Down Memory Lane......

Friday 15th November.
By my reckoning it's 40 years today since Broad Wave II, the first boat,  was purchased from Clifford Allen's yard at Coltishall, Norfolk.
So today, in the company of Ady, Geoff J, Mike P and Norman the Gnome, I set off for Norfolk for a weekend of nostalgia.

Cowroast Sunrise

A beautiful day with no cloud in the sky the drive to Norfolk goes well apart from the constant bleating of certain passengers about stopping for tea, coffee, bacon sandwiches, cake, biscuits and anything else that's going. And we aint past Hemel Hempstead yet!

We are staying in Wroxham in a riverside cottage and very nice too.

A Bedroom each and three loos!

Obviously Norman took this one which not only explains why he isn't in it but also the angle of the shot.

I took this one because Norman wanted to be in it

 First port of call is the King's Head which has certainly altered from 35 years ago and apart from the usual gawdawful music piped out to people who aren't listening to it, is quite pleasant. The planning meeting decides that we settle in to the cottage, have a wander, grab fish and chips and watch the first half of England v Chile before adjourning to the KH for the second half.. A perfect plan except England were not very good and the Chileans were. 0-2. and we were lucky to get 0.

The view from the living room-lots of boats and little harbours
Saturday morning we\re off to Aylsham and the Bure Valley Railway

Quick! One of the antiques has escaped1

And another one! This time with Norman

Lovely little narrow gauge railway-you want to put the engine in your pocket.

(Please see Appendix regarding track guages)

Adrian and I on the site of Clifford Allen's yard

Then on to Coltishall where 40 years ago stood Clifford E Allen's boatyard. The whole hire fleet was up for sale and 850 quid bought Broad Wave II. The yard was then demolished and a very pleasant riverside development was built. The nearby Anchor pub was turned into a house. Crying shame.Lovely pub. No wonder this country's so bloody miserable with all the pubs shut and everybody staying indoors trying to work out why they're so fed up.When I'm Queen all the houses that were once pubs will have to revert to their former self and everybody must visit at least 10 pubs a year or be shot. I'll make the sods happy even if they don't want to be.

The Reach at Horning

Turners Yard, Horning

After Coltishall we went back past Wroxham to Horning where Broad Wave was moored for 5 years at Turner's Yard, owned by Dennis George.A nice man who could surgically remove the contents of your wallet without you knowing.

A couple of ne'erdowells look round Turners Yard

No longer a boatyard but a private house and we had a scamper round having established there was nobody at home. For some of the time back in the 70s we were moored on the opposite side of the river up a dike as the call the call them in Norfolk and on arrival late on a Friday night had to row across in the pitch dark to find the boat. Amazingly only one person ever fell in. Sorry about that Ady.

The real entertainment came on a Sunday morning (and I think still does) when all the local yachtsmen were out on Horning Reach which coincided with loads of hire boats arriving from Wroxham having taken command on the Saturday.
Marvelous sport to sit in the Swan Hotel and watch relationships fall apart and insurance excess deposits disappear. After a shufty round the yard and a peek at the Ferry Inn (now looks very ordinary) we retired to the New Inn in Horning Village. Changed a bit since my days up there but very pleasant and Norman enjoyed it.

Only one cruiser and no yachts on the Reach. Wait till the Spring!

Southern Comfort-built in the 70s and looking good.It is now moored outside the Swan at H Reach but I'm sure used to be outside Hotel Wroxham

After Horning we headed off to Ranworth Broad and the Maltsters pub. The pub used to have a very attractive bar shaped like the bows of a boat but it has all been revamped and whilst it is very pleasant it lacks the individuality of before. Grub was good and service fine.

Norman loved it especially as he was allowed to wear my cap. Not sure about Geoff.

Enough sightseeing for one day so back to the cottage for a wash and brush up and listen to the rugby-England v The All Blacks. Not on TV of course unless you want to give the Dodgy Aussie loads of dosh. When I'm Queen all major sports will be on the BBC and Sky can have all the bloody cookery programmes (except Master Chef as Pam likes that) and silly property programmes.
In the evening we went to the King's Head which boasted a carvery for 6 quid. Excellent value.Just get rid of the music and it's a good pub.

