July 2010

Features

So you think you know Southwold?

This is the first in what we hope to be a regular monthly quiz, in which we at Organ will test our readers’ knowledge of the town at the heart of everything, Southwold. You will be asked to identify from a photo a feature situated in the town. All photos will be of things visible from the pavement. It is a fun quiz only, with no prizes for guessing correctly, only the warm satisfaction that comes from knowing that you know your town!

To start the ball rolling, can you identify this feature and where it is located? The answer will be given in the August edition of the Southwold Organ.

Thanks to Brian Burrage for both originating the idea and supplying the photo.

View to the north

We are into the second half of June and there are mixed contrasts in my view to the north. It is surprisingly cold for June. I hope that the wind direction will change and we have more clement weather for summer. The orchids are putting on a spectacular display, but, as I write this, the sea is as if there is a mid-winter storm. The breaking waves are hitting the base of the cliffs at Easton Bavents, and water is coming over the slope and into the north end of the car park.

However, the Boating Lake is drying out, just as it did last year, but roughly a month earlier. In the past, the levels were maintained by pumping water from underground boreholes. Many years ago, I saw a pump with a canvas pipe across the car park to maintain the levels of both the Boating Lake and the Model Yacht Pond. Back in the 1950s, I remember my father taking me to the mere at Thorpeness, where we rowed round and I was told tales of derring-do and adventure on the high seas. Think what pleasure that children could still get if they could row, or even sail, on the Boating Lake. It is a pity that there cannot be a little investment to refurbish the pumps and maintain the levels. This would also help support the haven of wildlife that can be seen around the Lake. For the past two or three years, it has been possible to see avocets on the Boating Lake, but with the current levels so low, I doubt that we will see them this year. The swallows, sand martins and occasional house martin will have to go elsewhere to feed. The cuckoo this year has been very elusive, heard once or twice and not seen. This should ensure a larger population of reed warblers who can still be heard along the marsh wall. Regular visitors include a marsh harrier with a very pale head and several little egrets. The oystercatchers that I mentioned last month have now left the nest. I hope that they raised successfully. Both the greylag and barnacle geese seem to have had a very successful breeding season given the number of large goslings that are still around. On the fauna front, I managed to catch sight of a mole, a picture of which can be seen on the website and several little shrews have been scurrying along the marsh wall.

This month, I have also been up the tower of the Roman Catholic Church, a pound well spent, and seen a different perspective of the view to the north. It is a pity that the weather was not kinder.

I am still looking for old postcards or photos of the area to the north of the Pier if anyone is willing to share them.

Halcyon

halcyon@southwold-northroad.com

www.southwold-northroad.com

The 52nd in our series of articles specially written for the Organ by astrophysicist, Professor Michael Rowan-Robinson.

What happened to the phosphorescent algae?

One of the abiding memories of my adolescence is walking on Southwold beach on summer nights and seeing the phosphorescent algae sparkling in the sea as the waves broke on the shore. Does this still happen? I haven’t seen it in the past decade, but beach fishermen say they have seen it occasionally. Is this decline part of the general loss of life in the North Sea? The herring that created the town of Southwold, and its grand church, have gone, as have the sole which give their name to what used to be Sole Bay. Few sole and no longer really a bay, as a result of erosion to both north and south of Southwold.

North Sea fish stocks collapsed almost completely in the 1970s, partly due to the high mortality of young fish in the North Sea industrial fisheries, and partly to heavy fishing by bottom trawlers on the spawning grounds of the English Channel. There was a complete moratorium on herring fishing from 1977 to 1980 and this resulted in some recovery in herring stocks. Since that time, commercial fishing has been controlled by the annual Total Allowable Catch (TAC).

The 1970s collapse of fish stocks triggered the complete disintegration of the old East Anglian autumn drift net fishery. This was based on the herring shoals moving south to spawn in the eastern English Channel. Some readers will be able to remember inshore drift net fishing off Southwold beach in the 1950s, with the nets strung out on corks between pairs of boats no more than a hundred yards from the beach. The boats would be drawn up both sides of the Pier, as they had been for centuries, and there the nets would be mended. Southwold had its own herring smoking shed, at the junction of Victoria Road and Bank Alley, and a powerful smell it made too, with the hops from Adnams’ open vats adding to the cocktail just a few yards further up the road. Kippers, bloaters, sprats, roe were a major part of the weekly diet.

