25 March 2002

on 25 March 2002 at 08:00

Desperate bid to keep us out of driving seat

I see that Norfolk County Council’s exciting Local Transport Plan aims to give public transport advantages over the car in terms of journey time, quality and convenience. If it wants something easier to go for first, it might try draining the North Sea.

I use public transport frequently, although not for commuting. A few days ago I travelled by train to Thetford and back (well, someone has to do it).

It was a cold morning, but the train was at the platform when I arrived 15 minutes early; so I anticipated warming up inside. Unfortunately the train was locked. About 50 passengers had to shiver on the platform until the crew arrived with about four minutes to spare – and even then took their time getting settled before opening the doors. I am sure there is some health and safety regulation that demands this.

On my return journey from Thetford I was seven minutes early for the 11.52. An electronic monitor, however, informed me that the train was delayed – sorry – and would not arrive until 12.06; so to avoid shivering on another platform, I went for a fairly brisk walk. Hard to believe, but there it is. Returning about 10 minutes later, I saw my train pulling out – at 11.55 – leaving me an hour to kill in Thetford.

The only way to make a car less attractive than this would be to put obstacles in the road and introduce limits well below optimum speed, resulting in congestion and pollution. This would make life worse for everyone and so would have to be rejected unless – hang on, that’s exactly what’s happening. And of course it’s still not working.

This leaves us with the last, ludicrous option of disrupting road traffic arbitrarily on some idiotic pretext that doesn’t fool anyone. Amazingly, this too is happening.

Last week, massive disruption was caused to rush-hour traffic on the A47 for the sole purpose of asking drivers where they were going. Why anyone should think that a driver held up pointlessly for the previous half-hour will give an honest answer to such a question is beyond me. But apparently it is a government requirement for councils to do this if they want money – which for some reason doesn’t surprise me at all. So the bizarre activity will continue, presumably until a driver hits someone, or maybe beyond.

But never mind, the council is apologising in advance, and it’s only going to cost you and me over £200,000.

What’s really frightening is that this is not even a sinister plot. It’s just the usual bungling.

New planning twist

Many readers of this page, I know, like to stand around in the city – waiting, perhaps, for someone to build another bridge across the Wensum, or a bus station of some kind. In such a state, a person might easily find himself reading a planning application.

Since time immemorial – even before Richard Dawkins was created – these have been fixed to Norwich lamp-posts for the delectation of passers-by. Unhappily, things are changing.

Instead of being mounted on a board for easy reading, they are now wrapped round the nearest pole. Obviously this makes them much harder to read, and I suspect the influence of the great crested newts that infest all corridors of power. Such amphibians are used to twisting themselves – and everyone else – into ever-tightening contortions, particularly over planning matters.

Are they trying to keep something from people with normal necks? We should be told.

Contamination risk unforeseen as bug strikes

The hindsight bug has struck again.

Widespread criticism of the ill-judged parking meter scheme in Norwich has meant that changes costing £16,500 are called for, and Norwich Highways Agency committee chairman Leslie Mogford has been tragically struck down.

“In hindsight we could have made it work better,” he said. “But hindsight is a wonderful thing.”

In what way is hindsight a wonderful thing? Well, for one thing it is a wonderful device for deflecting legitimate criticism. But it’s wearing a bit thin.

Meanwhile parking meter experts RTA Associates must be a trifle red-faced. In 2000 they estimated the monthly income would be £76,000. It turned out to be £38,000, which is not particularly adjacent. Could this be another case of a council getting expensive experts to make a prediction that its own staff could have done for comparatively nothing – and scarcely less accurately? Hindsight again, no doubt.

Health officials are already closing East Anglian borders to prevent the plague spreading. Helicopters are even now spraying council offices and other areas of risk. No one is safe.

Wrong blame for bedlessness

In writing last time about the reluctance of managements generally to provide plenty, going for a bare minimum instead, I wrongly blamed the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital NHS Trust for the shortage of beds at its brave new building.

In fact the trust has always wanted more beds, but the Norfolk Health Authority, which is responsible for allocating cash from a single government pot to hospitals and primary care trusts, consistently went for a minimum figure. The difference is quite substantial – 701 instead of 910 – and it was inevitable that the hospital would have far fewer beds than it wanted.

The National Beds Inquiry, which is a countrywide NHS review, regards 83 per cent occupancy of beds as the ideal – giving sufficient leeway to deal with emergencies. The percentage at the new hospital is a less than reassuring 97 per cent.

As it happens, the Norfolk Health Authority is about to disappear off the face off the earth, to be replaced by a Strategic Health Authority covering a much wider area. Will this cash-wielding body take a more enlightened view, or is it simply old men with new hats? I shall not be holding my breath.

11 March 2002

on 11 March 2002 at 08:00

On the trail of a dead man's friend

A letter posted in Norwich in 1847 came into my hands not long ago. Surprisingly, this was not another case of the Royal Mail dragging its heels, but the start of a fascinating detective story.

