Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Author: admin

  • Rail Delivery Group and the Department for Transport

    Rail Delivery Group and the Department for Transport

    As another of my asides, this is an article from Rail magazine this issue, a query regarding rail vouchers which were about to expire. This is the sort of maddening decision which alienates people from the rail network, a decision would have likely been made immediately by the rail operating groups, or indeed the old British Rail, but is caught in a Government department that doesn’t want to answer. Anyway, that’s as political as I’m getting and at least I’m fortunate not to have any rail vouchers.

  • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Seventy-Seven

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Seventy-Seven

    The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…..

    Chummage

    Another one of the dictionary’s longer definitions, “money paid by the richer sort of prisoners in the Fleet and King’s Bench, to the poorer, for their share of a room. When prisons are very full, which is too often the case, particularly on the even of an insolvent act, two or three persons are obliged to sleep in a room. A prisoner who can pay for being alone, chooses two poor chums, who for a stipulated price, called chummage, give up their share of the room, and sleep on the stairs, or, as the term is, ruff it”.

    A guide at the time the dictionary was published gives great details about Fleet prison, which had 109 rooms and 89 of these could receive chums. Fifteen rooms were given away to the poor or large families (and as an aside, Fleet and King’s Bench had many debtors in who would have had little money), a practice known as Bartholomew Fair, whereas three rooms had no fireplace and were exempt from chummage and two were used for the blind, the mad or those it was probably just easiest to give their space.

    The process was strictly regimented so that new prisoners were placed in turn around the rooms and the concept was that the existing prisoner in a room was the owner, the newcomer was the chum. However, neither could force anything on the other, they could only pay each other out and that process was overseen by the warden. It would cost 4 shillings to buy someone out of a room, with rent then payable to the prison warden and this charge would depend whether it was a furnished or unfurnished room.

    As an aside, it’s far from the free for all I had expected in nineteenth-century prisons…. But, the above rules were for master’s side of the prison, whereas the common side was a different affair. Here people were dumped in larger cells and they didn’t pay fees, but were entitled to sit and beg at the side of the prison from people passing by. This might be handy for those who were debtors and who needed to buy themselves out of prison.

    There were usually around 200 prisoners in Fleet, but there were also another 75 or so who lived in the area of the Liberty of the Fleet, located around the prison. Prisoners could stay here instead, usually choosing accommodation to suit their wealth, but they had to give a deposit to the prison warden as a security against them running off. This was less as the warden was worried they might escape and go on the run, it was solely to ensure that they received their money, as prisons were run privately as profit-making enterprises.

    Another prison where chummage was common, and only debtors didn’t have to pay, was Marshalsea and the going rate in 1818 was half a crown a week to “make the roommate go away”, typically to a cold and bleak part of the buildings. It’s all a sign of how the rich and the poor certainly used to have different prison experiences…..

  • Trowse – Name Origin

    Trowse – Name Origin

    Since a few of our walks have cut through Trowse, not least this one, here’s something about the origins of the village name.

    The Concise Oxford Dictionary comments on the origins:

    Trowse Newton, Norfolk. Treus Newtona in Domesday Book, Trous in 1254 and Trowes cum Newtone in 1316. Comes from Scandinavian tre-hus, or wooden house.

    The village is more formally known as Trowse with Newton and back in the tenth century, it was the case that Newton was the more important manner, and Trowse the attached settlement. There are some differing views about this, some people feel that it is ‘tree-house’ because the properties were once built in a wet area and needed to be raised.

    The argument on Wikipedia is that it’s named after a gate that could be lifted up and down, and they make some link to the word trousers. Personally, I think that sounds not inconsiderably fanciful. I’m with the settlement being named after the wooden houses that were located here in the tenth century, nothing to do with houses being built on stilts or with things being lifted up and down.

  • Pulham Market Railway Station For Sale

    Pulham Market Railway Station For Sale

    This would be a quite marvellous place to live, the former railway station of Pulham Market. Of course, it’d be even better if it had remained in use rather than being closed down to passengers in 1953, but at least it has been preserved. The 4-bedroom property is for sale with a suggested house price of £465,000, although it all looks spacious and there’s still a long platform at the rear. There’s also a bonus that the old red phone box and the signalling equipment put up by the platforms are all included in the sale.

    The property details are on the Rightmove web-site.

  • More BA Routes Lost

    More BA Routes Lost

    Along with the temporary suspension to numerous destinations, sad to see that BA have recently announced that they have stopped flying to four locations.

