Day 6: Stiffkey to Wells-next-the-Sea

At about seven am I am up and marshes bound, small scissors in hand, to harvest samphire, the edible plants that grow in endless abundance on the marshes. I had seen some impressively large ripe stalks the day before alongside the coastal path, and I don’t have to go far to find plenty of the stuff a few yards along, and in a quarter of an hour I have a good handful. Back at the camp I fill a mess tin ¾ full, light the stove, put my inflatable mat around it as a windbreak and wait the long wait for it to boil. I cross my fingers that the dwindling gas supply won‘t expire at this important moment. When the bubbles come I toss in the samphire, after first removing a cupful of water for tea. After a while the water begins to bubble and take on a green tint. I give it a few more minutes, then switch off and strain.

Samphire

This stuff is sold as a delicacy in local restaurants, garnished with a little butter and lemon, for £4.95 a go. With a cadged knob of butter from my neighbouring campers, I put the first stalk in my mouth and draw it backwards through my front teeth, separating the succulent fresh from the very thin hard thread of the inner stem. Success! It is naturally salty, tender, juicy and pleasant tasting. The obvious comparison is asparagus (it is also called sea asparagus or sea pickle), but while asparagus is progressively tougher and stringier away from the tip, samphire is consistently good through the plant, with the exception of the inner string stem, a little pile of which is forming at my feet as I eat my unusual green breakfast. Accompanied by my sugary tea, the stuff gives the day a satisfying start.


The camp staff have warned me, apologetically, that I need to be off my pitch at the designated time of twelve because a group of local schoolchildren are arriving and need my space. As I once again begin the slow process of packing up my tent and kit, some people come and put up some wooden trestle tables and benches on the adjoining pitch, and these are soon followed by a procession of 6-8 year olds, who come down the slope in pairs singing “we’re all going on a Summer Holiday” in the morning sunshine. Song finished, the children and accompanying teachers and assistants start tucking into crisps and cans of fizzy drink. As I once again remove the yellow Day-Glo guy rope from my tent and start threading it through the loops of my shorts, two or three boys are distracted by my activity and stand gawping at me, shovelling crisps into their mouths, as I fasten my improvised belt into a bow at the front.


Today I am heading for the Youth Hostel in Wells-next-the-Sea, the only night on this trip when I’ll be sleeping under a roof. With the YHA not opening till five and the walk only 3 ½ miles I have time to kill, so I leave my pack in the campsite office at noon and head back into Stiffkey. At the village stores (an upmarket affair with a lot of gourmet food and a smart little coffee shop) I buy a pint of milk, a fruit yoghurt, a packet of caramel wafers and some sweets. These I take to the blacksmith’s bench by the bridge and scoff. Then up to the Old Red Lion where I make a pint of Nelson’s Revenge last two hours while I write up my notes. Disapprovingly I note a diner eating samphire, served with long roots clearly attached.


On the wall near the kitchens I see a full page cutting from the Daily Telegraph, a reprinting in 1995 of an original article in 1932, that reminds me of Stiffkey’s most infamous former resident (to be fair, probably its only infamous former resident). In 1932 Harold Davidson, the Rector of Stiffkey, was found guilty in a Church Disciplinary Trial on 5 counts of immorality and defrocked. For years Davidson had travelled each week to London on Monday mornings, usually returning to his wife and children late on Saturday in readiness for Sunday services. His mission in London was to assist and minster to poor and vulnerable young women in the capital; he would, for instance, frequent Lyons Tea House on the Strand, where the lowly paid girls employed there were easily led into vice and prostitution. Suspicions arose that Davidson’s interest in the girls was carnal rather than pastoral, and the resulting trial and scandal became a national sensation. Davidson became known as “The Prostitutes Padre”, and press stories claimed he had had immoral liaisons with over a thousand young women. The truth of the accusations against Davidson has long since been disputed. Was he really the world’s naughtiest vicar? Or was he guilty only of too much naïve Christian charity? It is hard now to know. What is known is that deprived of his livelihood and in disgrace, the former Rector of Stiffkey brazened out the remainder of his days living in a barrel and working as a lion tamer at seaside sideshows in Blackpool and Skegness. Here his singular and tragic life came to a predictable and poignant end, mauled to death by a lion like so many of his early Christian brethren.

