Postcard from Norfolk - behind the scenes at Wells-Next-The-Sea

Obviously, I’ve always known that Wells-next-the-Sea is a working port.  The clue is all the fishing boats in the harbour, occasionally one putt-puttering along the channel and out to sea.  Then again, most of the time I see the boats I’m looking down on them as they lay beached, thanks to a vertigo-inducing low tide taking them far, far below the harbour wall.

The tide, it would appear, is anti-social, and usually puts in an appearance in the early morning, meaning that fishermen have to get up very early to get their floating boats out there, catch some fish, then back in time for market, breakfast and bed.  No wonder they are all such grumpy bastards when they are interviewed on telly, and it can’t all be the fault of the EU.

More than the boats, it is the crab and lobster pots stacked up in the harbour that reveal the port of Wells to be working.  Downwind, you can tell that a few hours ago, these were immersed in the sea and probably home to a clacky, annoyed and ultimately and unfortunately for the resident, delicious crustacean.

Today though, we walked past the harbour and instead of taking a left at the chandlery and looping up past llamas to the pub, walked on.

Wells has a sailing club!  I mean, of course it does, why wouldn’t it? but they have boats, all varnished and shiny and everything.  And a club house, with a little marquee attached to it which simultaneously announces to the world ‘barbeques are a frequent occurrence here’ and ‘our members like to smoke’.

The racing dinghy’s of the club, uniform in colour, were an incongruous bookend to the fish crates stacked along the harbour, looking for all the world like somebody who was playing Tetris as art.

Yet somehow both were Wells, and epitomised the very picture that everyone has of Wells, the beach huts.  No two exactly alike, but all the same basic design, a shed on stilts, the sort of thing an Englishman exiled to Indonesia or some other flood-prone country would have in his back garden to ensure his mower and trowel stayed dry, yet all different colours.

Past the club house, you come to the real working area of Wells, far (well, twenty steps but metaphorically far) from the whelk stands and rock shops, here are the sheds and warehouses of the fishermen.

I love industry.  Proper industry.  The sort of industry that is all about a proper workshop, home to about seven or eight chaps, who are simply superb at what they do, and smell of swarfega.  You can stick your robot assembly lines right up your arse, if you want something done right, you get a craftsman with a regional accent.

I got the same feeling here.  This was a place of serious toil.  There are some who would say that this sort of thing is unglamorous, and maybe that’s why you have to peek behind the curtain, or at least walk past the pub, to see it.

I wouldn’t agree.  I think there’s a sort of beauty to be found in places like this, where people work hard at difficult jobs, especially when they are not around, when the buildings themselves seem to be resting.  The sheds may be weatherbeaten, but there’s not a stray rope or a scrap of litter to be seen; untidiness and fishing, or industry, do not mix.

Well’s beach huts line up in the sand like sentinels.  Red, white, blue, sometimes red white and blue, they are colourful and characterful.  No less colourful and characterful are the boats bobbing at anchor or, more accurately, by the time I get down the harbour, the boats resting at anchor.  But how good, how reassuring, to know that behind the colour and the character is the substance.

Postcard from Norfolk – Cider and crabbing

It's common practice in Norfolk for any excess fruit to be left by your front gate on a little stall, with an old ice cream carton pressed into service as an honesty box. It was good to see this same practice extended to a grander scale when we visited Wells.

The Whin Hill cider shop at Wells is next to the town's big car park. I have parked many times but never been inside. This time, however, I was accompanied by some home brew enthusiasts. And when I say enthusiasts, I mean this chap will attempt to make alcohol out of anything. Cherries, pears, apples, all are rich sources of fermentation and eventual alcoholic delight. This is the chap who is turning my estate's grapes into 'shed red' this year, with the application of little more than ingenuity, yeast, a bucket and a shed. So naturally when he saw a real live car shop, he was off.

It was actually very pleasant, with that unpretentious air that surrounds any place that makes alcohol (does that explain whoso many places that sell it are pretentious, are they trying to make up for a perceived deficiency?), one shed held a cider press, the other a label printer. A third shed held a bloke, his dog, and some samples.