    They’re:

    London Heathrow – Beirut (Lebanon)

    London Heathrow – Helsinki (Finland)

    London Heathrow – Leeds Bradford (UK)

    London Heathrow – Moscow Sheremetyevo (Russia)

    The Leeds Bradford link to London seemed relatively popular, but there’s been an environmental argument for a while about whether this is a sensible use of aircraft. Moscow continues to be served by Moscow Domodedovo, but BA must be expecting that a permanent fall in the number of people prepared to go to Russia.

    Disappointed about the removal of the Helsinki route as I planned to use that next year to get to Tallinn (after getting a ferry across the Gulf of Finland), a direct BA route they shut down in 2019. It looks BA has given up on great swathes of eastern Europe, which will be a handy boost to Ryanair and Wizzair. There’s always Finn Air, who are Oneworld, but I rarely see anything keenly priced there.

    Hopefully when things return to some form of normality then BA can start looking at new routes to replace the ones that have been lost.

  • Lakenham – Name Origin

    Lakenham – Name Origin

    Following on from our walk which briefly went across Lakenham.

    The Concise Oxford Dictionary comments on this town name:

    Lakenham, Norfolk. Lakemham in Domesday Book, Lakeham in 1212, Lakenham 1247. Probably Laca’s Ham.

    So this is Laca’s village, a similar derivative to Lakenheath, which is the landing place of Laca’s people. It may be that Laca was just a local leader, but it’s probably more of a ‘tribe’ of fen-dwellers. With very little change to the place name over the last 1,000 years.

  • Eaton – Name Origin

    Eaton – Name Origin

    Following on from our training walk for the LDWA 100, Eaton is a common place name around the country. The Concise Oxford Dictionary comments on this name:

    Eaton, Norfolk. Ettuna in Domesday Book, Etona in 1147, Eton 1232.

    The dictionary does a job lot of explaining the word origin for all the places names in the country, as it’s a simple one, meaning ‘town on a river’.

  • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Seventy-Six

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Seventy-Six

    The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…..

    Chuck Farthing

    The dictionary defines this as “a parish clerk” and I have no idea how that’s supposed to have come about. ‘Chuck farthing’ is best known as a game that essentially involves getting a farthing coin into a hole. And, this was a big game, which one MP complained in 1839 was debated for three hours in the House of Commons, but that was required as it became quite a common gambling option and legislation was considered. In 1884, the Dean of Manchester Cathedral said that “it was not right to stop a boy playing chuck farthing”, a situation that had arisen because there remained fears of gambling.

    Wikipedia has a nineteenth-century description of how the game, which existed since at least the seventeenth century, worked:

    “Each competitor starts with the same number of coins. They pitch their coins one at a time from a mark at a given distance towards a hole in the ground. The competitors are ranked based on how close they come to the hole. The competitor closest to the hole receives all of the coins and proceeds to a second mark nearer to the hole, from which he throws all of the coins at once towards the hole. All of the coins that remain in the hole are his to keep. The remainder of the coins are given to the next closest competitor, and the process is repeated until no coins remain.”

    It’s clear to see how gambling became a problem here, especially when the game was played for hours in pubs.

    But back to the parish clerk definition of the term, this goes back to at least 1655 when ‘A Satyr Against Hypocrites’ was written by John Phillips. And, perhaps the hypocrites bit is important, maybe parish clerks played the game regardless of the betting issues related to it. But, who knows….

    Judging from this, the game went out of fashion long before the farthing coin ceased to be used at the end of 1960.

  • LDWA 100 – Training Walk 4 (and something about Duchenne)

    LDWA 100 – Training Walk 4 (and something about Duchenne)

    This walk was socially distanced….. And is the fourth walk in preparation for the 2021 LDWA 100. But isn’t an LDWA walk in itself, because these have all been suspended until the troubles are over.

    WALK NUMBER: 4 (Norwich to Eaton)

    DISTANCE COVERED: 10 miles

    NUMBER OF NATHAN’S FRIENDS WE “ACCIDENTALLY” BUMP INTO: 0

    SUFFICIENT BEER CONSUMED: Yes

    PUBS VISITED: 0

    WEATHER CONDITIONS: Far too hot

    ATTACKED BY ANIMALS: No

    NUMBER OF SNAKES SEEN: 0 (but warning signs of killer snakes were noted)

    Our fourth walk was never going to be our most interesting, we wanted something shorter as I’ve been getting a bit too obsessed with walking recently, and Nathan exhausted himself with his 15-minute bike ride last week. Or was it 15 miles? I don’t know, it doesn’t matter, it’s easy to get muddled up. So, the walk was through the metropolis of Norwich to see the wealthy denizens of Eaton.

    In the centre of Norwich, this is the new St. Anne’s Housing development, it’s the first time that I’ve noted we can walk through the centre of the complex. Incidentally, look at how blue the sky is. That means one thing, it’s too bloody hot.

