The Great Cley Floods - the end

 June 1853

It was summertime and the schools had finished for their six weeks' break. Rachel was home most of the time with her mother. It has been a fruitless search that Rebecca had sent her on. Richard Banyer reported that there was no master at the Grammar School in Holt called Martin Gardner. The English master was about the right age, but he was called William Rudkin and he lived in Holt.

Rebecca had believed Rachel’s information, but even so, one Friday when she was in Holt for the market, she thought she might call on Mrs. Rebecca Palleyne. Her husband Benjamin was the Headmaster of Holt Free Grammar School, also called Greshams, and Rebecca had met Mrs.
Palleyne some years ago and remembered that she is blind. She took along a pot of homemade strawberry jam, not her work, but homemade none the less. There was a houseful. As well as the elder Palleynes, their son Walter who she learned is a practicing apothecary lived in their house on the Market Place, and his wife Ann, about 24 was there with their daughter, Annie, who was about five. They had two servants as well, Eliza and Sarah. Rebecca was welcomed and offered
tea.

Reverend Palleyne who also was Vicar of Sheringham came to join them, along with a man who he introduced as Mr. John Slann, his second master at the school. This was just exactly what Rebecca had been hoping for.

Eventually Rebecca worked up enough courage to ask the question she needed to know the answer to. “Do forgive me, Reverend Palleyne for asking you a school question during your holiday, but I recently met a woman who said her husband worked at your school, and I wanted to locate her again. He was living in Cley in January, and their rented house was badly flooded, so I expect they moved back to Holt again. I think his name was Martin Gardner and he teaches English.”

“I’m sorry madam, but that name means nothing to me at all. How about you, John? Does you know
the man?”

His friend shook his head in denial.

“He certainly did not teach at my school. Perhaps it was one of the other grammar schools in Norfolk and you became confused.”

“Oh, yes perhaps that was the case. Sorry to have mentioned it.”

“Not at all. We do have the Pitcher brothers with us who come from Cley. Do you know their parents? I believe the father William is a grocer and moved to Cley not all that many years ago from Brancaster. The two boys, William, who goes by the name of Josiah and John are very good scholars, and I understand they have two younger brothers who will eventually be coming to our school.

“I share an interest with Mr. Pitcher,” he added. “We both enjoy archeology. You know, of
course, about the quern from the hand mill on Cromwell’s Hill which I have here. It is a real relic from a Roman Camp. I will get it to show you.”

Rebecca had heard from her friends that the word used in regard to Reverend Palleyne’s
acquisition of the quern was “Purloined” which had a rather less than satisfactory sound to it. But when it was brought for her inspection, she hoped she looked suitably impressed and made the
right sorts of appreciative noises.

He said, “Querns are simple carved stones used to grind stone to make corn. The oldest type, such as this, is known as a saddle quern. These have a larger slab of stone as the base. The corn is the placed on the slab, and a smaller stone is used to grind the corn. It is called a saddle stone because the base slab becomes ground away in the centre making it appear a little like a saddle. Can you see that? These usually date to the prehistoric period so although it was found in the Roman excavation, it predates that by several thousand years, most likely. The other main type is the rotary quern. It is made up of two circular pieces of stone with a hole through them. A small wooden handle is usually placed in the top one slightly off-centre. This is then used to rotate the top stone against the bottom one. Corn is fed through the central hole.”

“How very interesting,” I said. “Thank you for showing that to me.”

I added, “I do know the Pitchers slightly, and I will pass on to Mrs. Elizabeth Pitcher your
kind comments about her sons.”

It was not long after that Rebecca decided she had got as much as she could from the visit, and
said her goodbyes. She was disheartened as her possible links to Mary Gardner now seemed at an end.

Chapter 15

July, 1953

Simeon had arrived on time and was now three weeks old. Mary felt a bit embarrassed to do it, but she asked Martin, “Could we take the children and go up to the churchyard this afternoon? I really want to look at the gravestones.”

“I can see no reason why not. It is a lovely day and will be fun for them to run around amongst the graves. But somehow, I think there is a reason behind all this. What is it love?”

