BOOK EXTRACT - Chapter 10 Thorpe Hamlet

Nest veteran Neville Porter

NORWICH City prepare for a crucial home game at Carrow Road today.  

But how many people can remember the days when the Canaries played at their previous home ground - The Nest, off Rosary Road. The last game there was on May 6^th, 1935, so we’re going back a bit. For the Thorpe Hamlet chapter of my book I tracked down a gentleman called Neville Porter who has just celebrated his 93^rd birthday.

“I first went to see City I suppose when I was eight or nine so we’re probably talking about 1932 or 1933,” he told me.

 “It was sixpence for an adult and three pence for children. I can remember standing on the concrete terracing where you could look directly down on the goalkeeper. It was all most precarious; safety considerations just didn’t come into it. It was no surprise when the FA told them they’d had to move.

“I can remember seeing Willie Warnes who they’d signed from Arsenal. He was a good little winger, but when he ran he was a bit bow-legged. So all of us kids when we played football in Eaton Park, we’d all be running round with legs like that, trying to imitate him. Bernard Robinson was another one. He was one of the generation who lost out on half his career because of the Second World War.”

Mr Porter was a season-ticket holder in the City Stand at Carrow Road until 2013. How many others can say they kept the turnstiles turning for 80 years?  

* There's much more on history of The Nest as well as the early days of Carrow Road in "Hidden Riverside Norwich" available at Jarrold's, £16.99

Literary Lunch with Hemsley + Hemsley

THIS elegant cookery book by Jasmine and Melissa Hemsley has little to do with Hidden Riverside Norwich - except that I'm their warm-up act when the sisters visit Norwich next month.

To be precise, I’m one of two other writers at the latest Jarrold Literary Lunch which is being held at Carrow Road on May 10^th. The third is the novelist Peter Hanington whose thriller A Dying Breed is set in Afghanistan.

So the latest cooking sensations, a much-heralded debut novelist and me chatting about the wonderful Wensum. What’s not to like?

*Tickets cost £29.50 and include a two-course lunch (recipes from H&H of course…) plus coffee. More details here.

In Jarrold's now...

A REMINDER that Hidden Riverside Norwich is now in the shops – or at least it’s in both branches of Jarrold’s in the city. Price? A very reasonable £16.99. 

Thanks Jarrolds...

JUST over a month to go now till Hidden Riverside Norwich hits the shelves and thanks to Jarrolds for getting organised. They can't review the book, because they haven't seen it yet. But nonetheless they've been very helpful with a bit of positive pre-publication blurb. You can read it here.

It's going to be April

GOOD news. The launch date for Hidden Riverside Norwich has been set for April of this year. ...By which time I hope to be back on the water with the canoe. This pic from last summer shows my Dagger Axis heading upstream on the Wensum just below Hellesdon Mill.

Not long now...

The lowdown from Hellesdon

View from the Wensum

This is a typical page from Hidden Riverside Norwich. The whole point of being in a canoe of course is that you can capture images and angles that are impossible from the bank.

This bridge is a real survivor. It's one of the Midland and Great Northern line originals - in other words it used to carry trains, now it has a lighter load of pedestrians and cyclists.

You'll find it on Marriotts Way just south of Hellesdon Road. As a canoeist I float my boat just upstream from here and head in to Norwich city centre. The variety of views and landscapes in that 2 or 3 odd-miles is amazing.

Hidden Riverside Norwich - revealed at last

I'VE been going through page proofs this weekend - all 144 pages of Hidden Riverside Norwich. I'm not likely to see a hard copy until next Spring, but nevertheless it's a big moment. As ever Halsgrove have done a super job with the design and layout. Roll on 2016...

* Hidden Riverside Norwich, £14.99 and likely to be in Norfolk's book shops from May 2016