Notes of An East Coast Naturalist
Aug 10, 2026 · 4 hr 43 min · 20 segments
"Through Broadland in a Breydon Punt" by Arthur Henry Patterson invites listeners on a captivating journey through the serene landscapes of Broadland, exploring the unique experience of navigating…
Front Matter: To Through Broadland in a Braydon Punt by John Nolittle, a pseudonym of the writer and naturalist Arthur Henry Patterson.
Through Broadland in a Braydon Punt by John Nolittle.
Front Matter.
To my many East Coast friends I dedicate this little book.
As I love Nature, as I love singing birds, and gleaming stubble, and flowing rivers, and morning and evening, and summer and winter, I love thee, my friend.
And Nature, the old nurse, Took the child upon her knee, saying, "Here is a story-book thy father hath written for thee: Come wander with me," she said, "into regions yet untrod, And read what is still unread in the manuscripts of God." And he wandered away and away With Nature, the dear old nurse, Who sang to him night and day The rhymes of the universe.
Author's Note.
The following chapters originally appeared in the autumn of nineteen nineteen in the columns of the Eastern Daily Press, and met with a most gratifying reception from the readers of that popular newspaper, many of whom strongly urged me to republish them in permanent book form.
I have to thank the editor of that paper for reserving to me the right of republication, and also one of his assistants for a discriminating use of "the blue pencil" in eliminating certain small portions of matter of an ephemeral character that were more suited to current journalism than in a published volume.
The chapters were written as I proceeded on my voyage, mostly in the punt under the stars: at other times when drifting on the tides or leisurely waiting for wind and tide.
Signed, John Nolittle, March the sixth, nineteen twenty.
Preface to Second Edition.
With some degree of trepidation the first edition of this little book was prepared for the press.
Its reception by those who know and love Broadland, and many more who are not ill-disposed towards my output of nature scribbling, has been not only flattering to myself, but satisfactory to my publisher, to whom I am greatly indebted for his enterprise in these days of expensive materials and costly labour.
And if my endeavours to interest my friends and a considerable reading public have succeeded in giving them pleasure and an increased love for the delightful inland waterways of Norfolk and Suffolk, what greater satisfaction can I desire? Signed, John Nolittle, Ibis House, Great Yarmouth, June the first, nineteen twenty.
Introduction.
Dear John Nolittle: I do not think that any book of yours requires an introduction, but since you wish for one, here it is.
Close on half a century ago I was sitting in my home in Shropshire reading The Field when I came across an article by one Greville F., descriptive of the Norfolk Broads.
Up to that time my boating experiences had consisted only of voyages down West Country rivers and canals in a home-made Rob Roy canoe.
I had just passed my final examination for the Law, and procuring a legal journal I searched the advertisements and found one for a managing clerk in a Norwich office.
I applied at once and obtained the post.
On the evening of my arrival in Norwich I strolled as far as the river and jumped on board a wherry drifting down-stream, to be landed, past midnight, on the Brundall Marshes, whence I walked back, getting to my lodgings between two and three in the morning, to find my landlady sitting up for me and wondering what kind of a young man her new lodger was.
That was the beginning of the fascination which the Broad district had for me, and I indulged in it to the uttermost—in all sorts of craft from yawl-whelps upwards until they grew too big, from motives of comfort, and had to be taken to sea and to Dutch waterways.
The sight of another sail was an event in the day.
Now the rivers are, in the summer, gay with craft.
It is only in that most beautiful period of the year, late autumn, that the old charm revives.
No wonder some old stagers complain.
One day I sat at lunch in a restaurant next a stranger who was talking of the Broads to some friends.
He said, "That fellow, Christopher Davies, has spoiled the Broads completely.
If ever I meet him, I will punch his head for him." I remarked, "Here he sits.
Punch away." He looked at me gravely for a few seconds, and then said, "What will you take to drink?" I went one evening last summer, in 1919, to my cottage by Bronnie Fen Broad, Horning, on purpose to hear the booming of the bitterns, which my marshman assured me was a beastly nuisance keeping him awake.
But it was past eleven before the sounds of the motor horns on the road, the sirens of motorboats on the river, and the cries of revelers subsided sufficiently.
And then, while sitting in the porch, watching both a brown owl and a white owl flitting about the garden, and a nightjar circling the tops of the apple trees, I heard at intervals the five-fold note of the bittern, a weird sound which no word can accurately describe.
My keeper, when he first heard it within a hundred yards of the cottage, thought it was a cow struggling in the bog.
Now, while you and I are equally sympathetic with the wildlife of the waterside, my surplus energies were directed to sport, and yours to the accurate chronicling of your observations in the field of natural history, so that your life's work will be of more use to those who come after us than mine.
Your other books have an honored place in my special library, but your present venture is a reversion to the personal type which is common to us both, and will, I think, appeal strongly to the ever-increasing number of readers who feel the rebound from ultra-civilization to the call of the wild.
Such wild, at all events, as is still possible in this well-regulated land of ours.
