ORIGINAL MESSAGE

NAME: Mike Carter

DATE: 08 June 2009

CONNECTION WITH QE: Old Boy 1957-1963

Does anyone out there recall learning how to sail on a trip to the Norfolk Broads in 1963?  We stayed under canvas on a site owned by Norfolk Schools at Barton Turf, sailing on Barton Broad.  Once again I think our mentors were Messrs. Fry and Dilley & possibly Alford (did they go on every school trip?).  I recall that we started craft that would hold several pupils and a member of staff moving up to a Wayferer as we apparently got the hang of things.  I must have learnt something as I left QE at the end of my first term in the 6th form when my parents moved to Norfolk and I had to join another school.  That was a shock after being able to walk to QE I now had a 3 mile cycle ride, 10 mile train journey and then a 15 minute walk to reach the school.  At least we didn't have to go in on Saturdays.  I ended up crewing for a friend at this school and together we represented Norfolk in the East of England Schools sailing championships at Brancaster and Burnham on Crouch.

1st REPLY

NAME: Adam Lines   Then & Now

DATE: 15th June 2009

CONNECTION WITH QE: Old Boy 1957-64

Hi, Mike.  Barton Broad is indeed etched on my memory as a happy interlude to the general tedium of QE life.  Arriving on site (which I think was owned by Herts CC) the first task was to 'dig the lats' which involved using a screw auger in a field and usually finding from the aroma 3 feet down that somebody had screwed there before!  Palliasses were filled from a nearby pile of straw and our accommodation was brown ex-army bell tents - I can still smell the wax waterproofing compound!  The starter boats were Cadets and in due course Wayfarers.  The main problem was going aground as one often did in the shallow silty Broad.  Huw Purchas I think led the singing round the ever lit camp fire (Coom by yar) and the other masters were always in a better mood when they returned from the nearby hostelry 'The Hole in the Wall'.  The Barton Broad experience left me with a lifelong love of camping, fishing, sailing and Arthur Ransome.

2nd REPLY

NAME: Mike Carter

DATE: 17th June 2009

CONNECTION WITH QE: Pupil 1957-63

Hello, Adam.  Thanks for putting me right on the site, I should have remembered.  I do rememeber those latrines, bottom right hand corner of the field facing the broad if memory serves.  As for the waterproofing, I don't recall it being 100% and the ground was jolly hard so perhaps I missed out on some of the straw!  I still have my Arthur Ransome hard backs, it proves a useful selling tool in my shop.  If you ever return to the Norfolk Broads call in at the post office in Horning and have a chat with the old boy behind the counter.  I've put on a few pounds since 1963 and am somewhat greyer on top!

3rd REPLY

NAME: Derek Scudder

DATE: 20th June 2009

CONNECTION WITH QE: Pupil 1957-64

I didn't go to Barton Broad with the school but had a fishing holiday there with friends in 1965.  We rented a houseboat and two dinghys with outboard motors, but didn't, if I remember correctly, catch very much.  There was a pub there called the Hole in the Wall.  We used to buy our booze from an off licence in the boatyard and it was, literally, a hole in the wall.  It was run by a very old lady.  Bizarrely I remember her name, Emily E Yaxley.  My wife and I visited Horning a couple of months ago but walked right past the post office without realising it was run by an OE.