Wroxham

We're going to bring the story back to Desmond now because he was one of the people at the centre of this world.

He was 43 years old in the summer of 2009, having been born and raised in the Norfolk village of Wroxham and he was one of 11 children.

People who knew Desmond later remembered him as a physically frail and vulnerable man who was in extremely poor health.

Consequently, he could easily be bullied by people who were both much stronger and more dominant than him.

The North River section is, as I have already said, very much the most extensive.

connected directly with this stream is a line of broads stretching from south walsham to wroxham a distance of ten miles the ant drains a beautiful lake called barton and a very much smaller one named after the village of stalham from which it is separated by a dyke the thurn or hundred stream receives the waters of hickling hawsey mere higham sounds somerton womack etc last for our consideration is the filby ormsby and rollsby section which finds outlet to the bure below acle bridge through a channel called the muck fleet having gained a little idea of some of the waterways of norfolk and suffolk and made up his mind to spend his holiday thereon the reader will probably inquire where he is to go for a ship in which to make the journeys Alton, Norwich, Yarmouth and Wroxham are the chief letting centres, and a yacht to accommodate three or four with all the necessary culinary utensils, plate, table linen, etc., may be hired for five guineas or £5.05 a week, which, I should add, includes the man's wages and use of dinghy.

if a large party is being made up of say ten or a dozen the norfolk wherry is the most suitable craft afloat these barges are as comfortable as a thames houseboat with the great added advantage of affording extreme facility for getting from place to place the charm which female society adds to everything can also by their means be enjoyed as in all the wherries separate apartments are devoted to ladies use in the main cabins i had almost written state cabins so nicely are some furnished and decorated i know of one which is actually panelled in oak a piano is generally to be found and on the inevitable wet day a capital stove provides the good companionable friend which afloat as well as ashore is so much appreciated by comfort-loving englishmen course as a yacht owner I very much prefer the fun of sailing a cutter to a wherry although even in the latter I have enjoyed great excitement sometimes but on one point I am bound to admit our larger rivals beat us this consists in their ability to explore the most remote parts of the district in my own craft i can go almost everywhere but must confess myself outdone in this particular by many a wherry of three or four times the buttercup's tonnage the way in which the number of wherry yachts has multiplied within the last three seasons is excellent proof of their popularity and a description of the best if not the largest specimen of these floating hotels may be deemed of interest the craft i refer to is called the zoe and is forty tons burden unlike most of the pleasure wherries she is not used for trading purposes during the winter months indeed all her oak fittings are permanent fixtures six or eight persons would find ample accommodation but for a lengthened cruise a party of six would be recommended this is however purely a matter of taste as the following details of her interior arrangements will show the ladies cabin is fitted with two brass bedsteads with wire spring mattresses and is furnished with a wash-hand stand water laid on writing desk plenty of drawers c should more than two ladies be in the party there are additional mattresses to accommodate the same number which fix on the cabin floor the lavatory on board is complete with every modern yacht appliance so that the sanitary arrangements are perfect in the main hatchway a bath is fitted when required this is supplied with water from tanks on board and through a tap fixed for the purpose all waste runs into the village the main cabin is fifteen feet long by eleven wide and has six feet head-room in this apartment particularly luxury is combined with comfort and in fact it may more properly be called the saloon the men's quarters and cooking galley are at the stern the stove i should say is easily capable of cooking for twelve and are entirely separate from the rest of the vessel although communication is rendered easy by aid of electric bells i have recently had the pleasure of inspecting this beautiful craft and her owner took particular pains to explain the various points To all of these, I fear, I may not have done justice, but it will be gathered, from what I have written, that a trip on the Norfolk waters in such a craft is attended with no loss of any of the comforts of life.

chapter two of notes on the broads and rivers of norfolk and suffolk by harry britton norwich to lowestoft there's no mistake about it i am counting on my holiday this year this was the remark addressed to the skipper of the yacht buttercup at the end of a long controversy as to victualling the yacht for certainly the twentieth time by jack

Here is a fixed bridge where the mast has to be lowered.