Harold Davidson - "The Prostitute's Padre"

The coastal path begins by the gate of the campsite and I head along the sea wall defence; rich arable land (wheat, lettuces) to my left inland, salt marshes and sea on the other side. A sign tells me I am in Holkham (Stiffkey) National Nature Reserve. The sun is shining hot and strong. Ahead I see a young woman with a red t-shirt, shorts and a rucksack as big as mine, sheltering from the sun in the shade of a hedge. She's a northern lass, a fair bit younger than me, and I stop for a minute and pass the time of day before walking on. A while later, my rucksack straps sweaty and straining in the heat, I too decide to stop and sit by a similar hedge, and exchange greetings once again with the Northern Lass as she comes tramping past. She is only the third proper hiker I have seen this trip.

Between Stiffkey and Wells-next-the-Sea

As a channel of water widens on my right, the town of Wells-next-the-Sea emerges ahead. A little grid I have brought with me shows the distances and estimated walk times between places on the coastal path, and it is proving to be reliably and surprisingly accurate; I have made this stage within two hours, even with stops and hot sunshine, as the grid predicted. With still an hour before YHA opening time, I walk through Wells’ quirky lanes of shops. Not able to add anything of any weight to my overstuffed pack, shopping is of little interest to me, but I do stop at a butchers, which has an attractive display of pies of pasties in the window; necessary fuel for tomorrow’s long walk. With the senior butcher surprisingly unable to tell me if the Cornish pasties are beef or lamb (it has to be lamb, surely!)I play safe and go for a pork pie*. At 4.30 the pub near the hostel is closed, so I sit in the churchyard opposite for half an hour, resisting the temptation of the pie.


I’ve never stayed in a youth hostel before, at least not in a shared dorm. I check in on the stroke of five and stake my claim to one of the bottom bunks in a four bed dormitory. I had chosen the YHA partly for lack of a nearby camping alternative, but also because I thought it wise to have at least one night of relative comfort, in a proper bed, somewhere along my route. Now here, I admit to myself to being apprehensive about sharing this small stuffy room with up to THREE STRANGE MEN! Aware too that I might prove an unpleasant sweaty presence for my fellow boarders, I shower twice (excellent showers) and do my best to rinse both my pairs of socks, which on arrival in the room I had noticed were really humming.


I look around the shared areas of the hostel downstairs. It’s all neat and clean and homely, with rooms marked “Dining Room”, “TV Lounge”, “Quiet Room, Shhh…”, and lots of polite notices, especially in the kitchen, telling you what to do and where things are. In the dining room a couple of ladies finish their salad. In the kitchen, four glum looking men shuffle about making tea and washing up, and make no attempt at welcoming noises and avoid eye contact when I come in. I suppose they have been conveyed here by the community mini bus I saw parked outside. I realise that tonight at the YHA I will not perhaps be keeping company with many of life’s higher scorers; smart people have smart places to stay. I reign in my snobbish impulses by reminding myself that I am here not on some Orwellian mission to see how the poorer half live, I am here because it is what I can afford, given my own pinched circumstances. I can like it or lump it.

Wells-next-the-Sea

I collect my swimming shorts and sarong and head for fish and chips and maybe a swim. Unclear about where the beach is and deciding it is probably a bit of a walk I settle for the easily located fish and chips, which I eat on the harbour wall, as is traditional in Wells, watching marsh mud splattered cockney kids larking about and shouting in the shallow harbour water. Afterwards (for research purposes) I have a pint of Woodforde Wherry at the Bowling Green Inn near the hostel. The beer is good enough but again it’s mainly a dining establishment, and the lifeless lack of conversation in the beer garden tonight reminds me of my local Wetherspoons. Back at the YHA I am informed that I am the only one staying in my room tonight. I feel both relieved at not having to share and contrarily a little cheated at being deprived of the full YHA experience. Looking through the many maps and books at the hostel, I consider my route tomorrow. At eleven miles from Wells to Burnham Deepdale it is my longest stage so far, and I’m wondering if it might be a bit much if the hot weather persists. The chatty man on reception suggests wild camping on the dunes along the way.


Cup of tea in hand I retire early to bed to be in readiness for an early start tomorrow, but sleep comes hard. I’m informed it’s midnight by twelve slow chimes from the Victorian Church opposite the hostel. At one in the morning I am more briefly reminded of the time.


*I since stand corrected; cornish pasties are traditionally beef.