The epistle was found in a collection of stamps and letters left after the death of a collector. Addressed to “My Dear Son” and signed, I thought, “Thy true affectionate mother, H Buckhouse”, it is about the funeral of an obviously prominent man. Someone called “dear Eliza” seemed to be the widow.

How could I pin the dead man down? The first step was to search the internet for someone called Buckhouse. Here I drew a blank. I was also unable to find a record of the funeral deep down in the newspaper vaults here at Prospect House.

Then it occurred to me that Buckhouse might be Backhouse, and here I struck lucky: the trusty Google search engine turned up a web page about papers left by the Backhouses of Darlington, a prominent banking and Quaker family. In my letter was the phrase “our Darlington friends”, and the address was Polam Hall – now an independent school for girls, but at the time the home of the Backhouses.

Looking more closely, I found that Hannah Chapman Backhouse (1787-1850), was the daughter of Joseph Gurney (1757-1830), Quaker banker of Lakenham Grove, Norwich. I was clearly getting somewhere.

It was not long before I was able to discover that it was Joseph John Gurney who died in January 1847.

Any remaining doubt vanished with the information that his third wife was named Eliza – in fact an American, Eliza Paul Kirkbride, born in Philadelphia.

In this world of evangelical Quakerism, almost all the names were Quaker ministers, including Joseph, Eliza and Hannah. All were related to arguably the most famous Quaker of all, prison reformer and mother-of-11 Elizabeth Fry, who died two years earlier. She was Joseph’s sister. Hannah was their cousin.

Other names in the letter fell into place. “Samuel, Eliza and myself were put into the first carriage,” wrote Hannah, who also mentions an address at the funeral by Bevan Braithwaite. Samuel was undoubtedly Joseph and Elizabeth’s brother, while Bevan Braithwaite was another prominent Quaker minister.

How did Joseph John Gurney come to marry an American? As well as organising relief for the poor during the depressions of the 1820s and 1830s, and a service for jobless fishermen at Cromer in 1842, he had close links with Quakers in America.

After his death Eliza moved back to New Jersey and was active in social reform, meeting and corresponding with Abraham Lincoln.

I feel some affinity for JJ, because he and I were born in the same place – Earlham Hall, Norwich. Admittedly it was a nursing home by the time I made my late appearance, but I feel sure that something must have rubbed off.

Why the police are confused

Hard to argue with the Mayor of Cromer, who feels that the police should be cracking down on vandalism and loutishness in towns instead of devoting three officers to stopping him for what may or may not have been speeding.

The police said they were following “publicly agreed priorities”. Exactly who agreed is open to conjecture, but I suspect the usual craftily worded questions to a carefully selected group of people.

I don’t blame the police, really. They are bigger than me; so I find not blaming them is a sound policy.

If I was a policeman, I would certainly rather tackle a harmless citizen in the company of two colleagues than try to control drunken yobs fouling up town centres. Especially when magistrates seem to regard beating someone up to within an inch of death as an amusing aberration meriting the lightest sentence possible.

The previous paragraph was written before Sir John Stevens’ broadside at the pathetic performance of the criminal justice system, and I have the utmost sympathy with him and the police in general on that issue.

However, I can’t help a little twinge of irritation when I see a sparkling new Speed Camera Promotion Partnership van ready to pounce. I mean, when was the last time you read about a fatal or serious accident caused purely by driving fast?

No doubt we will continue to suffer from unthinking TV journalists who can find no other sensible question to ask than “Was speed the problem?”, even when a policeman has just told her that the accident was caused by something quite different. But perusal of newspaper reports will reveal that accidents are caused by poor judgment – errors in overtaking, for instance.

Paradoxically, one of the reasons such an accident may happen is that a driver is not overtaking fast enough, a mistake which the current climate of speed cameras encourages.

Another huge cause of accidents is error at junctions, and it is good to see Norfolk police using their valuable time not only to name the county’s nine most dangerous, but to park police cars there as a warning. I wonder how many police cars they have.

Shrimp's epic film plan

To mark his 103rd birthday this month, Norfolk legend and curate Henry (Fred) “Shrimp” Houseago will be releasing an epic Norfolk motion picture which he has been working on in secret. Called Crouching Coypu, Hidden Rabbit, the film will attempt to portray the very essence of Norfolk.

The central theme will be the martial arts of the typical ancient Norfolk “bors”, who spent days in meditation on the traditional “gate” before venturing out to do battle in almost supernatural fashion against great crested newts and other foreigners.

Purists have complained that the newts are a late invention and were never part of real Norfolk, but Mr Houseago has insisted on their inclusion, together with a selection of attractive “mawthers”. The climax takes place on the vast and mysterious Beeston Bump.

Other scenes have been shot in secret at Pondhenge, Kelling Heath and Pingoland.

Mr Houseago refuses to release details of the plot, but says: “It will be even bigger than Harry of the Rings.”