The year is 2002 and we are staying at a B&B in Great Yarmouth, using it as a base for touring around various places in Norfolk and Suffolk.
Clicking or tapping the photos below will take you to the relevant article. A link on each page will bring you back here.
Friday 23 August 2002. It was our last night in Great Yarmouth. Tomorrow would see us leave after breakfast and a morning coffee in our favourite beach hut cafe.
There was still a long row of amusement arcades along the seafront road, but sadly gone were the days when you caould find half a dozen or more pinball machines in every arcade. I think we only found two such machine the whole week and predictably one of them wasn't working all that well.
Instead the arcades were full of video games which simply required a good memory for the sequence of challenges rather than the skills to aim balls at various targets through an understanding of the laws of physics. Crane machines full of overweight stuffed toys and pushers with far too much weight of coins to be pushed forwards made up most of the other machines. Miss Franny armed herself with coins and spent the night trying to increase her haul of Winnie the Pooh keyrings. She came home with five...
Our childhood was spent playing the pinballs of the 1950s and 60s, the earlier ones with wooden rails before steel began to be used. They had weak 2-inch flippers that often didn't have the power to send the ball further than halfway up the playfield. The earliest had no flippers at all and targets were just a nail with a surrounding coiled spring that completed the circuit with the nail when pressed against it. The early machines also had gobble holes which scored - but you lost your ball down them for good.
The 1960s were a heyday for pinball players. Rows and rows of them would fill an entire wall of amusement arcades. Spinning score reels replaced the system where bulbs would light in different places on the scorefield to show your score - rows of ten bulbs for millions, 100 thousands, 10 thousands... You had to add them up to get your score. The space created on the back boxes (backflashes) of pinballs by score reels allowed animated features to be added - a lift door opening to reveal the passengers, or a small bagatelle firing tiny balls to signify the launch of a space rocket...
It would be another decade before pinballs became computer controlled, two decades before Gorgar became the first pinball to talk. Elvira - Scared Stiff was the pinball to go to this week and was a good game.
Wednesday 21 August 2002. The day was a little bleak weatherwise and we decided not to go wandering in the car but to stay in Great Yarmouth, with somewhere to dash towards in case of rain.
On the positive side Great Yarmouth has a fairly rich history and was one of England's walled towns. King Henry III gave the town burgesses the right to build an enclosing wall and a moat in 1260, although he had given way to King Edward I by the time building commenced in 1284.
The walls were constructed of rubble with a facing of grey and red brick and knapped flint to provide some decoration. The walls enclosed 133 acres and were 2,200 yards (2012 metres) in length, 23 feet (7 metres) in height.
16 towers or turrets were built along the wall of which a few still exist. The South Tower, pictured here, has a chequered decoration to the upper storeys and at one time in its more recent past housed a pottery.
There is a 1 mile (1.6 kilometres) walk around part of the wall that also takes in the market and a few famous houses. One was that of Miles Corbett the last signatory on the Death Warrant of King Charles I. Another we shall see in a short while.
Blackfriars Tower is named for a nearby colony of monks at the time of building in 1340.
The port of Yarmouth is on the River Yare. Although leaflets describe it as the 'historic South Quay' (which it undoubtedly is) there is little to see on the quay itself. Few trawlers or herring boats can be found these days though you may see a few support ships for the offshore gas and oil rigs in the North Sea.
I loved this though. The odd building stands out, suggesting a bustling community, where hard work and sweat were the order of the day. Ivy's Trusty Tea Shop - it was voted for, you know! Whilst the area it was situated in was very quiet to the point of being almost eerie, a light inside showed that there was still a welcome and a good cup of tea to be had.
There was one historic ship - the Audrey tied up along the wharf. The Audrey was being repainted and was a yacht rigged sailing fishing boat. There was no one aboard. Perhaps they had nipped of to Ivy's for a good cup of tea.
Between the long stretch of wharves on the Yare and the town centre and market were once over a hundred narrow streets known as the Rows. They were incredibly narrow, so much so that a law was passed that house doors had to open inwards to avoid passers-by being knocked off their feet! At points it was possible to touch the walls of houses on either side.
They were first mentioned in 1198 and were further developed during the next 200 years until there were 145 rows. Unfortunately the houses and buildings of the rows were extensively bombed during World War II and now few remain.
