After the rain

Last week Nick D. and I cycled from Woodbridge in Suffolk to Cromer in Norfolk over three leisurely days, staying overnight in Southwold, Great Yarmouth and Cromer, before heading back to London by train. It had been planned several months before, irrespective of weather conditions, though our past October jaunts have all been remarkably warm and sunny. The weekend before the trip, however, the east coast had been battered by high winds, driving rain and flash flooding. As it turned out our luck held once again and we cycled dry for the whole journey, with only one serious obstacle.

On the B1127 from Southwold to Wrentham we came to a short length of flooded road at Potter’s Bridge that was impassable by bike. The road crosses an area of marshland and shallow river courses near Rough Walks which terminate in the Eastern Broad, one of several freshwater lagoons along the coast close to the hamlet of Covehithe, parts of which have already been lost to the sea. On both sides of the road the long grass embankment and the marshes beyond were still under water, and the road itself was like a river in flood. Car traffic queued to take turns in aquaplaning along the centre of the river and we were briefly flummoxed at what to do. There was no alternative route. We tapped on the window of a large white courier van waiting in the queue and asked if he had room for us and the two bikes. No problem, he said, and he ferried us cheerfully to the other side.

It had not been the intention to turn the trip into a study of coastal erosion or excessive weather conditions, but it soon became obvious that we were in vulnerable territory. The sandy cliffs of Covehithe were slowly being eaten away, and elsewhere hand-made signs planted on cliff edges warned walkers of dangers ahead on unstable footpaths. At Happisburgh we had a sandwich lunch in the Hill House pub, located on a promontory overlooking the North Sea, behind which the once thriving caravan park had been abandoned to erosion, and was now being unceremoniously cleared of the remains. The owners of the guest-house we stayed in at Great Yarmouth told us that only three days before Yarmouth and neighbouring Gorleston-on-Sea had both been badly flooded by heavy and prolonged rainfall, with the streets under water and manhole covers lifted from their casings by the strength of the overflowing drains.

The erosion at Covehithe and Happisburgh reminded me of a film shown some years ago at one of the annual ‘Place’ weekends at Snape Maltings devoted to landscape matters, curated by the estimable Gareth Evans. Called Lines of Defence, it was made by artist Bettina Furnée, who had planted 38 flags in five lines at regular distances from the existing cliff edge at Bawdsey in Suffolk. She had then set up a camera that photographed the promontory every 15 minutes for a whole year. The still frames were then sequenced as a time-release film, graphically recording the relentless erosion of the cliff, as every few minutes another tranche of field fell into the sea.

Timely, then, that Gareth Evans is back on the scene and helping curate this year’s Flipside Festival at Henham in Suffolk with Festival Director Genevieve Christie, where, rather appropriately, writer Edward Platt will be talking about his new book, The Great Flood: Travels Through a Sodden Landscape. The programme also includes musicians Laura Cannell and Polly Wright, writers George Szirtes, Julia Blackburn, Jon Day and Robert Macfarlane, composers such as Mira Calix and Joanna Pocock, plus films and live music, and is a worthy successor to the earlier Snape gatherings. Think of them – and now Flipside – as East Anglia’s answer to Black Mountain College, and in my opinion just as influential over this past decade or more. Unmissable.

On our last afternoon cycling, and wearied by being buffeted about by strong winds, Nick and I stopped by the churchyard in Paston, Norfolk, for a rest, both soon falling asleep. On waking we investigated the church and found to our great delight that it had been the place of worship of the Paston family in the 15th century, credited with inventing the tradition of the domestic or familial letter. Their correspondence was kept safe for many centuries, and is now a great treasure-house for literary historians. Since Nick and I both trained to be English teachers in the 1960s, we suddenly felt in that dusty church to be directly in touch with a great literary source, as comments in the visitor’s book from around the world confirmed. Unlike Philip Larkin, however, we could not take off our cycle clips in reverence, as we were both wearing lycra tights, the advantages of which the poet sadly did not live long enough to enjoy.

KW

For more details of the Flipside Festival:
http://www.flipsideuk.org/flipside-festival

For more details of Bettina Furnée’s film, Lines of Defence: http://bettinafurnee.co.uk/works/lines-of-defence-2008/