“I want to find Rebecca’s grave. I want to show her my new baby,” said Mary, almost crying from the emotion of it all. “She made me promise I would show him to her, although she was hoping it would be a girl and I would name her Rebecca, after my rescuer.”

“Let’s take a picnic lunch and we can spend the afternoon. I will look after the children and play games with them and you can look around the stones and see if you can see any that you can identify.”

So just after twelve, they took the pram, the picnic basket, and holding Alice and John firmly by their hands, they started on their adventure of discovery. They went up the loke outside Whalebone House, up past Gainsborough Cottage on the right and Hollyhock Cottage on the left. At the top was Lane House on one side, and Holly Cottage on the other. They turned to the right and walked down Fairstead, looking at the gardens as they walked by. After the turning down to the main road, they went by Fairstead Cottage and then Church Lane Cottage and a very large house called Long Acre. After a bit they took the path down past Knoll House and Church Knoll, and other cottages at the
back of the church and came upon the graveyard.

There were benches alongside the edge of the graves, and they settled down for their picnic lunch,
spreading a blanket on the ground for the children. Simeon was very good, but when he stirred, Mary took him from the pram and fed him, and he went quickly back to sleep again.

Martin kept the children happy and engaged in games to deal with looking for certain letters and
numbers on the tombstones and Mary took out her notebook and started her search.

She really was only interested in names that had been mentioned to her in her other life, so she
skipped by many which were either too old or too new. Many she could not read at all, so she very much hoped she would not miss the one she so much wanted to see.

When she went around towards the front of the church she suddenly got rather excited. She had found a clutch of stones all relating to the Starling family. She hadn’t met them, but references had been made to them both by Rebecca and by Freda Starr. Elizabeth Starling died on August 28, 1879. She was only 44. Her tomb read, “Being in the sight of the Lord is the wish of his saints.” Mary wondered if she had kept the shop which Freda now ran, or whether she had been some
other part of the family. Then she found one for Alice Ann Starling, who died on November 22, 1894, aged 33. “It’s hard to part from one we love, But Jesus knows what is best” her tomb said.

Martin shouted from the back, “Mary, I have found a bunch of Bastards here for you.”

Giggling to herself, Mary went to the far side of the church yard again. She found William Bastard, born February 29th1852, so he would only have been a baby when she was there, and he didn’t
die until 1911. His wife was buried with him. Then she found Mary Ann Bastard who died on May 29th, 1889, 60 years old. But Mary was sure the woman she was looking for had been called Bridie. Then she came to Samuel Bastard’s grave which also had his wife who died in 1864. The saying on the tomb was, “Her children shall call her blessed.”

“I found Bridie,” chirped Alice, B's being one of her most easily identifiable letters.

“Yes, you have, you clever girl,” said Mary. “She died in 1887, but William died in 1864. Oh, and look, here are their two sons, John died in 1864 too. I wonder if they died together in an accident of
some sort. And Jabez died in 1874, only 30. Poor Bridie. She lost her whole family. There is no mention of her daughter Dorcas, but she most likely will have married and we wouldn’t know what name to look under.”

While going through those at the very back of the church Mary found a huge vault. It was for John Lee, who died on November 24th, 1848 aged 60. And his wife Hannah died 16th October 1864. “We sorrow not as we have hope.” Mary thought this might be the Hannah that had been playing whist, as she had been a widow at the time and much younger than Rebecca from the sound of it. The
vault also contained Mary Smith, sister of John from Surrey who died in 1854.

After over an hour of searching Mary finally found what she was looking for. It was such a lovely tombstone, with a carved rose at the top and the inscription, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” Mary went and got the pram and pushed it up to the very edge. She knelt down by the tomb and whispered softly, “Here he is, Rebecca. He is ever such a good baby, my Sam. You would have enjoyed holding him and playing with him. I’m pleased to see that you had a good many years
after my visit with you. It says you didn’t die until 1871 so that was another 18 years you had. I hope you had grandchildren of your own by then. But I suppose there is no way we can find that out. I
don’t see Rachel’s tomb near you, so perhaps she married and moved away. Thank you again for rescuing me, and I will come and visit you often and bring the children.”