I hope that the cruise of the Yarwhelp will result in a good cargo being brought into port.
Yours sincerely, George Christopher Davies.
End of front matter.
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Front Matter: To Through Broadland in a Braydon Punt by John Nolittle, a pseudonym of the writer and naturalist Arthur Henry Patterson.
Through Broadland in a Braydon Punt by John Nolittle.
Front Matter.
To my many East Coast friends I dedicate this little book.
As I love Nature, as I love singing birds, and gleaming stubble, and flowing rivers, and morning and evening, and summer and winter, I love thee, my friend.
And Nature, the old nurse, Took the child upon her knee, saying, "Here is a story-book thy father hath written for thee: Come wander with me," she said, "into regions yet untrod, And read what is still unread in the manuscripts of God." And he wandered away and away With Nature, the dear old nurse, Who sang to him night and day The rhymes of the universe.
Author's Note.
The following chapters originally appeared in the autumn of nineteen nineteen in the columns of the Eastern Daily Press, and met with a most gratifying reception from the readers of that popular newspaper, many of whom strongly urged me to republish them in permanent book form.
I have to thank the editor of that paper for reserving to me the right of republication, and also one of his assistants for a discriminating use of "the blue pencil" in eliminating certain small portions of matter of an ephemeral character that were more suited to current journalism than in a published volume.
The chapters were written as I proceeded on my voyage, mostly in the punt under the stars: at other times when drifting on the tides or leisurely waiting for wind and tide.
Signed, John Nolittle, March the sixth, nineteen twenty.
Preface to Second Edition.
With some degree of trepidation the first edition of this little book was prepared for the press.
Its reception by those who know and love Broadland, and many more who are not ill-disposed towards my output of nature scribbling, has been not only flattering to myself, but satisfactory to my publisher, to whom I am greatly indebted for his enterprise in these days of expensive materials and costly labour.
And if my endeavours to interest my friends and a considerable reading public have succeeded in giving them pleasure and an increased love for the delightful inland waterways of Norfolk and Suffolk, what greater satisfaction can I desire? Signed, John Nolittle, Ibis House, Great Yarmouth, June the first, nineteen twenty.
Introduction.
Dear John Nolittle: I do not think that any book of yours requires an introduction, but since you wish for one, here it is.
Close on half a century ago I was sitting in my home in Shropshire reading The Field when I came across an article by one Greville F., descriptive of the Norfolk Broads.
Up to that time my boating experiences had consisted only of voyages down West Country rivers and canals in a home-made Rob Roy canoe.
I had just passed my final examination for the Law, and procuring a legal journal I searched the advertisements and found one for a managing clerk in a Norwich office.
I applied at once and obtained the post.
On the evening of my arrival in Norwich I strolled as far as the river and jumped on board a wherry drifting down-stream, to be landed, past midnight, on the Brundall Marshes, whence I walked back, getting to my lodgings between two and three in the morning, to find my landlady sitting up for me and wondering what kind of a young man her new lodger was.
That was the beginning of the fascination which the Broad district had for me, and I indulged in it to the uttermost—in all sorts of craft from yawl-whelps upwards until they grew too big, from motives of comfort, and had to be taken to sea and to Dutch waterways.
The sight of another sail was an event in the day.
Now the rivers are, in the summer, gay with craft.
It is only in that most beautiful period of the year, late autumn, that the old charm revives.
No wonder some old stagers complain.
One day I sat at lunch in a restaurant next a stranger who was talking of the Broads to some friends.
He said, "That fellow, Christopher Davies, has spoiled the Broads completely.
If ever I meet him, I will punch his head for him." I remarked, "Here he sits.
Punch away." He looked at me gravely for a few seconds, and then said, "What will you take to drink?" I went one evening last summer, in 1919, to my cottage by Bronnie Fen Broad, Horning, on purpose to hear the booming of the bitterns, which my marshman assured me was a beastly nuisance keeping him awake.
But it was past eleven before the sounds of the motor horns on the road, the sirens of motorboats on the river, and the cries of revelers subsided sufficiently.
And then, while sitting in the porch, watching both a brown owl and a white owl flitting about the garden, and a nightjar circling the tops of the apple trees, I heard at intervals the five-fold note of the bittern, a weird sound which no word can accurately describe.
My keeper, when he first heard it within a hundred yards of the cottage, thought it was a cow struggling in the bog.
Now, while you and I are equally sympathetic with the wildlife of the waterside, my surplus energies were directed to sport, and yours to the accurate chronicling of your observations in the field of natural history, so that your life's work will be of more use to those who come after us than mine.
Your other books have an honored place in my special library, but your present venture is a reversion to the personal type which is common to us both, and will, I think, appeal strongly to the ever-increasing number of readers who feel the rebound from ultra-civilization to the call of the wild.
Such wild, at all events, as is still possible in this well-regulated land of ours.
I hope that the cruise of the Yarwhelp will result in a good cargo being brought into port.
Yours sincerely, George Christopher Davies.
End of front matter.