Sunday-not the brightest of days but the gulls and herons are waiting for breakfast

Then we're off to Neatishead, a delightful little village with moorings off Barton Broad and memories of the Summer of '76 when the tarmac bubbled and the varnish on the boat's  wheel melted. 100 degrees on a couple of days and we tookthe Aussies to the sword in the Ashes series. what a great time.

Then off to Ludham-another frequent stop years ago and totally unchanged.

Then we set off for Potter Heigham where the bridge over the river is very low. During my time there the hire companies brought in an arrangement whereby if you wanted to go through the bridge you stopped and picked up a pilot. If it was your own boat you could chance it without the pilot and I got pretty good at judging the job. Potter Heigham used to have two pubs and not a lot else. Now it has one pub and lots of fast food places. sad.

The Staithe at Ludham

Looks pretty low to me

Looks as low from the other side-funny that

Ady enjoys yet another pastry whilst the tree behind him indicates that the world has gone mad.
When I'm Queen anyone putting up Christmas decorations or playing Christmas "music" in shops or pubs before the first Sunday of Advent will be immersed in a giant bowl of custard and servfed at a free meal for the poor and confused. The tree is in a shop in Potter Heigham called Lathams.. By my estimate it will take 7 lockfulls of custard.

The Pleasure Boat Inn Hickling Broad

Hickling Broad, still unspoilt, a nature reserve where powered craft are not allowed over the Winter months and many are dissuaded by the low Potter Heigham bridge during the Summer. It is the last place I sailed a yacht.

A Hickling Resident

After Hickling Broad we went to Horsey Mere which is in spitting distance of the sea. It is also within spitting distance of The Admiral Nelson, the best pub of the weekend where we had an excellent lunch. A bracing walk round the mere and on to Sea Palling by the sea. I recalled that when on the beach in '76 a couple of coppers on bikes came by telling people to get covered up because the local hospital was inundated with sunstroke cases. No chance today. Brrrrr.








The local Mafia head into Sea Palling led by Don Miguel di Payne

The sea is out there somewhere through the mist. I don't know who the old drunk is lying on the beach.A local said it was Albert Ross

The weather closed in so we implemented the only option open to seafarers who are afeared of the curse of the Albert Ross.We went back to Wroxham and immersed ourselves in curry. Ady had a Phall curry. He was first up next morning. Up and ready to depart by 9 30 and apart from the enforced stop because the crew hadn't eaten for nearly 20 minutes had a good journey back in the rain.

Some photos from the past.

Rock on. Enough for now.

Appendix

Railroad  tracks. 

 

The US standard railroad gauge (distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8.5 inches. That's an  exceedingly odd number.  
  Why was that gauge used?  Because that's the way they built them in Scotland, and Scottish expatriates designed the US railroads.  
  Why did the Scottish build them like that? Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad  Tramways,  and that's the gauge they  used.  
  Why did 'they' use that gauge then?  Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they had  used for building wagons, which used  that wheel spacing.  
  Why did the wagons have that particularly odd wheel  spacing?  Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the  wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in Scotland,  because that's the spacing of the wheel  ruts.  
  So  who built those old rutted roads?  Imperial Rome  built the first long distance roads in Europe (including   Scotland) for their legions. Those roads have been used  ever since.  
  And the ruts in the roads?  Roman war chariots formed the initial ruts,  which everyone else had to match for  fear  of destroying their wagon  wheels..  Since the chariots were made for Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. Therefore the United States standard  railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches is derived from the original specifications for an Imperial Roman  War  chariot.
  So  the next time you are handed a  specification/procedure/process and wonder, 'What  horse's ass came up with this?', you may be exactly right. Imperial Roman army chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the rear ends of two war horses. (Two horses'  asses.)  Now, the twist to the story:  
  When you see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch  pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank.  These are solid rocket boosters, or  SRBs.  The SRBs are made by Thiokol at  their  factory in   Utah.  The engineers who designed the SRBs  would have preferred to make them a  bit  fatter, but the SRBs had to be shipped  by train from the factory to the launch site.  The railroad line from the factory happens  to run through a tunnel in the mountains, and  the SRBs had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel  s slightly wider than the railroad track,  and  the railroad track, as you now know, is about as wide as two horses'  behinds.  

  So, a major Space Shuttle design feature  of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of two horses' asses. And you thought being a horse's ass wasn't important? Ancient horses' asses control almost everything..