Presentation used in after dinner speech

1. “Very flat,
Norfolk” –
geographies of
place
Alan Parkinson, CGeog, FRGS
Formerly Geographical Associa9on
Curriculum Development Leader

2. “Place is one of the trickiest words
in the English language, a suitcase
so overfilled that one can never
shut the lid...”
Dolores Hayden, 1997
Image by Tim Caynes CC Flick

3. Who am I ?
• Born in Rotherham, S. Yorkshire
• Degree at Huddersfield Polytechnic, W. Yorkshire
• PGCE at Hull University, E. Yorkshire
• Taught for 20 years in King’s Lynn
• Awarded 3 Innova9ve Geography teaching grants by
RGS‐IBG
• June 2008: won Ordnance Survey Award “for
excellence in secondary geography teaching”
• July 2008: stopped teaching & joined GA
•Sept 2011: freelance author & geographer

6. An incomer...

7. Jamie Oliver

8. What does Norfolk ‘mean’ to people ?

9. Wordle of results...

10. Norfolk coast for me
• Cromer pier on a crisp winter day
• Seal boat from Morston
• Pint of Wherry in the Red Lion at S;<ey by
the log fire
• Steam train at Weybourne
• Thornham to Holme walk ‐ lonely beaches
• S;<ey Salt Marshes when the lavender is in
bloom
10

11. Noel Coward
What is your experience ?

12. Images of
Norfolk

13. The Norfolk Coast
hbp://www.flickr.com/photos/geographypages/
13

14. 14

15. 15

16. The Wreck of the Sheraton
hLp://www.flickr.com/photos/sharpeimages/3421855191/sizes/l/in/photostream/
16

17. Sandwich cliffs
17

18. Michael Kennedy
18

19. On the seventh day God didn't rest. He looked
at what he had created and thought: 'Oh
dammit, England's gone all wrong. The sea is
washing silt off the coastlines in the north and
deposi9ng them in an ugly bulbous lump near
Kent'. Today we call this unholy place
East Anglia

20. On the seventh day God didn't rest. He looked
at what he had created and thought: 'Oh
dammit, England's gone all wrong. The sea is
washing silt off the coastlines in the north and
deposi9ng them in an ugly bulbous lump near
Kent'. Today we call this unholy place
East Anglia

21. “Why would I
want to go
and live in
bloody
Norfolk for
God’s sake ?
Nothing good
ever came out
of Norfolk...”

22. 21

25. WHAT HAS BEEN THE
HIGHLIGHT OF YOUR
VISIT ?

26. “Geography” – GA journal
Autumn 2008 issue
“PLACE”

27. Many think of place as rela9ng
to places, rather than the
concept of place...

28. Classic defini9on of place
place (pls)n.1.a. An area with definite or indefinite boundaries; a por9on of space.
b. Room or space, especially adequate space: There is place for everyone at the back of the
room.
2.a. The par9cular por9on of space occupied by or allocated to a person or thing.
b. A building or an area set aside for a specified purpose: a place of worship.
3.a. A dwelling; a house: bought a place on the lake.
b. A business establishment or office.
c. A locality, such as a town or city: visited many places.
4. Abbr. Pl. A public square or street with houses in a town.
5.a. A space in which one person, such as a passenger or spectator, can sit or stand.
b. A seqng for one person at a table.
6. A posi9on regarded as belonging to someone or something else; stead: She was chosen in his
place.
7. A par9cular point that one has reached, as in a book: I have lost my place.
8. A par9cular spot, as on the body: the place that hurts.
9.a. The proper or designated role or func9on: the place of the media in a free society.
b. The proper or customary posi9on or order: These books are out of place.

29. 10. Social sta9on: He overstepped his place.
11. A par9cular situa9on or circumstance: Put yourself in my place.
12. High rank or status.
13. A job, post, or posi9on: found a place in the company.
14. Rela9ve posi9on in a series; standing.
15. Games Second posi9on for beqng purposes, as in a horserace.
16. The specified stage in a list of points to be made, as in an argument: in the first place.
17. MathemaBcs A posi9on in a numeral or series.
v. placed, plac∙ing, plac∙es
v.tr.1. To put in or as if in a par9cular place or posi9on; set.
18. To put in a specified rela9on or order: Place the words in alphabeBcal order.
19. To offer for considera9on: placed the maCer before the board.
20. To find accommoda9on or employment for.
21. To put into a par9cular condi9on: placed him under arrest.
22. To arrange for the publica9on or display of: place an adverBsement in the newspaper.

30. “a meaningful segment of
geographical space”

31. “The idea of place can be
divisive, because it requires
a boundary, and therefore
an ‘inside’

32. “I’m not a
tourist, I live
here...”

33. Yi Fu Tuan
“Place is security, space is
freedom.
“...place is whatever stable object
catches our aCenBon. As we look at a
We are attached to one and long
panoramic scene our eyes pause at
for the other.”
points of interest.
Each pause is Bme enough to create an
Geographer, Yi-Fu Tuan
image of a place that looms large
momentarily in our view.”
2005
With thanks to Daniel Raven Ellison

34. Eleanor Rawling
Geographers do not just see a place as
an ‘objec9ve thing’ in the world that
can be described and explained as
they build up geographical
knowledge.
‘Place’ is also experienced on a
personal and deeply emo9onal level.

35. Will Self
gra phy
ogeo
psych

36. What’s the connec9on ?
35

37. Burnham Deepdale
36

38. “Childhood is a branch of
cartography”
Michael Chabon

39. Shiting Sands
• Dunes ‐ gradient offshore
• Racing 9de ‐ Sneqsham spectacular
• Golf Course ‐ Brancaster (SSSI)
• Links land 38

40. Writers on the Coast
39

41. Photographers
• Harry Cory Wright ‐ gallery in Burnham
Market ‐ large format camera
40

42. Norfolk Coast

43. “the visceral essence of place”
Rachel Cook (2008)

44. ‘Turnip’ Townsend
• Born, and lived, at Raynham Hall ‐ passed on
the way here from home...
43

45. Cornelius Vermuyden
• Draining marshes at
Holkham
• Coast road inland from
the coast...
44

46. Dialect
“ a sense of
belonging to a
place”...

47. Allan Smethurst
“The Singing Postman”

48. Flickr user: the ginger bloke

49. How important is dialect in
defining a place ?
Is it used to help iden9fy those who are from
“elsewhere” ?
Image by Flickr user nutmeg66

50. How could we
rebrand Norfolk ?

53. Poppyland

54. Nelson’s
County....

55. “I am a Norfolk man and Glory in
being so.”
“You either get Norfolk, with
its wild roughness and
uncul9vated oddi9es, or you
don't. It's not all sot and
lovely. It doesn't ask to be
loved.”

56. Bernard Mabhewsland

57. hbp://www.worldclassnorfolk.com/

58. Coast Management Plan

60. Norfolk: future places....

61. SEA LEVEL
RISE

62. Coastal erosion and abandonment

63. Changing
places…

64. Image by Flickr user i_gallagher ‐ CC
Renewable energy...

65. Future crops ??

66. Future connec9vity...

67. A flavour of Norfolk
Text
66

69. Acknowledgements
All images by Alan Parkinson, and available from FLICKR
under Crea9ve Commons, unless acknowledged on slides (CC
licensed)
Except:
Slides 3, 4 and image by Val Vannet
Slide by Sally Parkinson
Thanks to my Twiber Flock who answered my Norfolk
queries.
hbp://www.literarynorfolk.co.uk/index.htm ‐ informa9on
on Norfolk’s culture