Norfolk: summer's end

Norfolk isn't a place that you might just pass through; no, you have to want to go there. It requires a bit of an effort. It's one of those land's end places where the land meets the sea and a great overarching sky.

Perched on the edge of the North Sea, Norfolk was a hunting ground for Viking invaders. But if you are trying to approach it by car, instead of long-ship, be warned that is one of the few counties in England without a major motorway.

Much of England divides itself into a north/south paradigm, but Norfolk really doesn't fit into either category. It is exactly halfway between the two, and far to the east, and possesses its own sub-culture -- like most isolated places. "Normal for Norfolk" is either pejorative, or said with pride, depending on the speaker.

It seems fitting that England's most famous naval hero, Horatio Nelson, was a Norfolk lad. He grew up in Burnham Thorpe, which was only ten miles from the coastline. The Navy was a typical career choice for the younger son of a good family, and Nelson joined up at twelve, as did Jane Austen's two youngest brothers. (One of her brothers, Francis, actually served with Lord Nelson.)

One night we ate dinner at The Lord Nelson -- which was named for the hometown boy made good, following his decisive victory at The Battle of the Nile in 1798. As an adult, Nelson rarely returned to Norfolk unless he needed to recuperate from one of his injuries. I don't know if Norfolk was a place to sail, or just a place to sail away from . . .

While visiting the nearby Burnham Overy Staithe, we dropped into the village fête. Of course I couldn't resist the used-books stall, and I came away with several biographies with local interest -- including England's Mistress: The Infamous Life of Emma Hamilton and The Wilder Shores of Love. Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson were the ultimate celebrity couple of their time, and Hamilton's life story truly proved the maxim that truth is stranger than fiction. I haven't read about the wilder shores yet, but it features four 19th century women whose lives were just as adventurous as Emma Hamilton's. One of them, Jane Digby, grew up at the local Holkham Hall. She later travelled with a Bedouin tribe, as the mistress of a Sheik. Norfok must have given her a taste for wind and sand and wide open spaces.

The estate of Holkham claims, with some justification I think, to have "the best beach in England."

A picture cannot begin to capture the seemingly limitless panaroma. There is so much sky there, and such a vast expanse of white sand, that even on a Bank Holiday weekend the beachgoing hordes seem about as significant as ants.

Although I am usually leery of horses, I have to admit that I wanted to be in the silver slipstream of this rider. It must be a glorious thing to gallop down such a beach.

Unfortunately, those beautiful Norfolk beaches are also rather windswept. We were grateful to be there during a sunny spell, but even so, we had to huddle in the long grasses of the dunes to eat our picnic. Even on a late August day, the wind is a cold whip.

Poor Fanny Nelson. Not only did Lord Nelson throw her over most publicly for Emma Hamilton, but he transplanted her from a West Indies beach to a Norfolk one. Apparently, she was "debilitated by the Norfolk damp and mud" (Williams, p. 189). "Mrs. Nelson takes large doses of the bed," reported her father-in-law.

Impervious to mud and wind, my youngest daughter didn't want to leave the beach. Not even when the golden hour turned to dusk.

We came to Norfolk in August, but when we left, it was already September. So now the sun sets on summer . . .