The controls on fishing by the EU, via the TAC, have resulted in some recovery of fish stocks, especially for cod, plaice and haddock. But the East Anglian fishing industry is a shadow of its former self, and Lowestoft and Yarmouth have never really recovered from the 1970s disaster. And the beaches themselves seem to be sparser in evidence of sea life like shells and seaweed. And of course in the nocturnal delights of phosphorescent algae.

Astronomical footnote: Comet McNaught, which was visible at dusk last August before it headed south and disappeared behind the Sun, may be visible in the northern sky just above the horizon around midnight, for the first few days of July. You will need an exceptionally clear and cloud-free night, and the orange glow of Lowestoft may be a problem.

Stars’n Tides now has an e-mail address for you to send comments and queries: starsntides@southwoldorgan.com.

Past Stars’n Tides articles can be found at http://astro.ic.ac.uk/~mrr/starsntides/

© Michael Rowan-Robinson 2010

It’s been a long time coming, but summer’s here at last. Many of you will be heaving a sigh of relief that the World Cup is entering its final stages and, by the end of the first week of July, Wimbledon will be over for another year. So what else is coming up on the international sporting stage? There are of course plenty more events on the calendar, but the one we’re going to be hearing more and more about is the 2012 Olympic Games. We’ve already had one set of special stamps back in 2009 and on 27th July, Royal Mail release the second set of stamps celebrating the Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The approach is very similar to the last set of Olympic stamps, with artists being asked to produce images for each of the Olympic disciplines. There are ten First-Class stamps in this Olympics set, each designed by contemporary artists, designers and illustrators. The concept is to issue 30 stamps in the run up to 2012 (ten each year). There are 29 different sports in the Olympics and Paralympics, and there will be one stamp for each except for Athletics, which gets two stamps, one for Track and one for Field.

Like the set issued in October 2009, the stamps are all very colourful and are clearly contemporary. The Paralympics are represented by Rowing, Table Tennis and Goalball. The latter was invented in Europe in 1946, and was used for sport and rehabilitation for post-WWII veterans. The stamp looks a little as if its been taking from an instruction manual for the sport which has been illustrated by Roy Lichtenstein, but actually it’s been designed by Tobatron, the alter ego of trendy illustrator Toby Leigh.

My favourite is the stamp for Cycling. A less creative artist than Matthew Dennis may have come up with a figure bearing some resemblance to Sir Chris Hoy speeding along. Instead, he has chosen to portray two BMX riders on the brow of a hill – it could have been by Banksy if the Royal Mail could track him down.

The Modern Pentathlon looks as if it may have been sponsored by Nintendo, as Katherine Baxter tries to squeeze swimming, show jumping, fencing, shooting and cross-country running into one stamp. Unfortunately, it looks as if she may have confused the running with topiary as the runner is making his way between 15 neat bushes. Shooting, meanwhile, is represented by its own less-imaginative stamp – a black-and-white target with three bullet holes in it. Mind you, it does symbolise Olympic excellence – they’re all bull’s eyes.

Also in the series is Taikwondo – represented by a very high-kicking man who I think may also have appeared dangling from a helicopter in one of the emergency services stamps last year. His clothing suggests he may also volunteer for this in his spare time.

More conventional Olympic sports are represented by Boxing, Hockey and, just in case you start to suffer withdrawal, Football.

These are refreshing, uplifting and original stamps. A pleasant change from the recent run of Stuarts which seem to have hung around in the Post Office almost as long as they occupied the throne.

Guy Mitchell, Spots

It's the Wine Talking
by Leslie J. Brinton of 'In the Pink' 01986 872579

A larger selection of wines from the Co-Operative Foodstores in now available at the refurbished shop in the Market Place at Southwold. Quite a treasure-trove, then, with only a small percentage of duds for my palate.

Looking at the New Zealand white wines, I would go for the Explorers label – the Co-Op’s own label for practical purposes. Choose from the Chardonnay grape with its slightly buttery notes or the grassy and very popular Sauvignon blanc. The latest releases I have seen are the 2008 and 2009 respectively: I would hesitate to tackle anything much older. Both have 13% of alcohol, and both have a price tag of just under £8. . . sometimes less when on offer.

So much for drinking at home; this month, my favourite ‘pop-up’ bar opens for two months at St Edmund’s Hall, with some very palatable brews on offer.

And what’s more, there’s an irresistible theatre attached.