A day trip to Berney Arms

 

It was quite a relief to close the gate behind me, a much-needed physical barrier separating myself from the sizeable posse of cows that had decided to follow me as I walked across the marshy Norfolk Broads towards the Berney Arms Pub.  Before being accosted, I’d enjoyed watching lapwings flit and tumble through the air, hares bounding and rollicking among the wild flowers, the vastness of the views, where the watery flatness indecipherably merges with the huge sky.

Kevin Crossley-Holland perfectly captures the landscape in his poem Dusk, Burnham Over Staithe.

'I only guess where marsh 

finishes and sky begins, 

each grows out of the other'

There’s a handsome, solitary windmill surveying the huge landscape. Norfolk's tallest, it is currently under restoration by English Heritage, it ground cement until 1948 before finding a fresh life pumping water from the Broads.

I made the journey in June 2011, inspired to make the effort after reading about it in Michael Williams’ lovely book, On The Slow Train, calling it ‘Britain’s smallest mainline station’. And he writes:

'Once the train has clattered off into the distance, there is only the sound of a few rooks wheeling overhead and just a whisper of breeze gently brushing the grass.’

 

Normally, just a handful of services stop by request and for the few people who do visit, its miniscule scale and remoteness is the major attraction. That day I wasn't the only person to have alighted from the two coach Wherry Lines service from Norwich. Two bird watchers, identifiable by their outfits and binoculars clambered out with me. I waited on the platform until they drifted out of sight.

The platform itself is no longer than the length of one train carriage. A ramshackle wooden box offers minimal protection from the elements. It’s a strange island, floating in a sea of green, entirely unconnected to its surroundings, in a timeless landscape, almost as though it has been dropped there by accident.

This jaunt returned to my mind this week as the latest statistics on the passenger numbers of individual stations was published. Berney Arms remains firmly planted near the bottom but that year it was quite busy, with more than 1,436 visitors across the year. Last year, obviously at the height of the pandemic, just 42 people made it there. In 2021, there has been something of a recovery with 348 passengers, up 729 per cent.

Crossing the rail track, the Weaver's Way leads across the flats to the river and on to Acle. It's 61 miles long and goes from Great Yarmouth to Cromer.

With a local population of zero, relying on twitchers, rail enthusiasts, and passing trade from boats on the River Yare, it's hardly a surprise the Berney Arms pub has been closed since 2015 and it's unlikely it will ever reopen - a painfully poignant film from the BBC capturing the ultimately vain hopes of a new landlord in 2013 can be seen here.

It was something of a scruffy pub - it had a similiar air to the Old Neptune on the beach at Whitstable - but with an undeniable and friendly charm. The beer was good, food was off and pictures of wherrymen from decades before were on the walls.

 

Its closure was a huge pity as it was quite delightful with fabulous views that only change with the seasons. There is a campaign to reopen the pub but hope appears to be forlorn. An application to open a bistro on the site was refused in 2020 with councillors refusing it on the basis emergency vehicles couldn't easily reach its location. Considering it had previously been licenses for decades, the decision seems both historically ignorant and shortsighted. To make matters worse, some nearby moorings for boats have reportedly been removed, making its viability even more challenging.

It was a flight of whimsy that took me there. And according to the latest passenger statistics, last year, there were six stations which had no visitors at all. Abererch, Gwynedd, Beasdale, Highland, Llanbedr, Gwynedd, Sampford Courtenay, Devon, Stanlow and Thornton, Cheshire and Sugar Load, Powys.  

Somewhere, people are dusting down their virtual Bradshaw's and planning out how to get there.

The statues now departed

For some time now, the dishevelled, windblown promenades of Brixton station have been distinguished by items that are noticeable by their absence. On each of the three platforms, north, south and abandoned, familiar faces to regulars are no longer greeting travellers, despite having stoically braved whatever conditions have been thrown at them since they first appeared in 1986, after being selected by a panel including architect Sir Hugh Casson.

Kevin Atherton's Platforms Piece - his three bronze statues of figures associated with Brixton, Peter Lloyd on platform one, mother Joy Battick on the unused platform three and a white German woman called Karin Heistermann on platform two - has been removed pending restoration. But the process has dragged on painfully slowly with no timetable, amended or otherwise, as to when they might return.

