Morning has broken in Derbyshire and it’s just gone 5am. Fortunately, this meant the shower area was empty, namely because most people don’t get up at 5am. What a lovely way to start the day.
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Camping – Day 0 (Bloody Camping)
Firstly, and most important news, there’s phone signal here, so life will have some sort of normality.
Secondly, I’ve been reminded how bloody stressful tents are. I laid out all the pieces of Liam’s tent on the floor, then gave up immediately as it was too difficult. After swearing and demanding attention from the others, it slowly started to take shape. Richard’s palace sized tent behind was erected and cast a shadow over my tent, although it soon got dark anyway so it didn’t much matter.
So, we’re now drinking beer (thanks to Steve who brought some as apparently we can’t go to the pub tonight) and it’s quite peaceful. Well, it’s not in my tent, I can see that half of the Derbyshire moth population is inside it, I’m leaving that crisis until later. I’m also pitched on quite a small piece of land, so my doorway leads into a bush and it’s all a bit hilly.
This is most stressful. What I need now is a lovely Accor hotel with a welcome drink, a door, an en-suite bathroom, a window and not having to my own roof up. I’ve mentioned this several times and I imagine I’ll mention it several more times. The others are chatting away now, but I needed to get this urgent blog post up…..
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Camping – Day 0 (Shut Greggs)
Well, this isn’t ideal, the Greggs on the A14 at Spaldwick had closed 13 minutes before we got there. The lights were just turned off when we got there, ready to binge buy chicken bakes.
Oh well, instead we went to the McDonald’s at Kettering, and a chicken wrap of the day. It wasn’t Greggs, but it was open.
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Camping – Day 0
And, for this weekend, the blog be coming live from a field in Derbyshire somewhere….. A little camping trip, which will probably be awful as camping irritates me.
The camp-site has sent us a photo of our field, which is really handy as we can see all the facilities we’ll be getting. So, armed with Liam’s tent (and happy birthday to Liam, who is celebrating by not being stuck in a field all weekend) four of us are ready for the off.
What could possibly go wrong?
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Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 134
The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….
Galligaskins
The dictionary defines this simply as “breeches” and although the term was meant more broadly to mean trousers, it was originally specifically the loose and wide trousers which were popular in the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries. It is suggested that the word derives from ‘grechesco’, meaning the way things are done in Greece, and apparently this style of trousers derives from the old Greek style. I’m not sure quite how this evolved into the current word, but most dictionaries seem to give the same derivation.
This is one of those words which has now fallen entirely out of usage, but it does have a rather beautiful nature to it.
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Brandon – Brandon Railway Station Update
Some good news from SAVE’s Britain’s Heritage who have issued a statement today about Brandon railway station. I must admit I’m surprised, although having written that, I couldn’t get any answer from Greater Anglia about this and they didn’t seem to really know what they were doing. They couldn’t even tell me if there was to be any salvage attempt at the building or whether any of the frontage could be kept.
Anyway, SAVE’s press statement notes:
“A delightful country station dating from the golden decade of railway building and used in the filming of Dad’s Army has received a reprieve from imminent demolition. A High Court order issued today quashed the decision by Breckland District Council to allow the demolition of the 1845 station building at Brandon on the Cambridge to Norwich line. This follows judicial review proceedings launched by SAVE Britain’s Heritage seeking the quashing of the Council’s decision.
The Council had issued a lawful development certificate which said that Greater Anglia could construct a new car park under the railway permitted development rights. The Council accepted that they had failed to apply the legal test for what was railway land and overlooked SAVE’s representations.
In its response to the legal challenge the Council consented to the quashing of the certificate. Greater Anglia did not resist the Court order. SAVE will now work with the Suffolk Building Preservation Trust on new plans for repairing this historic station and bringing it back to use. A listing application has also been submitted to Historic England – supported by SAVE – and we are expecting a recommendation imminently.”
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Norwich – Drunken Dash and Daring
This news story is from 1860, when a robbery took place on White Lion Street in Norwich.
“William Marsham, on bail, was charged with stealing a coat, the property of Mr. George Womack, clothier, White Lion Street. Mr C. Cooper, who prosecuted, said the intent with which the prisoner took the coat did not seem to be a felonious one, and, therefore, with the Recorder’s permission, he should not offer any evidence. The Recorder, addressing the prisoner, said he entirely believed the statement the prisoner made to the policeman, that he had never known a happy moment since he took this coat, and he entirely believed that the prisoner had no felonious intention. That was evident from his going to the shop and putting the coat on before the eyes of all the shopmen. It was a case of drunken dash and daring, and he hoped the prisoner, having placed himself in such jeopardy by his intemperance would be wiser for the future, and abandon a vice which to young men in his position was often the first step to theft. The prisoner was then discharged”.
I can’t tell whether it was the father or son George Womack, but the former died in 1860 at the age of 72, whilst the son died in the Thorpe Rail Disaster of 1874, a tragedy where 15 people were killed. William Marsham was lodging at a property in Porter’s Square in Norwich a year later, working as a bricklayer, but I can’t work out where he went after 1861.
But, I do like the pragmatism of the Norwich courts at the time, as well as the phrase “drunken dash and daring”.
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Fakenham – Fakenham Junior School (Heritage Trail 19)
Part of the Fakenham Heritage Trail that I’m working my way slowly around, this is number 19. The school was built in 1913 as a school for boys, girls and infants, with a big dividing wall between the boys and girls. This was removed in 1935 and now serves as Fakenham’s junior school.
This is part of the marvellous railings project that was designed by the children to mark their centenary and there’s a full text of the wording at the heritage trail’s page at https://www.flht.co.uk/19-junior-school.html. As a little side, I’m a little disappointed that the school’s web-site manages to make no reference to their history and a search term of the word ‘history’ produces no results on their pages at all.
Another event to mark the centenary was the appearance of Michael Palin, whose grandfather Dr Edward Palin was present at the opening of the school on 21 May 1913. Palin’s father was also born in Fakenham, so there something fitting about his presence at the event.
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Fakenham – Peckover Family (Heritage Trail 9)
Working around Fakenham’s heritage trail, this is number 9 and it represents the Peckover family. The property that the plaque is located on is 14, Market Place and was originally known as 14, The Square. Used today by the Nationwide bank, it’s an eighteenth-century building which was owned by the Peckover family.
The Peckover family were Quakers who became important business people in Fakenham and Wisbech and owned much property in both locations. Peckover’s Bank was created in what is today’s the town’s Boots, which later became merged with Gurney’s Bank and then in turn this became part of Barclays Bank. Some of the family moved to Wisbech to set up banking operations there, with Peckover House being a large country estate which is now managed by the National Trust.
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Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 133
The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….
Galimaufrey
This hodgepodge of a word is defined by the dictionary as “a hodgepodge made up of the remnants and scraps of the larder”, something which would be familiar to many families today. It’s from the French word ‘galimafrée’, which is a stew that uses various ingredients depending on what people had available at the time.
The word is more commonly spelled as Gallimaufry and it has remained in use over the decades.
