FINEPEOPLE
The Man Who Coined
‘A FINE CITY’ Everyone now accepts that Norwich is ‘A Fine City’, but that was not always so. Why and how did it come to be accepted as the city’s slogan? STEPHEN BROWNING has been finding out. Other City slogans ‘A Fine City’ was coined by the writer George Borrow in 1851. Actually what he wrote in ‘Lavengro’ was ‘ A fine old city, truly is that...’ but the word ‘old’ was later omitted. It did not catch on straight away. As late as the First World War many referred to Norwich as ‘No Mean City’ which was taken from St Paul’s description of Tarsus. Even later the City council had the idea of calling Norwich ‘England’s Other City’ which caused offence to every other city in the land barring London and was mercifully dropped. Recently I have noticed references in the press to ‘Norwich, England’s only UNESCO City of Literature’ but, as this is a bit of a mouthful and anyway may one day cease to be the case, I think it is safe to say that the present slogan will survive for a very long time. Who was George Borrow? George Borrow was born in 1803 and died in 1881. He went as a ‘free boy’ to Norwich Grammar School, a humiliation some say he never got over, as the ‘free boys’ were looked down on by
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Steve Browning WRITER @RETURNINGPERSON
www.finecity.co.uk
the boarders who tended to be the sons of middling gentlefolk like clergy and solicitors. Four books He is famous for four books. The first, and best by far, is ‘The Bible in Spain’ which I first came across in Camden Market when I was working in the great capital. I knew nothing about it or the author at the time but just felt intrigued as to what it might be. I remember opening it when I returned home from work and I was still reading it at 3 in the morning. It is the best travel book I have ever seen and recounts George Borrow’s adventures distributing bibles in Spain, a land of incredible hardship and beauty at the time. The book suffers very slightly from the hero’s ( i.e. George Borrow’s ) description of what a fine chap he is but this is readily forgiven. Here is a taste of it: “It was near sunset... and we were crossing the bay of Gibraltar. Bay! It seemed no bay, but an inland sea, surrounded on all sides by enchanted barriers, so strange, so wonderful, was the aspects of its coasts. Before us lay an impregnable hill; on our right, the African continent, with its grey Gibil Muza and the crag of Ceuta to which a solitary bark seemed steering its way; behind us the town we had just quitted, with its mountain wall; on our left the coast of Spain... There, at the base of the mountain, and covering a small portion of its side, lay the city, with its ramparts garnished with black guns pointing significantly at its moles and harbours...” Fame comes knocking This book was immediately incredibly successful, ‘The
RIGHT: WRITER GEORGE BARROW 1803-1881
“Never has a book more legibly impressed us with the unmistakeable mark of genius” Examiner’ saying ‘Never has a book more legibly impressed with the unmistakeable mark of genius’. George Borrow became a society sensation, attending all manner of parties until everything became too much and he ran away. He found instant fame of this magnitude almost impossible to take. But eight years later, egged on by his publisher, he produced another, probably his most famous – ‘Lavengro’ and followed this with ‘The Romany Rye’. The books are loosely autobiographical and strange in several ways. Firstly, ‘Lavengro’ covers several years but ‘The Romany Rye’ (the title means ‘the Gypsy Gentleman’ which refers to how the author was often unkindly seen by the sons of the gentry at at Norwich Grammar School) only several weeks. Then there are many unconvincing coincidences. But perhaps the most disconcerting aspect is the use of ‘I’ – some critics have unkindly said that the main function of the books is to prove how learned and talented
George Borrow is. I think this is wrong and sometimes the writing is brilliant and reminiscent of Charles Dickens. The following, for example, could almost be from ‘The Mystery of Edwin Drood’. It is describing the start of an argument between two groups of people below Edinburgh Castle: ‘It was a beautiful Sunday evening, the rays of the descending sun were reflected redly from the grey walls of the Castle, and from the black rocks on which it was founded. The bicker had long since commenced. Stones from sling and hand were flying; but the callants of the New Town were now carrying everything before them.’ Oh Dear! Fame goes away Unfortunately, the reviews for the two new books were appalling which caused a man of George Borrow’s temperament great pain. One critic said that the ‘books are, in short, clogged with material that is not good enough or not good at all’. 2015 January | 39