No plaque or explanation plate has ever accompanied the statues as they have waited in their spots. Anonymous, unmistakably urban characters, they have stood, like everyone, impassively, waiting, hoping, for their train finally to arrive. Their continual presence has been strangely reassuring, anchors of serenity, ignoring the hubhub that has swirled around them. Their removal from service, therefore, was something of a shock.

They were only listed in 2016, with Historic England noting that the statues of Mr Lloyd and Ms Battick are:

'believed to be the first sculptural representation of British black people in England in a public art context, created for Brixton which is synonymous with the historical development of black British culture in the post-war period'.

First to leave - now for at least two years - was the statue of Karin, carrying a bag, taken from platform two. For a time, Southeastern put a sign up near her position saying she had been 'temporarily removed... for careful restoration'. The company added:

'We know how important these listed statues are to Brixton and to the community, and we'll replace the statue as soon as we can'.

I took a photograph of that sign on October 19, 2019. It has vanished leaving nothing in its stead, the statue hasn't reappeared and subsequently the other two figures have been removed too.

Considering how anxious some have recently been about the preservation of statues and some of the frankly embarrassing stuff said about their potential removal, with politicians absurdly warning against the 'rewriting of history', eager to protect whatever they hope is a popular conception of what is Britain's heritage, the lack of concern of the whereabouts of these geninely significant pieces, is something of a mystery.

The need for conservation is, of course, appreciated, but the apparent lack of urgency to reinstall the works, the paucity of information over what it actually happening and lack of a timetable for what can be expected, is very concerning. It may, of course, simply be that the pandemic has thrown whatever schedule that did exist into chaos.

Southeastern have said this last week: 'They were removed last year, and we've since engaged a specialist contractor to scope and undertake any repairs, plus carry out a full restoration so they can be reinstated in their right place at the station'.

Adding: 'We'll have more to say on this very soon'.

I can't wait. 

But, in the way passengers fear a train might never arrive when their services are disrupted, the complete absence of the information on the future of these statues feeds fears they may never return.

Note: This excellent piece on Brixton Blog has more on Platforms Piece and the Historic England entry can be read here

On writer's block

There is an obstacle in my mind around which I’m struggling to negotiate.

It’s quite hard to positively identify.  A combination of tiredness, a lack of patience and discipline, an imagination that struggles to spark and a fear of inadequacy, perhaps, all coagulating to clot my brain, severely hampering my ability to write critically or for pleasure.  And it’s becoming a matter of huge disappointment and frustration.

Hilary Mantel recommends getting away from the desk to ‘take a walk, take a bath, go to sleep, make a pie’ but not to ‘go to a party’.  Walks I can do, parties I already evade.  Kurt Vonnegut wondered about the fate of a writer living in ‘perfect freedom who has nothing more to say’; it’s not a lack of a things to say, it’s the ability to do so.

This piece, in itself, is a hopeful attempt to puncture the embolism.

To an extent, it is to be expected. I have two young children, six and eight, with all the inevitable demands that entails.  Fitting a full-time job around their agendas fills much of the day. For too long – especially in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic – simply reading for pleasure was something of challenge.  Even with commuting being something of a rarity – almost 50 minutes of guaranteed reading time a day – that mountain has been conquered.

And there has been wilful detachment.  For all the intensity of work, observing and writing about what has been going on over the last few tumultuous years – referendums on Scotland and the EU, political deadlock combined with rapidly changing governments, staggering incompetence, habitual lying, cartoonishly vain politicians – escaping to the family and quieter pursuits has proved something of a relief.

But, how to extract the thoughts welling up in my head and get them on to paper?

For me, the process of writing has always been about forming the first sentence.  Crafting that is the key to a whole piece.  Weighing ideas up in my mind, pacing back and forth, walking round the block, trying to construct the right opening, from which other ideas can flow and spark, that has always been my first step. 

Now though, ideas flit through my head like swallows skirting through a sunny sky, evasive, banking, fleeting.  Even grasping those thoughts for long enough to squeeze into 280 characters is frequently a step too far.

It also has become a self-fulfilled silence.  The more I dwell on it, the harder it becomes.

Just writing these few words seems absurdly self-indulgent and ridiculous but hopefully there’s an element of catharsis, the lancing of a troublesome intellectual boil.