The house in Row 111. Many rows were paved with pebbles from the beach - not easy on the feet. After the destruction of World War II, most rows were demolished as slum clearance and more modern housing estates replaced them.
The Seamens' hospital and cottages reserved for ex-seamen over the age of 60. It was built by the Corporation in 1702 as almshouses for 20 "decayed fishermen" and their wives. The cottages were one up - one down i.e. a single room with a huge fireplace and a bedroom on the first floor reached by either a spiral staircase or ladder. Privies were provided in the yard.
The black and white timber framed building was the home of Anna Sewell who wrote the childrens' book "Black Beauty", but who sadly died before it became a best seller.
Asl anyone over the age of 60 what shop they would love to see return to High Streets and they would likely say Woolworths. But there were other shops that graced most towns' high streets. This was Great Yarmouth's Co-op building. The Co-op was a movement that started in Rochdale, Lancashire and grew into a huge concern, aimed at sharing its profits with members (shoppers) by a stamp system similar to Green Shield stamps.
Co-op stamps were blue and were stuck into books which once full could be exchanged for a certain value. The Co-op department stores were all built to a similar design and this was a typical one with the upper storey's windows separated by columns.
Sunday 18 August 2002. It's a day of rest because that's what Sundays on holiday in Great Yarmouth were all about when I was a kid. Admittedly journeys down from (at the time) Rochdale took a lot longer in the early to mid 1960s than they do now, but even so, we left Blackpool the previous day early in the morning and had got here in the afternoon.
The lack of motorways in the 60s was one factor and the other was Dad's Ford Popular 100E which had windscreen wipers that were driven not by electrics but by the vacuum caused by the downstroke of the pistons. Fine when the car was at rest, but as the accelerator was depressed to make the car move, air got through the carburettor and there was little or no vacuum and therefore no moving windscreen wipers. Driving through pouring rain was something of an adventure... A very slow and long adventure if you wanted to see where you were going.
Trips to Great Yarmouth in those days started around 11:00pm or midnight. We would stop at Newark for breakfast and carry on to get to Great Yarmouth late morning.
First thing every morning Mum and Dad would get us up early in the morning to go for a morning coffee at the tea huts on the Promenade walk before breakfast. We would be there somewhere between 6:00am-6:30am every day. Now they don't open until later so there's no chance of a visit before breakfast, but even so it was our first point of call every morning straight after leaving the B&B.
A mug of coffee both then and now meant a heaped teaspoon of Nescafe in the mug with steam-heated milk near boiling point poured over. No water. Sheer bliss. How the coffee shops have got away with making coffee take so long and requiring vendors to be called Baristas is totally beyond me. As is the ridiculous strength that many people drink coffee these days.
As kids we would be dragged by the hand to the huts, still half asleep and suffering slightly from shock at having been got out of bed so early. But once there (admittedly probably with a glass of milk rather than coffee in the days before adolescence) we would look eagerly through the ever-present magazine racks that were filled with American comics, Batman and Superman had been going for a while but my own favourites were Marvel Comics, whose own super heroes were just starting to appear - The Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, Iron-Man, Hulk and Thor... Walking up Regents Road almost every second shop had racks of these outside. We would spend a fortune on them...
First thing in the morning you would see greenkeepers pushing manual lawn mowers to cut the grass on bowling greens every single day, each micron of new growth disappearing daily to leave a velvet surface, carefully done corner to corner to leave stripes of different shades of green. There were so many bowling greens and putting greens in the sixties. There were still a few bowling greens now, but sadly the putting greens, as we were to find, had gone.
The cinema was showing Men In Black II, Spider-Man and Austin Powers Goldmember. So at least Spidey still had a presence! In the past this had been a theatre. We had seen Cilla Black there one year almost at the start of her career and also one year Rolf Harris at the height of his popularity, well before scandal ruined his career.
This is where we were staying - the Shemara on Wellesley Road. The same family owned one of the tea huts on the Promenade so it became natural for us to frequent their hut for our coffees and perhaps a sandwhich at lunchtime. This was Sunday though, so the hotel served dinner at one o'clock. We had limited time to do much that morning.
