CLARE

Last week I took the short journey from Norwich to Clare, near Sudbury, Suffolk, which is where I was brought up. It's less than 70 miles to Clare but felt like thousands. I lived there from 1955 (aged 2) and it was "home" until my mother Muriel left in 1980. So, I spent my childhood and adolescence in this small picturesque town.

Clare boasts a wonderful country park (which incorporates the railway station Beeching axed in 1966) and the castle; the Mill Meadows which embrace the River Stour to and beyond the old weir; The Common, the site of a Roman encampment; an active 13th Century Priory and historic architecture chocolate boxes leap at.

Despite a terrible schooling, I had a very happy upbringing in Clare. The Shady Tree, Butcher's Alley, The Cellar, Rat's Castle, Hollow Ditch and Agie's House instantly spring to mind as 'haunts' in and nearby Clare. Ah, nostalgia.

I'd not been to Clare for over six years when I found the place overwhelmingly glossed up with real and half imagined wealth. This time, in such a Recession, I found the paint beginning to peel off and I could almost glimpse the 'old Clare' my parents had fallen in love with two generations ago. Yet, nowhere is an island, and on the journey through Norfolk and Suffolk to Clare - the richest and most profitable farmland in the country - I saw more than paint peeling off. The growth of rural car boots is endemic: there seems to be a car boot for every village and hamlet, and some the hedge life between! Only poverty and/or its threat really creates the car boot market in rural areas for there is an abundance of auction houses and antique shops and farmers markets and fairs for those who have.

Poverty in such places as Clare?! Am I mad? Of course there is. Even picture book Clare had its council house estates - Highfields and Westfields (the kids of which were my peers). Even the Thatcher council house sell offs couldn't actually get rid of poverty. Rather, the reduction in council housing since the 1980s has increased the divide between rich and poor precisely because a huge swathe of working people are priced out of the market while being denied low rent housing.

Yet, as you walk through Clare, who could ever think of poverty? The Post Office is now some naff cafe, while 'Butchers' (which was a general store) seems to have become, in part, a newsagents (which is also The Post Office--?!) Meanwhile, two pubs have closed and the place in school holidays seems bereft of children...

Perhaps Clare is becoming some weird postmodern fantasy of history as a museum portrayed as real life?

Going Home?

This was 'home' on Snow Hill, Clare. More than the paint is peeling... but through that window on the left my father Tom - in his daytime job - restored some great and famous paintings.

The White House, Clare

This is The White House. No, no, not that White House! However, here, as a trainee reporter I interviewed the grandson of Sir Joshua Wedgwood - he of the plates.

Clare's Old Iron Bridge

This is the fantastic Victorian iron bridge over the River Stour on the western edge of Clare. It features in my mother's paintings (refer to her gallery blog on my righthand side bar).

Clare Priory

Wow, what a place! Was originally a 13th Century retreat for the Augustine Order from Italy I believe. Henry VIII shut it down. It was ressurrected as a functioning priory for priests in 1953. Though an atheist I met the friars in my teens. My friend Paul Cross was a catholic. He helped clean the priory. Sixteen years of age, Paul and I spent the early evening at the Priory - and shared their evening meal! Yes, the friars drank a lot. In their new car they drove us to Sudbury. Paul and I 'hit the town' and the friars had a meeting with some Nuns! Yes, it was 1970 and everyone was liberated!!!

The View From Clare Castle

A view from Clare Castle. I used to cycle down the mound - and now wonder how us lads didn't kill ourselves. Still, it was more wild back then...

Old Clare

It was the best moment of my visit to Clare. It's not all syrup and the new rich. This kind of weird amalgamation of house and shed is what I remember and love about the place.

Poslingford Corner

This is Poslingford Corner, Clare. The Bridge of my childhood is just visible but nothing like it was. However, the end cottage (given that the front garden is now open plan) is as I remember it. Here is Ann Day's Cottage - a brilliant intelligent woman who accepted us kids and the sociability of the village of the 1960s. She was a socialist, a 'reader,' a cat lover, a mother, and a universal friend. I remember Ann Day fondly because if this world is ever going to change for the better there's going to be an Ann Day on every corner.

A. L. Morton's house

This is the fantastic 13th Century Chapel that was A.L. Morton's House. Today, it may seem an utter contradiction that Leslie Morton, this country's leading communist historian of the 20th Century should occupy such a beautiful property. However, brilliantly, the Russian Revolution found ruling class people moving the other way. Indeed, intellecturals like Morton not only rejected the privelege of wealth - as Shelley had done in the early 19th C - as Paul Foot did post war - Morton dedicated his life to English Woking Class History. His 'People's History of England' remains a classic seminal work.

