Description
As recently as eight thousand years ago Britain was joined to Europe by a land bridge. As sea levels rose and the North Sea broke through this barrier, Eastern England – with what is now Norfolk at its edge – suddenly became a frontier-land, where isolation helped develop an independence of spirit and a singularity of landscape which remains to this day.
Aerial photography has helped to uncover the rich history of Norfolk, and in this book remarkable images by Mike Page portray features of its landscape and townscapes across many centuries of the county’s past. Within its covers, for example, you will find evidence of one of Norfolk’s earliest industries (flint mining at Grimes Graves) and one of the most recent (the development of Lotus cars on the former Hethel airfield). Historic buildings like Norwich Cathedral are contrasted with the ultra-modern Sainsbury Centre for the Visual Arts; the traditional delights of the Golden Mile at Great Yarmouth with the outdoor-tourism of Centre Parcs at Elveden; and the leisurely wherry with the fast-paced A11. Along the way, you will discover more about Norfolk heroes like Thomas Paine, Horatio Nelson and Queen Boudicca. This book doesn’t make judgements, but it seeks to entertain, inform and amuse through Mike Page’s stunning aerial pictures taken over several decades together with Pauline Young’s explanatory text.
Mike Page was born in Gorleston and attended school there. He moved to Beccles to live with his grandmother after his mother died and finished his schooling at the Sir John Leman school in the town. When he left school he went to teacher training college in Buckinghamshire to become a woodwork teacher, but on completion of the course decided to begin his working life as boatbuilder.
In 1973 together with his wife Gillian he started a garage and body repair business in Strumpshaw, east of Norwich. The company still trades today although Mike has now retired and left control to his son and daughter. Mike’s first book was published by Halsgrove in 2005 and since then Mike has gone on to produce 17 books with this, The Broads National Park From The Air, being the 18th.
Some of his books now out of print are becoming collectors’ items and are virtually unobtainable. The historic nature of the photographs contained within them makes them an invaluable record for reference. Mike still uses Canon camera equipment and is now using a Canon 1D mk3 and Mk4.
All of his aerial filming is with the camera, hand held, through the open window of his 1976 Cessna 150 which he has now owned for twenty-three years.
Pauline Young has lived in East Anglia for many years. She writes regularly for magazines, is a published children’s author, and has written the text for Mike’s books of aerial photography published by Halsgrove.
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