Also staying at the Shemara were a family from Bedford or somewhere round there - two brothers and two sisters, three of whom looked late 60s or 70s and they had brought their mother on holiday with them. One of the brothers had his daughter with him. Phyllis, one of the sisters had a wicked laugh and no teeth... We used to see her and sometimes the two brothers at the beach hut in the mornings.
There was also a family with two sons from Lincolnshire who were very nice. The father and oldest son were always at the beach hut in the mornings and we used to sit with them. Then there was another family with two boys who, in everything they said and did, came across as gormless people raising gormless kids... I don't think they were all that unintelligent - they just chose not to use it... Favourite phrases included "Oh yeah... never thought of that..."
Sundays in Great Yarmouth normally included a walk to look at the docks on the River Yare, but for some reason Miss Franny wanted to go looking for the Scholl sandal shop if it was still there. Given that it was every husband's favourite shopping day - Sunday at a time when most shops would be shut - I went along with it. It was still there. It was shut...
In the afternoon we wandered up the Promenade to the Model Village, but there was the odd rumble of thunder every now and then so we thought we'd leave a proper visit for another day as the buildings within the village were a bit too small to shelter in. Sure enough, by mid to late afternoon it started to pelt it down with rain and we made for Regents Road and somewhere for an evening meal.
Saturday 17 August 2002. We had booked a week's stay in a B&B in Great Yarmouth, a well remembered childhood holiday town for both myself and Miss Franny, though if we ever caught a glimpse of each other during those childhood years, it passed us by completely...
Apart from its own attractions, Great Yarmouth is a convenient spot to do a bit of touring around Norfolk and Suffolk in a car with many activities and places of interest, some of which we'll visit during the week. The first thing we did on arrival though was book front row seats for a couple of shows.
Next, a nostalgic look at Joyland which is just next to the Britannia Pier. It seems amazing, but all those rides were them same when I was a little lad. They are just a tad more expensive per ride than they were then but I suppose wages are a tad more than they were back then too. The sight and sound of the snails in particular took me right back to the late 1950s...
Quite a lot of everything else had changed. There were still bowling greens but they were by far fewer in number. The putting greens had gone in favour of a large scale crazy golf course themed on pirates. Er... Miss Franny, why have I got a crow's nest coming out of my head...?
The Wellington Theatre wasn't presenting any shows. In fact the big difference between Great Yarmouth of the 1950s-60s and the 21st century is the unbelievable loss of live shows. This isn't unique to Great Yarmouth, but the town had a huge number of theatres as I remember it, now either disappeared or turned into cinemas or just plain derelict and empty. The Britannia Pier was alone in presenting shows and these were mainly short-runs, not a summer season as such.
A reverse bungee ride occupied what I think was another putting green. At twenty five pounds a go (what???) it would have taken far more money at a quarter of the price as it was unsurprisingly standing empty for most of the time.
Had it been twenty five pence a go I still don't think I would have been tempted somehow...
Up at Botton Bros Pleasure Beach (or down at - to me, living on the west coast it was easy to mix up north and south on the east coast) the Roller Coaster has a brakeman and the quality of the ride depends on his skill. It can be a thrilling ride, but I had in distant past years seen riders having to get out and push from the bottom of a dip due to the brakes being applied a bit too much.
Heading back down north (huh?) we passed the Winter Gardens at the side of Wellington Pier and thought we would come back for a spot of evening's refined drinkies.
There were a couple of girls singing to backing tracks and they were quite pleasing to the ear, though the P.A. system required you to be more or less opposite them to hear without some form of distortion. It was a promising start to a week's holiday.
Thursday 25 May 2023. We set off for a week's holiday to Great Yarmouth in sunny Norfolk.
Well, sunny but just a bit breezy if you know what I mean. We had a hotel room with sea view which meant a grand view of a vast car park with a narrow line of sea behind it. Some of this seascape was taken up by Scroby Sands, a sandbank that as a kid I remember being full of seals with regular boat trips out from the beach to enable you to look at them. It's now full of basking wind turbines, the vibrations of which somewhat put the seals off anything but a short stop to catch their breath.
The hotel was nice though, it was our third time of visiting it and it has a few quirks like an ancient lift that you have to manually close the doors of - outer door and an inner cage door. If any of these doors are not shut tight the lift refuses to work, so sometimes when someone gets out on the third floor and leaves the door slightly ajar, no one can use the lift until someone has hoofed it up the stairs to shut the door.