I not only scrumped apples from his garden, I interviewed Leslie whilst a trainee reporter in 1971/2. The great man had not then realised the utter terrors of Stalin or the imperialist slavery of Eastern Bloc countries like Poland. He not only believed 'socialism' had been achieved under the USSR, he lectured in the Eastern Bloc. Yet, for all his failings he was an amazing historian and someone Clare should celebrate over and over...

TOM & MURIEL MALLIN MEMORIAL EXHIBITION INVITE

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED TO A MEMORIAL EXHIBITION OF TOM & MURIEL MALLIN'S WORK at THE HALESWORTH GALLERY, STEEPLE END, HALESWORTH, SUFFOLK

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 5TH TO WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 16TH

11AM TO 5PM DAILY (SUNDAYS, 2PM TO 5PM)

Also showing: work by David Thompson - one time Times Critic and Director of the ICA.

You are also invited to the Private View - Friday September 4th from 6.30pm - RSVP 07775 870392

YOU ARE ALSO INVITED TO ATTEND

AN EVENING OF POETRY & MUSIC

WITH GERALD NASON, RUPERT MALLIN & ANDREW OSBORN

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 11TH FROM 8.30PM

TICKETS £4 - INCLUDING REFRESHMENTS - PHONE JAN MARTIN ON 01986 872409

Rolled but unsmoked

I can remember when fields like this used to be torched at this time of year...

Wheels and Dust

Work by a GCSE Art Student on Marriott's Way, near Alysham, Norfolk.

Hairstyles...

ain't what they used to be.

WHAT IS THIS? BIG PRIZE OFFER FOR ANSWER

More purple than this, I found it out walking...

A fantastic prize for anyone who can tell me awaits!

HEALTH & SAFETY

I've just been on a Health & Safety course as I work with those in the community. Obviously, because farmers work with No One in the community, they follow the Risk & Death policy of Norfolk Farmers United - as seen here!

WHAT DO WE DO WITH HISTORY?

Here is Caistor-by-Sea's Roman Fort. Not much to look at - because pretty well hidden away - but entirely important as model to England becoming the generator of Capitalism. This Fort overlooked the Roman's main Anglian port in the first century AD; and this Fort united soldiers, sailors and traders; and this Fort is closely linked to the big Caister St Edmunds encampment (Norwich).

Though the empire crumbled, the Yare then the Waveney provided the means to make Norwich one of the building blocks of capitalism via the trading hall on King St., Norwich - The Dragon's Hall. York also boasts such a hall.

There's a great saying: "what runs one way can run the other."

Life in the Fort...

Only when you investigate do you realise there's a continuous struggle to keep ALL history alive...

BOO!

Interesting graffiti around Anglia Square, Norwich

SCOOP!! NORWICH CAR BOOT WARS

For over 20 years Billy used to run Arminghall Car Boot. It is one of the most established in the region. Over the winter, the farmer whose fields Billy operated the car boot on - or the farmer's sons - told Billy they'd run it themselves. With over 400 pitches twice a week you don't need a calculator to work out that the profits are not in selling but in offering car/van pitches from £7. Why need a Go-between if you're The Farmer?

Billy runs other successful car boots in Norwich (as established organiser, NOT owner) so it was a surprise to see in the press that Billy was setting up a cheap £5 per vehicle car boot site on the very next field to the Farmer's car boot - the very car boot Billy had established all those years ago - over all those years.

Anyway, this morning came. Trouble was The Farmer and Billy share the same small road onto each site - and The Farmer had employed men and women to bodily stand in the road and divert stall holders and punters into the Farmer's Car Boot! Gridlock traffic conditions ensued - in this rural hamelt of Norwich!

Billy seemed to have set up his alternative to show The Farmer's car boot wasn't following the rules, never mind Health & Safety! While every car boot seller on the Farmer's field ended up with a cheap £5 pitch, this war wasn't cricket!

We're in a deep Recession - which provides profits for car boot organisers. "Free Market," "fair competition" - just rubbish talk of selfish profiteers. No one seems to give a damn for the punters.

JUST RECEIVED THIS FROM NORFOLK'S BLOG REPORTER ROBERT CATCHPOLE