When we got through this we stopped for dinner, and then, although we might have sailed up to Wroxham with the wind before dark, we were fated to spend the night here in consequence of a freak of winds.

In the exuberance of his spirits he attempted to jump a wide dyke, using the quant as a leaping pole.

As a matter of course the pole sank deep into the mud, and when it attained an upright position it refused to depart from it, and so checked Wynn in mid-air.

Chapter five of the Handbook to the Rivers and Broads of Norfolk and Suffolk by George Christopher Davies.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Chapter five: Acle to Wroxham.

The wind on the next morning was from the northwest, a headwind for us, and there was little of it.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Up to Roxham.

the journey back down the ant did not take us long and as we had been rather cramped on board the lotus we were not sorry the next evening to find ourselves standing upright at our ease once more on board the big wherry and enjoying our evening meal at a practicable table instead of the planks stretched across cushions which form the hospitable board of the smaller boat The next day we had a pretty good wind past St. Bennett's Abbey, but had a lot of tedious tacking in the bends before Ranworth.

when we got opposite ranworth dyke the antiquary protested so violently that we could not possibly go by without looking in and seeing the finest rood-screen in england that we gave way and took the jolly across the broad to inspect it and were glad we did for it was far finer than bacton and ersted which we had already seen the enormous sprawly feet of the saints tickled all our fancies greatly they could not of course have been done by the same artist who drew the faces for some of those are simply beautiful and of a style of art one never expects to see in a country church horning church which stands on a mound a considerable one for this pancake like country had been in sight some time and as we passed the little green staithe by its side the skipper once more told us an anecdote which some of us had certainly heard eighty times and which i will try to reproduce from memory we was a-coming down in the old linder note that all boats on these waters are old as all women are fair from roxham bridge with mr smith of norwich when he say to me when we got here what a nice quiet place that is tungate just the wery place i should like to get my tea at so we puts ashore and lights a fire and boils our kittle when down there comes parson and he say this is my private staith and i dun't allow no one to lay here say he well mr smith he was a peaceable sort of a gent so he told me to move the things off and we went away and got our tea somewhere else next week i was a bringing down mr sydney the manager of the norwich theatre the same way and i told him how we had been served the week before then that's the wery place that we'll hev our tea at he say so he puts to shore and lights a fire and boils our kittle when down there comes the parson agin and he say this is my private staith and i dun't allow no one to lay here and a wery pretty place that is too says sidney a charmin place i thought i should like to get my tea here as i was a parson by but i don't allow no one whatever to land here say the parson quite right say mr sydney i quite agree with you it is a bootiful place i wish i lived here he say and mr sidney he made up such a face and he fared so stupid like and deaf that arter a while the parson he gave her up for a bad job for more he talked more t'other one he kept on admiring the place and agreeing with him that at last he turned round and asked him if he'd like a lettuce for his tea so he thanked him kindly and said it was a pretty place and no mistake and mr sidney's little boy he went up to the house and had a glass of wine with the parson and he say to him my little man do you think your father would like a drop of crane with his tea and he sent him back with a jug of cream and the biggest lettuce i ever did see for it never would ha gone into a bushel basket or a quart pot and then he come down and he talked with mr sidney for a long while but i fared to fancy he saw he warn't quite so deaf for as he was a-goin away he asked the little boy my little man what is your father's name and the little boy he up and told him he was mr sidney the manager of the norwich theatre and the old parson he give a grin and he went away and you have never sailed past the private staith once without telling this story said i but tungate who looked guilty changed the conversation and evaded reply we soon passed the picturesque group of firs with their roots all bare and uncovered which forms one of the most charming of mr davy's reviews and reached horning ferry but luckily had no occasion to revital at the pretty little waterside public-house with its trimly kept lawn and mop-topped rose-trees for things rule at starvation prices here as well as elsewhere on the river owing to their inaccessibility all about here is a great place for pike and we saw other people catch them though we were not equally successful stay there was an exception for the poet landed a half-pound pikelet which fussed about before it was brought in like a monster but which when cleaned for his captor insisted on eating as well as catching him looked for all the world like a stale whiting Of his capture he wrote home proudly to his wife, untruthfully alleging his catch weighed seven pounds.

