Normal for Norfolk

Bill Bryson the travel writer confessed in one of his early books that he came from Iowa because 'somebody had to'.

Sometimes I feel the same about Norfolk, where I come from '“ or at least where I have been for the last 40 years '“ somebody had to come from Norfolk.

You sense just the slight hint of a sneer '“ often no more than the flicker of a moustache or the twitch of an eyebrow '“ when you mention to those who consider that they live in more sophisticated counties like Sussex or Hampshire that you hail from Norfolk. Then, almost immediately, they remember the line from Noel Coward's Private Lives: 'Very flat, Norfolk.'

Yokel place for yokel people

And when, not many years ago, Martin Mears disrupted the smooth flow of succession in the Law Society by getting himself elected president; one council member described him as a backwoodsman, and a legal journal (not this one) called him a Norfolk Yokel. I am sure that if he had come from Gloucestershire he would automatically have been treated with the respect we accord to all our presidents.

So, what is wrong with Norfolk and why does it attract comments like this? Why do doctors enter the acronym NFN in medical notes when they want to say 'Normal for Norfolk' (often accompanied by TATSP '“ thick as two short planks)?

There is, it has to be admitted, a certain impenetrability about some Norfolk people. The more you chatter nervously to them, the more they go quiet, fixing you with that kind of stare that car mechanics reserve for those who insist that their new car has a rattle.

I once sat on a committee in a village in the heart of Norfolk which had a five star rating in the Domesday Book and has changed little since William the Conqueror's inspectors left. The committee members, all men, would sit for long periods in complete silence, and only occasionally would one of them make a point before lapsing back into wordlessness. I was not about to break the mould, so I too went to these gatherings and never uttered a word. Invariably the chairman would end each meeting by thanking us all for our contributions.

Fishy neighbours

Sidney Grapes, the eccentric pre-war Norfolk comedian, summed it up: 'You can always tell a Norfolk man, but you can't tell him much.'

Many have had their say about the county, and here are some of my favourites. Novelist Raffaella Barker: ''¦ the freedom of a place where more than 50 per cent of the neighbours are fish'. Reginald Pound (author of Scott of the Antarctic): 'It is littered with villages but uncluttered by towns.' And finally, the Norfolk saying which is just as applicable today as it has always been: 'Norfolk is cut off on three sides by the sea and on the fourth by British Rail.' It is no longer British Rail but the rail company of the moment that always ensures that those who dare to venture out of Norfolk will find themselves admiring the trackside litter from a stationary train not many miles outside Norwich.

Travelling by car is little better. The county does not have one inch of motorway and the powers that be have ensured that the main route out of the county (the A11) is permanently congested on the Suffolk border where it narrows to a single carriage way. I think that in conveyancing terms this is called a ransom strip. It keeps them out and us in.

If you come from one of those well-heeled and sophisticated counties I have already mentioned and think we are thick and backward, you had better think again: if it weren't for us in Norfolk there would not be any of you in your posh counties.

The cradle of civilisation

Visible from where we live is the red and white striped Happisburgh (pronounced 'Haysbro') lighthouse which was some years ago given a lick of paint by Anneka Rice as she was flying around in her helicopter (or perhaps she was on dry land then). Unfortunately, she used the wrong kind of paint'¦ but that is another story.

That lighthouse is slowly creeping towards the sea, or more accurately the sea is creeping towards it, because the tall cliffs in the village are crumbling fast. Already, several homes have gone over the edge.

Encroachment of the sea has nonetheless provided valuable information to archaeologists and evidence that the first known human settlement in northern Europe was here in Happisburgh on the north Norfolk coast. In short, Norfolk is the cradle of British civilisation. Furthermore, the river Thames at that time flowed into the sea near Happisburgh. The village website has now renamed itself Happisburgh-on-Thames.

All those years ago, the good people of Happisburgh-on-Thames were no doubt living in much the same way as those who are now in the Home Counties. Archaeologists will soon be reporting as they dig deeper that early Norfolk people had laptops, fast cars and aircraft made out of carbon fibre; that they lived in skyscrapers (resembling striped lighthouses) and walked on the moon. It was only when they were overthrown by the barbarians from Sussex, Hampshire and Gloucester that they died out, apart from a small number who had to pretend they were TATSP to conceal their intellectual superiority.

And so it remains today. If you get the slightest impression that any of us are a little thick, you will be entirely mistaken. We are simply deep in thought, refining Einstein's law of relativity so that it embraces quantum physics and dark matter. And for good reason: Einstein lived in Norfolk for a while in a hut near Cromer.