Chapter 16

June 10th, 2006

Hello, Rebecca. It’s been a long time since I came to see your grave to give you an update on my life. But I had to come today because I have the most exciting news. But first of all, I must bring you up to date with my situation.

My beloved Martin has died. He was 81, and had been poorly for some time with cancer and then he lost his short term memory. He made up for it by regaling us over and over with his wonderful stories of his time as a prisoner of war. But life does seem very empty without him. I, too, am getting on, and who knows when or if I will be making this trip to Cley again to visit you. But my brain is still good, and I can still garden and still bake bread and cakes. Do you remember how you looked so disparagingly at my rough calloused hands? They are no better, but now I have good reason for them being so worn looking. Our house has a four acre garden and I keep it up on my own, except
for the boys coming home and helping with the mowing occasionally.

My children are all grown and have grown children of their own. But I have no great grandchildren yet. I hope I will have that thrill before I die. I remember how much you wished for grandchildren when
we met all those years ago. Well, that is why I have come to see you today. To tell you that your genes have not only survived but will continue to do so.

I must start this story properly or you won’t understand what I am on about. My son John has a daughter, Emily, and she is now a student at Gresham School. I think you called it Holt Free Grammar School when I visited with you, but it is the same place. Are you surprised that they have girls there now? It only happened recently, within the last 10 years or so. But getting back to my story, my granddaughter Emily is very good at using the computer. And she loves to have me tell
stories of my family history. So she offered to help me trace my ancestors. Well, to make a long story short, you are my great great great great grandmother. Can you believe that? When your daughter Rachel finally married Richard Banyer and moved with him to Somerset, she had a daughter whom she called Sarah. Sarah in her turn married and had a daughter called Elizabeth. And Elizabeth had Hannah who was my mother. Isn’t it interesting how all you women chose strong
women from the Bible to name your daughters after? Well, my mother didn’t know much about her ancestors, so we have only just found all of this out. Didn’t you feel the tie between us, way back in
1853? I know I did. I felt like we were joined in some way, and I kept hoping to find evidence of you, to make you part of my life. I didn’t of course know then that you were my great great great
great grandmother, but now that I do know it, I am so pleased and it all makes much more sense.

Two of my sons have settled back in the West Country, they are both doctors and doing well. My baby to be, when I visited you is one of them. My older children live and work in London, but they also have homes in Norfolk, so I see quite a lot of them.

Emily has not only traced my ancestry, but she has also found out much more for me about what Cley was like in those days. Actually for you to look at it today, you would have no trouble in recognising it. The houses on High Street look much the same, and your Heron House is still standing proud. What has changed is that Cley is now more or less in the hands of the tourists. There are lots of Bed and Breakfast places, including the Mill, and a huge bird sanctuary on
the marshes. People come from all over the country to watch birds here. There are some new houses, of course, especially along Fairstead and Church Lane, although the local governance has required them to be built in sympathy with the old buildings of Cley. There still is no street lighting, and the roads are as narrow and easily clogged as ever they were. The Bastard’s bakery is now an art shop, and the Forge is a delicatessen. The public house that used to be across from where we lived, was a draper and grocer in my time, but now that is a pottery. But your village is still very much alive and buzzing. The sea is the same, and there are still occasional floods but they have now built a flood wall around the village, and so far that has kept the problem to a minimum. The latest thing is that they have rerouted the Glaven River. I’m sure you would not have approved of that any more than Martin and I did, so we shall have to wait and see what results that has in the future.

And you don’t know of course, but the young man who rescued me after I left your house, Philip Day, well he owns the house we used to live in. Isn’t that a coincidence?

Well great-great-great-great Grandma Rebecca, I must be going. Sitting on this damp ground is not
good for my arthritis. But I thought you should know first hand from me, about our relationship. Perhaps it won’t be long before you can be taking me in hand again, when I get to wherever you are now.

(Picture is Mallard House, which we owned for awhile, but sold when Phiip was diagnosed with cancer, and it was made into a b and b, and is now on the market again.)