Following some super sessions on the Middle-Level some years ago, my pal, Mick, and I decided upon a week’s piking in the drains around the Downham Market area. Mick left it to me to book the accommodation and with a little help from the Angling Times I soon had a seven-day stay in a bed & breakfast lined up.
On our arrival – somewhere around the middle of November – we were greeted by the epitome of middle-aged Norfolk womanhood to whom I shall refer as Brenda.
Bright, well-kept and buzzing with enthusiasm, Brenda showed us into the dining-room and served us tea before showing us around: had we had a good journey up? Were we after those zander? Did we want to know of a good pub? The woman was positively brimming, though there may have been a little method in her particularly warm welcome…
On climbing the stairs to our room the distinctive aroma of damp and staleness hit us like a punch in the face causing Mick and I to exchange a “shall we try somewhere else” sort of look, but not wishing to offend our landlady or to jump to conclusions we followed her along the upstairs passage and into a rudely furnished bedroom.
Five Star it wasn’t. Heaven only knew how many generations had entered and departed this Earth in that bed – early Victorian I thought, certainly. I could almost see Grand-mama, bed-capped, pebble-spectacled and one step from death’s door, wheezing and coughing into the attendant poe; physician not at all hopeful and eager to leave before the mist came down for the night…
The bed was piled high with horse-blankets and trench-coats from both major wars so when Brenda stepped over to the equally-ancient wardrobe I casually assumed she intended hanging the lot up. Instead, she opened the doors wide, liberating a cloud of camphor and revealing a rackful of similar clobber.
“There’s plenty more cowts if yer need ‘em”. She obviously sensed our unease and could see a week’s money about to descend the stairs. “I know it ain’t too posh or nuthin” she said humbly, “but then oi ain’t charrgin’ too much”. A gaping hole in the wall – the size of a football – turned our heads and I wondered if Mick could see the big black spider from his angle. He looked at me for a decision. “There’s worse places than this round ‘ere y’know” said Brenda with ill-concealed desperation, reaching back to allow more daylight through the curtains.
Ever the soft touch, I glanced at Mick then asked her the cost. Quick as a flash – “Foiver a noit, bloody-great breakfast, packed lunch and an evenin’ meal”
Now that was cheap!” Done” said Mick, having computed in an instant the number of extra pints the saving would buy. I knew Mick.
We squelched back down the stairs, avoiding the many chewed dogs’-bones, and fetched our gear in. We’d give it a try.
It was fairly late in the day so our time was spent finding a hiding-place for the live-bait; we’d brought them up to Norfolk in a bucket positioned between the co-drivers knees and aerated manually – or should I say lungfully – every few minutes through a length of rubber tubing. Anyway, a quick ‘recce’ of our intended stretch of the Middle-Level was made, followed by a swift half in a less than salubrious pub.
On returning to our digs, a wiry grey-haired guy of about fifty opened the kitchen door precipitating a downfall of yellow paint-flakes; his name was…well, let’s call him Reg. He stood back for us to enter and suggested a cup of tea in the ‘special’ room, adding that he wouldn’t normally allow strangers in there, but Brenda had said that we “seemed alright”. Relieved at passing the eligibility-test, we chatted while the tea brewed then reverently went through to the special room, Mick and I intrigued as to what might give this room such status.
On entering, it appeared to be nothing more than an extremely ordinary living-room and, indeed, it was, but relative to the rest of the house I suppose it was rather opulent. We quickly established that tact wasn’t Reg’s strongest attribute. Having met him for the first time only minutes before, he volunteered his view that the embossed velvet suite on which we sat would not normally be ‘For the loikes of yew”(!) Bemused and amused, we sipped our tea and learned a little of each other, avoiding the damp custard-creams and dubious fruit-cake.
Apparently, Reg had been “livin’ in sin” with Brenda for some fifteen years; he spoke of her not disrespectfully, but without warmth or any suggestion of loyalty, referring to her family as “Them” , the enemy almost, who’d instilled in Brenda an unreasonable thriftiness and financial-caution. “They” were long-dead, but their in-life role as key business-figures in the village had blessed Brenda with a substantial inheritance which she was loathe to spend.
Reg told us woefully – and a little too readily – of his woman’s vow that having been “Born in this ‘ouse – she’d doie in this ‘ouse”.
Reg didn’t want to live here…he’d set his heart – long ago, apparently – on a brand-new, four bedroomed, Neo-Georgian place and had almost persuaded her at one point to take the plunge. But here he was still, years on, having to combat rising-damp and falling standards. One couldn’t take pity on Reg; his love for Brenda and her money had a clear bias toward the latter, and apart from that, he was quite evidently an unworldly Country-Tory of the worst kind… if “the loikes of us” were privileged at gracing his mediocre suite, what would he make of a pair of foreign visitors? We made our excuse and left after forty minutes or so, returning for the evening meal as arranged earlier with Brenda.
Desperate Dan would have had trouble wading through the pile of grub laid before us that evening; so full were we by the finish of the main course, Mick and I began to worry that there’d be no room for a few beers later on.
But Brenda showed no mercy, following-up with an enormous helping of steamed jam-pud and custard and insisting – no questions – that the lot was tucked-away!
A team of underpinners from Clacton who’d been waiting at the table before we arrived told us of “Ma’s” pride in her cooking and affirmed that there really was no question of leaving any….she’d get the right hump if anybody failed to clear their plate!
This particular evening set the theme for the rest of the week and considering the enormity of the breakfasts rustled-up by Reg each morning it was a wonder we ever managed to right ourselves and stagger down to The Peacock; we surprised ourselves equally so by managing to rise each morning before five, but then, that’s the lure (geddit) of pike-fishing. On those frequent occasions when we found ourselves in just Reg’s company – and particularly so at breakfast time – we’d gather a few fragments more of Reg’s broken dream of a nice, new house and a few bob in the bank. By the weekend, his ramblings had become mildly obsessive, and on our final morning – a Sunday – Reg told us of the house-plans he’d had drawn-up a few years before.
“Oi can’t be bothered to foind ‘em now” he said “but oi’ll get ‘em out for when you return – ‘sarternoon?”
We agreed then set off for a frosty day amongst the reeds of The Level.
