Spring is here. The days are longer; the crocuses have come and gone; the daffodils are out; there is blossom on many of the trees, indeed the first leaves are emerging; and it is slowly getting warmer. However, the welcome sunny days have been intermittent, the overwhelming feature has been grey and chilly periods. The temperature will rise in time.

I have done a bit of local travel over the past month. This began with a trip to London for lunch with Simon Neate, a contemporary from university days. These were nearly 50 years ago, but we have stayed in touch! He was good enough to agree to meet near Liverpool Street Station which made the journey very easy for me: on the train in Norwich; a two-minute walk to the restaurant; lunch; and then back on the train to go home. It is always good to catch up with old friends, but he is also being a welcome critical reader of the memoir I am writing. His input is valuable.

A couple of weeks later, Ailsa, Douglas and I went to Cambridge to see the William Blake (1757–1827) exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum.¹ Blake was a poet and artist and, as his work shows, a tormented soul. The poem the most people may be familiar with begins:

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

It is an easy day trip from Norwich, just about one hour and fifteen minutes on a direct fast train, and not very expensive. In 1816 Richard Fitzwilliam (1745–1816), the 7th Viscount Fitzwilliam of Merrion, left his collection and library to the University of Cambridge. He also made a bequest of £100,000 to build the museum to house the collection. This was a fortune in those days. The design is neo-classical, inspired by classical Greek and Roman architecture. The work started in the 1830s and was finished in 1848. One of the provisions of the gift was that admission should be free! Given the importance of Blake in my A Level syllabus, and the fact that I dip into his poems occasionally, the visit was interesting and enlightening.

Douglas guided us to The Eagle pub for lunch. This is one of the oldest inns in the city. It is well known because regulars, Francis Crick and James Watson walked in in February 1953 and announced: “we have discovered the secret of life”. This was the double helix structure of DNA. They worked in the nearby Cavendish laboratory. Amusingly when I went to Cambridge last week, my host took me there for a drink, clearly it is an important place to locals.

A week ago, I went to London to meet my brother, Derek, for lunch and a visit to the Imperial War Museum. We then met Gill, our sister, for dinner. I took the tube from Liverpool Street to meet Derek at Euston Station. We crossed the city together to Kennington, the nearest station to the museum. I left my Oyster card in Norwich. I was going to buy a new one, but was advised by a staff member to simply use a bank card to tap in and out of the stations, it worked.

The War Museum was excellent, but as with so many of these experiences, to do it justice one needs more time than we had. The museum is on five floors. We had a good look round the one devoted to the First World War and more cursory visits to the Second World War floor and the Ashcroft Gallery. I don’t think we did anything thoroughly. I shall have to go back and spend at least a day there. I would also want to reflect on the war service of my family. My grandfathers both served in the First World War as did my father. Dad ran away from school and signed up aged 15 or 16. My mother was in the South Africa coastal artillery as an observer in the Second World War, while dad was mainly in India with Royal Engineers.

The museum houses thought provoking exhibits, but does not capture the horror and, in the case of the First World War, the thoughtless waste of lives. Of course, one does not have an idea of what is there until one visits. The free admission is an incentive to return.

The Ashcroft Gallery has the world’s largest collection of Victoria Crosses (VCs), and a significant assemblage of George Crosses (GCs). The Victoria Cross is the highest recognition of bravery given by Britain and it is awarded to all ranks. The most given in one action was at Rorke’s Drift in KwaZulu-Natal where eleven were awarded. The other medals were given as Crosses to officers and Medals to other ranks.

My maternal grandfather served with the South African Machine Gun Corps in the First World War and was awarded a Military Cross and Bar indicating he was awarded the medal for two separate incidents. The George Cross is the highest non-military award and is given for ‘non-operational gallantry or gallantry not in the presence of an enemy’. It was introduced in 1940 and is equal in stature to the Victoria Cross. The GC was awarded to the island of Malta during the Second World War, for holding out against the Nazi’s. That is a piece of useless information!

Derek and I then went to High Street Kensington to the restaurant Dishoom Kensington. We met Gill here. This is one of several Dishoom restaurants – they are mostly in London. It serves Indian food, and it was excellent. Interestingly one cannot book in advance (except for large groups), so we just had to wait, but this was in the bar area, and it was worth it.

Back in Norwich we had a family outing last weekend. I tend to read film and book reviews in the Saturday Guardian or the Sunday Observer. I don’t think I had seen a review for Wicked Little Letters, the film we went to. It was totally gripping. It is a true story of a scandal that stunned 1920s England. A series of obscene, anonymous letters were sent to various upright, moral residents of the seaside town of Littlehampton. There was outrage and the police got involved.

I do need to avoid spoilers so let me just say the main characters were Olivia Colman playing spinster Edith Swan; Jessie Buckley as Rose Gooding, a young, Irish, single mother; Anjana Vasan as Policewoman Rose Moss; and Timothy Spall who plays Edith’s father Edward. Spall provided one of the strongest characters and was filmed in a way as to make him a totally unattractive individual. It was an excellent and entertaining film.

The visit to the war museum was an introduction to the core issues portrayed here.² More can be found in Nicholson’s book and Tracy Chevalier’s blog. Chevalier notes 700,000 British men were killed in the 1st World War, leading to an unequal gender distribution. ‘The 1921 census revealed that there were 1.75 million more women than men in the United Kingdom’ and ‘many women who might have married remained single, in a society where marriage was assumed to be every woman’s goal. This is the world the film is set in, and it is well observed. I highly recommend it.

That is it for now. I recently went to a memoir writing workshop at the Norwich Writers’ Centre. It was interesting and useful. There were 13 participants and almost all mentioned the need to write about their trauma. I felt an imposter as I don’t think I have things to write in that vein.

1. https://www.fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk/plan-your-visit/exhibitions/william-blakes-universe
2. Virginia Nicholson, Singled Out: How Two Million Women Survived without Men After the First World War, Penguin, London 2008 and https://www.tchevalier.com/a-single-thread-background/surplus-women