I faced one of those blocks for today's blog but then came across something that almost left me speechless. I say almost because very little actually renders me speechless as those who know me will attest.
Early afternoon, I wandered down to the King's Head to meet up with two of the residents of Woodcote Sheltered Housing complex in Firs Road. One was Richard Headicar, somebody I have known for many years and whom I have written a number of articles about in the past. The other was a new acquaintance, Chris Poole, who had a career in rock music and worked alongside some of the all time greats like David Bowie and Prince.
I am putting together a feature for the local media about Chris and so will have more about this in a coming blog.
The thing that rendered me almost speechless came from Richard. He has been working for some time on a biography of his friend Reinhold Alfred - a Hungarian writer, poet, philosopher and political activist. Alfred anglicised his name to Alfred Reynolds.
Richard is close to finishing his biography and let me have a copy to be going on with whilst he arranges a final chapter.
I was reading through Richard's preface and the list of thanks when I read -
"I very much appreciate the support and welcome pre-publication publicity received from my friend and splendid locally based journalist, Peter Steward. He deserves a bottle of my best Rioja - I just hope nobody tells him I've said so."
It is so kind of Richard to say such nice things and now I've put them in this blog I feel that bottle of his best Rioja is almost within touching distance!
I am honoured that Richard considers me to be a friend and not just somebody that annoys him on what seems to be a regular basis.
I always feel rather humble about being mentioned in books. It has happened to me on a few occasions. I helped another local author Alan Mann to produce a biography on Tony Sheridan - the man generally credited for giving the Beatles guitar lessons and the man who paved the way for them to perform in Hamburg in the early 1960s. Sheridan came from Norwich and was a rather complex character. My part in putting the book together was acknowledged by Alan as was the part I played in a highly thought-provoking book by Linda Negus entitled "Gently They Rage" which was a series of interviews with parents living with a disabled child. Some of the stories were heart-breaking in their intensity.
I did proof reading duties for Linda and received a lovely mention in the "thanks section." All very humbling.
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I mentioned in a previous blog about my aims as we come out of lockdown - one of which is to walk the entire Norfolk Coastal Park which is well over 80 miles from Hunstanton to Hopton. I know many of these areas well but there are others that are still a mystery to me.
So I have been plotting out the walks with the idea of starting them in the not too distant future. It is my intention to dip in and out of the walks rather than do them in consecutive days. So here is the programme I have set out which might take some months to complete.
Leg one - Hunstanton to Burnham Overy Staithe 12 miles
Leg two - Burnham Overy Staithe to Stiffkey 9 miles
Leg three - Stiffkey to Weybourne 10 miles
Leg four - Weybourne to Cromer 7 miles
Leg five - Cromer to Mundesley 7 miles
Leg six - Mundesley to Happisburgh 7 miles
Leg seven - Happisburgh to Winterton 13 miles
Leg eight - Winterton to Great Yarmouth 8 miles
Leg nine - Great Yarmouth to Hopton 6 miles.
Leg six