten minutes later the pub was getting more and more crowded. A few dozen students came during lunch and left. My friend came back from her interview, so we too left.

 

            A must-see scenery when you go to Norfolk is the broads, which are the pride of the entire county. As I mentioned before, the broads sometimes resemble Holland. If you’re on a boat, you can go almost anywhere in the county and stop at many riverside pubs. From Great Yarmouth you can go to Lowestoft whether by the sea or by the broads. You can also go to Norwich and so many other towns and villages. The rivers are even signposted. You can imagine how easy it was for the Vikings to invade East Anglia " hmm, I don’t mean the signposting of course, but the water network. Although the broads didn’t exist at the time, it was much easier and faster to access Norwich as the estuary and the River Yare were much larger, because the water was concentrated on the same areas. The town known today as Great Yarmouth was part of the estuary. There was thus no Great Yarmouth as the area was nothing but water. Instead, there was the fort of Caister. The broads have been created by man, who dug the soil in search for peat, which was used as fuel. What happened is that the trenches left by men eventually flooded, due to the ground level being so low in altitude " the highest point in Norfolk is 338 feet of altitude, with an average in the area around Norwich of a hundred feet, figure that decreases every year because of the sinkage of East Anglia, in turn caused by the rise of Scotland.

            In Burgh Castle, there are also roman ruins on the bank of the River Waveney, at its very end, where it flows into Breydon Water, the large estuary which links the broads to the sea and which is perfect housing to wild life. The ruins are the remains, in a rather good state for its age, of the fort Gariannonum, which had the purpose of preventing Saxons from engaging the River Yare and raiding Norwich. The stone walls are visible from the air at a distance of a few miles. They can reach as high as 15 feet and as thick as 11 feet, and they cover an area of 18,000 square metres. Regrettably the west wall fell into the marsh that separates the fort from the river during the eighteenth century. The scenery there is characterised by green meadows and old wind mills. Unfortunately there are hundreds, or maybe even thousands of caravans in the village, owned by big holiday resort companies. Fortunately, this horrible view will not hurt your retinae when you’re on the broads.

 

 

 

 

Auto-analysis

 

            I have to admit that I have been in Great Yarmouth before, but it’s not like I had spent many hours visiting the area. When I came before, I would usually stay at John’s and visit some of his friends, attending their parties. But I never spent any time observing the town, learning about its history and looking at it critically, although some comments I made in this travelogue were sometimes noticed during preceding visits, such as the zebra crossings and people in T-shirts during winter. The only repetitive experience was the journey and the time spent at John’s. I also made a point of not interviewing the few inhabitants I know, John’s friends, in order to capture my visit entirely from the perspective of a tourist.

            I wasn’t a ‘veni vidi visa’ tourist simply because I don’t have the money and because it tends to send you to artificial places made especially for tourism. I wanted to experience what the British experience, to blend in and make a good travelogue. For this reason, I tended to look for similarities just as much as, or maybe even more than look for differences. Anywhere you go in the world, if you want to enjoy your time you ought to embrace the host culture; and a culture is not only made of peculiarities, it is also made of many things which exist everywhere in the world, things that characterise us as human beings. Some might say ‘it’s easy for you to say, you only went to England, it’s not that far from where you live,’ but the most basic things in life are the reasons why you can socialise and laugh with the most primitive men, and I know that anywhere I would go, I would enjoy commonalities while noticing differences. I’ve got family in India, which is almost the other end of the world for me. The world is made of strangers, but anywhere in the world they are people who share something with you. If you want to feel at ease anywhere, you just forget the superficial and think about the fundamental. After all, we are all preoccupied with feeding ourselves and our family, enjoying our free time, socializing with people around us, etc.

            I don’t think I tried to achieve anything particular other than mere observation through this travelogue. I really think I tried to be truly faithful to my own perception and apprehension. I don’t think I started my trip with fixed ideas and stuck to them till the end, although I might have had a tendency sometimes to dwell on some subjects and emphasise them a bit too much. When you go somewhere with the intention to write about it, your behaviour is not exactly the same as when you only decide to laze around and stop over-thinking things. Instead, you wait for anything to happen and you make more efforts to talk to people.

            Anyway, back on my tendency to emphasise certain things, I might only have done so when I made a link between depressing facts of life and the digging up of very old corpses in Chapelfield (well, it’s still to be discussed), or also when I mentioned the violence in Troyes. If you really want exact figures, I think I’ve only been hit twice in ten years in Troyes, but I do tend to find myself threatened by some idiots at least once every two years. I emphasized this issue because I really can’t understand why people in Yarmouth complain about its violence, and nobody ever does so in Troyes. I am still persuaded that you don’t risk anything in broad daylight in Great Yarmouth, and I find it unfair to judge a town like that just because it isn’t as pretty, maintained and renovated as Troyes. Just because a town does not look that pretty doesn’t mean that its inhabitants are barbarians, and I think I can prove it by comparing Great Yarmouth to Troyes.

            If I have to draw any conclusion from this, I might say that I was maybe more objective about Great Yarmouth than I was about Troyes, because the latter involves too much of my personal feelings. But then again, do I regard Great Yarmouth as a neutral territory or as some kind of asylum, protecting me from my worries and sad reality? One thing for sure is that I wouldn’t mind making my life permanent in Yarmouth; but maybe I would have the same feeling in many other places. I did have that same feeling after all when I spent a day in Cambridge. Would I find any place in the world better than Troyes? Well, not the parts of Paris I have seen. London? The short time I spent there did not provide me with an answer. India? I would certainly love its simplicity, but would I have the stomach for such poverty? I am afraid I have still not travelled enough to answer these questions, but I sure would like to find out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Annex

 

                                                                      

 

 

 

 

           

 

 

                              . 

                        Burgh Castle       . Gorleston

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[1] University of East Anglia

Reviews

[Leon R]

You made me absolutely homesick. You have awesome way with words and do excellent job with descriptions. You did really great job. Now I feel like going home for a long holiday. Love your work.