While my friends sampled the cider, swapped tales of booze making and stroked quite the fattest Labrador I seen in Norfolk (land of the vast beach and well walked dog), I took a look at the barrels of apples in the courtyard. This year has been, as all we wine makers know, a bumper harvest not just for grapes but for everything. The barrels were full of excess apples and a small sign invited you to help yourself. They were not for sale, just help yourself and if you want to make a small donation to one of the local charities, there are some collecting tins on the counter. I think that, apple for apple, I probably paid more for the half dozen I picked up that I've ever done in any supermarket. I think that, apple for apple, I've never tasted better.

We were in Wells to visit the chandlery, looking for toasty knit ware. To reach the chandlery, you walk along the quay, which was lines with crabbers. If there is any pastime that is the very definition of hope over expectation, it's crabbing. Standing there with a line dangling in the water and a bucket next to you, one wonders if, in the unlikely event of catching a crab, it would be a wise course of action to go on to convert the little fellow to a sandwich filling. Or possibly a hint of maritime diesel would provide zing. Or tang.


Or maybe I'm missing the point. I concluded long ago that fishing is less about landing carp and much more about sitting by tranquil water, listening to the rain pitter patter on your umbrella while drinking flask tea. Crabbing is, obviously, the seaside equivalent. It's just that I've always thought the bright orange crab line added a touch of excitement not normally associated with fishing.

The chandlery at Wells-Next-The-Sea sells all sorts of maritime essentials, from lengths of rope to belaying pins to attach your rope to. It also sells shiny brass instruments like barometers so that you know how much rope you are likely to need when hoisting things, ideal really because you can tap thee glass while you’re there and buy a few extra yards if needs be. It also sells cloths and, because these are maritime flavoured clothes, it is essentially just one bog dressing up box.

There are serious clothes with a serious price tag. Anoraks and outer layers that are designed to keep you dry in the sort of conditions that fish would think damp, made from the same sort of material they make deserts out of, so good are they at repelling water. Of course, not being stupid, the chandlery also sells authentic clothing in sizes other than ‘huge fisherman who has shoulders like a tractor from hauling on nets in storm force winds and the circumference of a family tent because of all the layers he’s wearing, due to his workplace being the North Sea, at night, in winter’. This also explains why the anoraks are available in colours other than ‘easily visible from the boat when worn by somebody flailing about in the sea and quite anxious to attract attention’, such as pink, for dainty ladies. Still, they do keep you snuggly on the beach.

In among the treasures of the tightly packed shop (including, in an adjoining room, a display of scale model traction engines) were sou’wester hats. (Hats rather than bonnets, Jane Austin heroines never set sail in search of mackerel).

Sou’wester hats are great, was there ever a piece of headgear so utterly associated with a single profession, other than an Imperial Stormtrooper’s helmet? Sadly, I was prevented from purchasing one by an attack of common sense, as my day-to-day life does not involve fishing from an open boat in a storm on anything like a regular occasion and, although undoubtedly the last word in practicality when it comes to waterproof hats, yellow can be a difficult colour to pull off. And it would make you look like a nutter.

I wasn’t even allowed to take it off the shelf, model it and take a quick photograph, as that sort of thing goes down ill with shopkeepers. Also, one does not wish to be accused of looking as if one makes a regular habit of sucking on a Fisherman’s Friend.

The thing to do, of course, was to buy the thing and to wear it constantly, until it no longer appears eccentric, or it starts a fashion. Possibly to lend that air of authenticity you could ask your friends to toss buckets of brine at you, and hurl herring.

The chandlery also has a notice board advertising boats and other nautical stuff for sale, like boats, all in various conditions but all offering the chance to be the master of your own craft and destiny. It also advertised Wells beach huts for sale, which is how I found out that they cost sixty grand a pop. Sixty thousand pounds. For a shed. On stilts. For sixty grand I'd expect not just cooking and sanitations facilities, I'd be looking for broadband and a butler.