    Oh, on a related subject, I don’t like to talk about my bravery, but I had a lot of pollen-related issues. But, I didn’t let that stop me and I could tell Nathan was very impressed with how courageous I was. He didn’t say that, but sometimes you can read between the lines.

    I had better also add, whilst mentioning my bravery, that I was getting a slight problem with shin splints last week so I cut my walk distances down on Friday, Saturday and Sunday (thanks to Richard, Rob and Clive for accepting a downgraded distance) but the issue seems to have mostly gone away. I wouldn’t have mentioned it, but it’s important to be honest about these walks, and so it would be amiss of me not to mention my courage and rigour.

    I walked by Tesco, so I thought I should get some water. Couldn’t find the water, so I got Nathan and myself some beers. Keenly priced, but this one from Dark Arts was a little unexceptional, but perfectly drinkable. This is a small park in Eaton, with streets that are named after golf courses, such as Carnoustie, Wentworth, Sunningdale and Turnberry. There wasn’t though Mousehold Pitch and Putt, which would have made for a great street name.

    Then there was a philosophical discussion, which I was proved right on, about using Runkeeper for tracking walks. I view a walk as one entity and just pause Runkeeper when sitting down or having a break. Nathan, for reasons unknown, seems to think that he has to class it is a new walk every time we have a break or stop. So, Nathan completed 26 walks in one day, whilst I just did the one. I didn’t say much about it as I was patently right.

    Snakes?!?!?!?! We made a decision to rush through Marston Marsh which is a nature reserve located on a floodplain.

       

    Photos of the River Yare as it winds through the marshes. Plenty of fish and tadpole things in the water and there were relatively large numbers of people walking along the riverside.

    We accidentally went on a detour to check how this Greggs was getting on. Not open yet of course, but it will be soon enough. It was almost possible to smell the ovens preparing the next batch of chicken bakes, but I feel that my imagination might have been running away with me somewhat.

    This is the former Post Office in Lakenham, constructed as a residential property in the early seventeenth century, with numerous later additions.

    The derelict Lakenham Cock pub, trading since the mid-eighteenth century it closed in 2015. This is likely a perfectly viable pub in terms of its location and size, but the building has now become damaged and the repairs to make this a working pub would be substantial in cost. The property was being sold for £750,000 as a residential property, which puts it out of the league of anyone wanting to re-open it as a pub.

    Lakenham has a village charm, but it really needs something at the centre of its community. And a pub would be marvellous.

    I don’t know whether this is the River Tas or the River Yare, they seem to merge a bit here and I’m easily confused at the best of times. And it doesn’t matter, you can pick which name you prefer and use that. That’s some academic rigour there…

    And, we accidentally stopped at the Fisher residence for supplies of water. She didn’t let us down with her cooking skills either, with her personal culinary calling card of chicken strips and olives being very welcome.

    Then the walk back into the centre of Norwich. Nathan told me not to mention that he was worried how we would get past the road construction, so I won’t say anything.

    And that was that, a basic ten-mile walk with nothing of huge excitement, but since it’s part of our training programme for the 100, I’m writing about it anyway. And, unusually, we didn’t see any of Nathan’s legion of friends, but I’m sure they’ll make an amazing appearance in the next episode.

    As this is a shorter, and frankly less interesting, walking report, I thought I’d mention something else which is far more important. Although we’re training for the LDWA 100, we’re also doing this for a long walk that four of us are planning for 2022. For those who know me, I’ve been won over by Liam’s two angelic younger children, who frankly are a constant delight to take on day trips. One of them happens to have Duchenne, and this is a troublesome condition that needs funding to find a medical solution, as well as to support families in managing it. There’s more about Duchenne at Duchenne UK for those who want some background.

    Our 2022 walk, of which we’ll talk more about during this year and 2021, will aim to raise publicity and funding for Duchenne. So, for the first time, I can excite and delight the three readers of this blog, as not only will this blog feature our efforts at the LDWA 100 in May 2021, it’ll also then be the prelude to the whole 2022 adventure. That will be a contribution that we can make to help end Duchenne.

  • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Seventy-Five

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day Seventy-Five

    The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the Coronavirus crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored…..

    Chop-Stick

    The dictionary definition is simply “a fork”, with the first usage of the word in English being at the end of the seventeenth century. It’s too far back in history to work out, but it’s likely that the ‘chop’ meant quick and had been picked up from travellers to China.  At some stage, the word became an alternate name for a fork, before more recently returning to its original meaning.

    The use of the word chopstick over time, a relative surge since the 1970s. I’m a little surprised though that people at the beginning of the nineteenth century would be freely using the word chopstick, I thought it was a word brought into the English language much later on.