There used to be a Grand Regatta or Water Frolic here, but it is practically extinct now, and the broad is seen at its best when it is frozen over.

The public right to navigate and fish on the broad has been recently challenged, but I fancy there would be no difficulty in sustaining it, for the old course of the river was through the broad.

Another mile after re-entering the river, all through the most lovely wooded country, brought us within sight of Roxham Bridge, which was to be the end of our journey on this river.

we had great difficulty in finding berths for both our boats for there was over eighty yachts and sailing-boats within hail of the bridge but eventually got a place and moored one off the other for the night as the evening drew in it was wonderfully pretty to see the white-sailed yachts come home round the woody corner of the river like birds to roost and dropping their sails one after the other stop silently at their appointed places for the night late into the night however we were persecuted by the muffled sound of the hebrew ruffian's horn and by some wretched undergraduates out for a holiday who had a banjo and one song about some poor beggar who wished to lie low which they kept on repeating for hours very early indeed next morning i heard the athlete get up and slip off the side of the boat into the water as noiselessly as an otter and swim for the cutter wherein the banjoist reposed What he did I know not, nor did we ask, but after breakfast we noticed a sickly-looking person in a dirty blazer trying to empty the water out of a damp, or one might say spiked, banjo, which never again troubled us, and I fancy the two events had some connection with one another.

Here is a fixed bridge, where the mast has to be lowered.

When we got through this, we stopped for dinner, and then, although we might have sailed up to Wroxham with the wind before dark, we were fated to spend the night here, in consequence of a freak of Wynn's.

In the exuberance of his spirits, he attempted to jump a wide dyke, using the quant as a leaping-pole.

As a matter of course, the pole sank deep into the mud, and when it attained an upright position, it refused to depart from it, and so checked Wynn in mid-air.

Chapter five of The Handbook to the Rivers and Broads of Norfolk and Suffolk by George Christopher Davies.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Chapter five: Acle to Wroxham.

The wind on the next morning was from the northwest, a head wind for us, and there was little of it, so little indeed that we could not stem the tide and had to quant for three miles.

You aren't up to it, really.

You'd much better go to Wroxham or somewhere and take an open boat, just a lug-sail boat, and sleep at the inn.

Or I can give you the name of a jolly nice farm where you can stop, if you'd like to go to Potter Heigham.

We stayed there three summers running.

A Gladstone bag on a chair by the bedside.

My Gladstone bag.

Why, of course it is Friday, and I am in a bedroom at the Horseshoe's Inn, Wroxham, and it was pouring with rain when I went to sleep after coming down by the last train from town.

I sat up in the bed and gazed anxiously out of window.

Here is a fixed bridge, where the mast has to be lowered.

When we got through this we stopped for dinner, and then, although we might have sailed up to Wroxham with the wind before dark, we were fated to spend the night here, in consequence of a freak of Wynn's.

In the exuberance of his spirits he attempted to jump a wide dyke, using the quant as a leaping pole.

As a matter of course the pole sank deep into the mud, and when it attained an upright position it refused to depart from it, and so checked Wynn in mid-air.

Chapter five of the Handbook to the Rivers and Broads of Norfolk and Suffolk by George Christopher Davies.

This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

Chapter five, Acle to Wroxham.

The wind on the next morning was from the northwest, a headwind for us, and there was little of it.

... what we do.

Uh, Wroxham, in fact.

Actually, I was a big fan of-

Oh, Wroxham

... your boy Olly.

[laughs]