The first night we were sitting quietly in the bar and Miss Franny saw one of these being made for someone else. Apart from a few dubious floaters (coffee beans, always highly-prized for a quick crunchy snack) it looked really good and she was quite appreciative, delicately spitting out the rock-hard beans. I'm sure it wasn't really her fault that one smashed the full pint glass of beer of the chap sitting opposite, bringing a look of swift surprise and soggy comprehension to his face...
Holidays for us have become much less exotic than in recent years. Now carrying a cancer about, I'd rather not pay more for insurance than I would for an actual cruise holiday and I find that walking any distance is more a series of short hops from one bench to another a few yards further along. A fair bit of pain comes on holiday with me now too along with a daily unknown quantity of lightning bolts to the side that can make me yelp like a kitten whose tail you've just trodden on.
So Miss Franny ruled out any thoughts I might have had about trying this out. It's ok Miss Franny... I wasn't really having that many thoughts about seriously wanting to go on it anyway. Interestingly whilst sitting nearby and listening to passers by, it was mainly small kids and teenagers who fancied going on it whilst Dads almost invariably said "Oh no, I'm not going on that - I can't even look up to watch it without getting light-headed!"
Miss Franny spent several interludes having sat me down on benches outside cafes, on the Promenade or near the shopping centre and/or markets, where she disappeared to empty her purse and bank account whilst I sat marvelling at what people seem to think makes them look more attractive these days. I've never been a fan of tattoos I'm afraid, but am happy to overlook them on others. The current fad seems to be to cram as many small and totally incompatably random subjects as possible onto shins. Weird.
Anyway, many a time Miss Franny would return to find me deep in conversation with someone who had sat down next to me, or had a dog that liked the look of me and rushed over, or in one case almost knocked my cafe table over in what appeared to be an unplanned and unexpected sudden woosh of motorised mobility scooter. Why such things, intended for use on pavements and around vulnerable pedestrians, are designed to zip around at 20 miles per hour with first point of contact at shin or heel height I'm not too sure. Perhaps it's the manufacturers' way of ensuring future custom? In any case, on Miss Franny's return I would be greeted with "I always find you talking to people when I get back!"
This made me laugh. My phone ringtone is a snatch of the chorus of a 1932 comic song by Al Bowlly and Leonard Henry called "Meet Me Tonight in the Cow Shed"... You'll find it on YouTube if you want. This was up near the old Windmill Theatre, now an indoor crazy golf course... There used to be so many theatres and summer season shows in Great Yarmouth that you could see a show headed by famous household names just about every night during a week's stay without repeating a show. Now it's just the odd karaoke bar. The Britannia Pier still has its theatre but there were no shows until July and then it seemed that they only did the one night before moving somewhere else. A great shame.
We did a couple of bus rides out during the week. One to Norwich to see the castle. We saw the outside covered in scaffolding but it was closed for the renovations. We went in the museum where I enquired about the 1549 rebellion led by Robert Kett who beseiged the city with a few thousand peasants, taking the castle and cathedral during the short reign of Henry VIII's son, King Edward VI. Not only was there no reference to it anywhere, the girl at the counter had never heard of it. There's an excellent novel about it in C.J. Sansum's Tombland, one of the Shardlake series of novels.
Also we took the car out one day and went for a ride on the North Norfolk Steam Railway at Sheringham. A couple of trains were running and the photo shows the steam locomotive Black Prince at the terminus, reversing back past the train to be re-attached ready to pull the string of carriages back to Sheringham.
I found the courage to brave the wind towards the back end of the week to sit and draw this sketch of the pier and bowling green with a couple of tea huts on the Promenade. I did all of the colouring in the hotel bar on the last night to the great interest of some members of a coach party. They turned out to be a County Bowling Team which led to a slightly surreal conversation thus: "Is that where we were playing this afternoon?"
Well for one I'm not a member of your party so I have no idea where you were playing and for two, there was no one actually playing on this green and if they had have been then the wind would have been blowing their bowls off course... (The wind snapped a sapling tree in half opposite our bedroom window one night!) Anyway the following morning one of the blazered gents turned up to breakfast with a wooden spoon around his neck. "Did you win that as a trophy?" I asked cheerfully. He looked at me with a heavy sigh. "We won it for coming last," he said, "I have to wear it now until the next match..."
