I decide to wander inland to look at the Burnham villages. Map from the information centre in hand, I follow a path that goes along the hedge of a wheat field by the road. I love to see a strong successful field of waving golden corn at the height of summer. I break off a tiny ear, rub it between my fingers, and when the little germ comes out, I put it between my teeth and bite into it.
 |
| Burnham Deepdale |
Further on, I come to a bit of farming activity. On the edge of a potato field, a lorry is tipping its load of big red potatoes onto a stepped conveyor belt where two lads wait at the bottom, tossing any odd bad’uns away. The spuds then drop into the next section of the machine, where they are washed and come out the other end clean and ready for the supermarket. A big truck is also there, waiting for a full load to accumulate.
The path goes left through the welcome shade of trees and then right down a hill to the village of Burnham Market. Numerous shops and cafes, some shabby, some upmarket and smart, are on both sides of broadway with a small green and an island of trees in the middle. The big town sign on the green depicts a mediaeval market scene. I walk once round to find the best tea and savoury pie on offer. There are lots of people about; cars are parked in most available spaces, and this despite some places closed for lunch, and some even closed for the day, in dogged observance of Wednesday early closing. I get tea and a sausage roll at the bakers where I also get muddled directions to Burnham Thorpe from an agreeably flirty young assistant. Her “well spoken” accent tells me she won’t be working as a bakery assistant for very long.
After eating I wander on in the hope of getting to Nelson’s birthplace, but I end up in Burnham Overy Town, not Thorpe. Unconcerned in the beautiful sunshine I admire the Norfolk lavender and hollyhocks outside pretty stone cottages. The church offers a me a good shelter from the sun. A little note on the door of St. Clements Burnham Overy reads:
“We ask that this door be always shut, lest a bird enter and die of hunger and thirst”.
 |
| St Clements Burnham Overy |
Inside the empty church is welcomingly cool, and I sit at a pew. A bible and prayer book lie open on the lectern in front of me. On the wall above the pulpit, impressively rendered on four stone tablets and dated 1747, are three stern quotations from The Bible: The Ten Commandments, The Apostle’s Creed and The Lords Prayer. I note the similarity of the inscriptions to the 18th Century gravestones I was encouraged to admire in Weybourne. Both highly crafted and yet seemingly haphazard, words are carried on to the line below if they exceed space and can’t be completed, or they are overwritten in small letters above the line, where mistakes appear to have been made. At rest I read each inscription, noting the archaic variations of the text from those familiar now:
“From thence he fhall come to judge the quick and the dead. I believe in the Holy Ghoft; the holy Catholick Church; the communion of Saints; the forgivenefs of fins…”
Two women rattle with the door and enter the church, stay a while, and then go, carelessly imperilling the birds by leaving the door open. May God show mercy on their fins.
Remembering that Google Maps on my phone sometimes works, I try it for directions to Burnham Thorpe. The app dutifully pinpoints my exact location and indicates Nelson’s birthplace down the road a way. I’m drawn off the road by a footpath that appears to be going the right direction but isn’t on the radar, and end up going somewhat back towards Burnham Market. Unconcerned I’m tempted by a children’s rope swing over a gurgling stream, but as the rope creaks and the log swing gives under it’s 15 stone load I think better of it. On I walk, jumping once at the sound of a nearby shotgun going off.
Back on the road I get to the sign “Burnham Thorpe - Nelson’s Village”. The place is quiet and still in the heat, almost oppressively so. In Nelson’s time, you imagine a village like this would have been quiet, but nevertheless lively with rural human activity. Not now.
Looking for something to mark the origins of the Lord Admiral, I aim again for the church. To visit a third church in one day is going it a bit for this heathen, but I reason my mission warrants it. My ignorance of the nation’s naval hero greatly exceeds my knowledge and my personal feelings about him are vague and ill formed; neither strongly positive nor otherwise. Nevertheless as I pass through the shade of the trees in the summer stillness by the church gate, I have a feeling that I am going somewhere important.
 |
| All Saints Burnham Thorpe |
Inside the church of All Saints, Burnham Thorpe, I do indeed find a shrine to Horatio Nelson, which I might have realised had I known that he was the son of the Reverend Edmund Wilson, once of this very parish. Entering I see a huge Royal Ensign of the type flown on ships in Nelson’s day. I look at a copy of Nelson’s birth certificate on the wall, read the prayer he composed for his seamen on the eve of the Battle of Trafalgar, and pocket a picture postcard of his birthplace, the Old Rectory, Burnham Thorpe. Then I stop by a large display, made up of eight cardboard panels, pull up a chair, and begin to read the story…
I shall not trouble you with a retelling of the story that is told so splendidly and clearly in words and pictures on those eight panels. But I can say that I was very impressed and affected by what I read. He was bold and audacious in battle, leading his men into defeat as well as victory in a remarkable catalogue of campaigns, during which he successively lost the use of his eye, one arm and ultimately his life; this is well known. Other details about him, of greater or smaller significance perhaps, impressed me equally: his early experience at sea from the age of 12 where he formed a bond with the ordinary seaman and a horror of the tyranny of the Royal Navy; his petitioning for improved pay and condition for Norfolk farm labourers; his poor and hazardous shooting skills; his furious digging in his garden, while waiting for his naval commission, “as it were for the purpose of being wearied”; his willingness to ignore or defy orders in battle if he thought the situation demanded it; his evident personal charm, persuading William Hamilton to allow him to live under his roof, despite being his wife Emma’s concubine and the father of her child; and finally, the convulsion of national mourning after his death, that completely eclipsed any celebrations of victory over the French led invaders.
To quote the display, Nelson was “all things to all men: fearless but vulnerable; vain but insecure, morally upright yet flawed; ruthless yet humane; classless but ambitious; both superman and everyman”. What no end of words can do adequately, is communicate the unique and powerful qualities he must have possessed to inspire, persuade and lead those around him to victory against his many and more numerous adversaries. And despite disputation (we know the stories we are told are not all true, may be flim-flam, hog wash, and will be constantly revised) history is, logically, and like Burnham Thorpe, a settled thing. There is no other outcome; Nelson prevailed, and it is impossible to imagine what kind of country we’d be living in now, if he had not.
No comments:
Post a Comment