Thoughts on Norfolk

Norfolk.

In the weeks before I took up my place at the University of East Anglia, all the way back in 2005, I found myself repeatedly answering the same question in conversations.
‘UEA? Where is that?’
‘It’s in Norwich.’
‘Where is that?’
‘It’s in Norfolk.’
‘Where is that?’
Scores of my friends and fellow students in Dorset, where I studied for my A-levels, had only fleetingly heard of Norfolk. Interestingly, far from a negative opinion of the county, influenced by Alan Partridge and irresponsible medical terms, most people I talked to simply didn’t know a great deal about it.

I arrived, it must be said, with a similar degree of knowledge about Norfolk. I had chosen UEA almost entirely on the strength of its English Literature course. I was aware of one or two things about which Norfolk could be proud – Norwich Cathedral, which will be one thousand years old at the end of this century (no, really, stop for a moment and contemplate that – it’s astonishing), and a city with countryside on its outskirts. Those things aside, I knew next to nothing.

I was delighted with that – a significant part of my attraction to UEA was the opportunity to study in an unfamiliar setting. As I thought then, and as I still think now, albeit for different reasons: where better than Norwich?

It took me an inordinate (and, with hindsight, shameful) length of time to begin to really get to know the area. Any campus-based university has a way of creating a bubble community of its own, in which one has to make a special effort to reach out to other people. As silly as it sounds, at a campus university it is perfectly possible to live in almost complete ignorance of the local area for the entire duration of a degree. It happens all the time. I even know one woman who will tell you that she never left the grounds of UEA in all of her three years as an undergraduate, if you can believe it.

From day one, I liked Norwich. I took a guided bus tour during my first week here. The guide spoke with a great deal of pride about its history – Elizabeth Fry on the £5 note, Kett’s Rebellion, the rarity of having two Cathedrals – but he also spoke with a generous serving of humour as he recommended us to look out for the Puppet Man, and regaled us with the story of the bus that fell into a collapsed chalk pit in the 1980s. I like cities with that kind of humility, just as I like people with that kind of humility – and to this day, I find that most people here have a similar self-deprecating attitude. These days, I work in two of its most popular pubs – the Alexandra Tavern and the Fat Cat – and I greatly appreciate the fact that I am able to dish out insults to the pubs’ respective regulars, confident that I won’t cause offence – I simply have to be ready to take them back at some point. It takes a lot of warmth (and mutual respect, I suppose, somewhere…) to keep that kind of relationship ticking over. Overwhelmingly, I find that the people of Norwich – and indeed the wider Norfolk community – are open to that form of humour, and I think it speaks volumes about their friendliness. I have warmed to Norwich more than I ever could to Bournemouth, the town I called home before moving here.

Norfolk is also home to a wide array of talent. We all know about Stephen Fry and Bill Bryson – they go without saying – I am talking about talent that frequently goes unnoticed, as a direct result of the humility I was just lauding. I knew (and routinely insulted) one man for months before discovering – from someone else, naturally – that he is a nationally respected illustrator. I recently chatted at length to a woman I knew to be a well-known artist, only to discover a few days ago that some of her work has actually been bought for Charles Saatchi’s collection. I regularly talk in the pub to a well-known retired television presenter – though never about his career in television. I’d known another man for over a year before someone told me he’d served on the Royal Yacht. I exchanged Christmas cards last year with the UK Columnist of the Year. She’d punch me if I brought the subject up in person. These are just a few examples. Norfolk twinkles and gleams with humble talent of this sort – terrific people who take pride without seeking recognition. (I envy that character trait greatly.) If there is a downside to such an attitude, however, it is that campaigns to encourage recognition of talent, innovation and skill never really seem to gather momentum. People aren’t accustomed to shouting about their abilities.

Over the course of 2011, I will be producing a body of work, which, provided I can maintain some degree of focus, will show Norfolk in what I consider to be its real light. It will depict some of the people who help make the county the dynamic and delectable place that it is, in a suitably humble context that also illustrates the sense of normality that pervades their work. It will be a body of work that humbly shows, rather than extravagantly claims.

If I do it right, and one person comes away with a viewpoint of Norfolk that is positive, rather than non-existent or negative, then I will be delighted. It will be quite a task. Judging my path well will be difficult indeed – but if anyone is going to screw up a project like this, I’d consider it a great privilege…