An account of my stewarding stint on heritage open day.
INTRODUCTION
This post is the first of the detailed Heritage Open Day 2017 posts following on from the seriesopener. I visited the building that this post is dedicated to twice – first to familiarise myself with it, and then to spend two hours stewarding there.
THE STEWARDING EXPERIENCE
As I mentioned in the overview piece as I was stewarding alongside councillor Lesley Bambridge. All we knew when we started was that there were no visitor forms left for people to fill in, and that the basic rule was that if a door was open the room was accessible, otherwise not. Additionally, although it was possible to climb the staircase from ground to first floor there were no open doors on that floor, and above the first floor were private flats. We were three-quarters of the way through our stint when we discovered that we were supposed to be keeping count of visitors. From the moment we started keeping count we recorded 61 people coming in, which multiplied by four gives 244 people, which I rounded down on our tally sheet to approximately 240. Multiplied by three for the whole day this gives about 720 people coming in, and this was one of the more minor attractions.
That number of visitors also serves to explain why those two hours took quite a lot out of me – that scale of personal interaction is no joke for an autistic person.
I have put myself down to volunteer again next year, and look forward to doing it again.
27 KING STREET IN PHOTOGRAPHS
I took some photographs on my preliminary visit and had occasional opportunities while stewarding as well.
The official info sheet (there were three copies strategically positioned within the building).
This was the first of four internal and two external shots I took of this feature. Does this feature have a name other than my own “Ellipsoid Skylight”.
Externally it looks like a greenhouse roof.
The little white rectangle on the front centre of the desktop is the A4 size info sheet.
An overview of Heritage Open Day 2017 and the solution to a mathematical problem.
INTRODUCTION
Yesterday was Heritage Open Day in KIng’s Lynn, and as readers of this blog will know I was one of the volunteers helping to run the event. This post is a scene setter, giving an overview and indicating which parts of the day I will be giving individual posts to later on. At the end of this post I will include the answer the puzzle I posed at the end of my previous post.
STARTING THE DAY
I was going be stewarding at 27 King Street from 12 until 2, and knowing that I would find that experience a draining one I decided to see a handful of places before 12. The first place I visited was the one I had marked down as “must see”, because it was probably the only time the opportunity would be there do so –
NO 2 HAMPTON COURT
This property being currently vacant and of considerable historic interest it was open, and within was a little local history exhibition as well as the place itself. I will be giving this a dedicated post, so here for the moment is a single picture to whet your appetite:
I decided to head for King Street by way of the river front, and between this property and the river front is…
THE SECRET GARDEN
I knew that my aunt would be running things in this garden, so a quick visit seemed in order.
When this was first built those arches fronted directly on to the river.
The main attraction (especially as the cockling boat Baden Powell was absent) down at the river front was, as on previous occasions…
THE IFCA RESEARCH VESSEL
IFCA stands for Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Authority, and their remit is to insure that population levels of sea creatures living within six nautical miles of the shore do not decrease too dramatically. I will be creating a dedicated post about this, so I offer this picture as bait…
My plan on leaving this vessel was to…
PAY A PRELIMINARY VISIT TO 27 KING STREET
I deemed it sensible to familiarise myself with the building that I would be stewarding, so that was my next port of call. As I was at the river front I decided to go by way of the Lower Purfleet, where there was sure to be something interesting happening…
The first three pictures were taken on my out from my flat, before we get to stuff from the section between the river and King Street.
THE TUESDAY MARKET PLACE AND ENVIRONS
After my preliminary look around No 27 King Street I had half an hour to spare, so headed in the direction of the Tuesday Market Place. I paid calls at three buildings in that area, Bishop’s Lynn House, St Ann’s House and St Nicholas Chapel before heading back to no 27…
VOLUNTEERING AT 27 KING STREET
I arrived back at no 27 a few minutes early. My fellow steward for the 12PM to 2PM slot turned out to be veteran councillor Lesley Bambridge. As I will be writing a dedicated post about this I will say no more here. For a picture, here is a quirky architectural feature:
I have never seen a skylight shaped like this – for the moment until I get more information I will call it the Ellipsoid Skylight.
A CLUB ON FERRY LANE
After finishing at 27 King Street I made my next port of call the Ouse Amateur Sailing Club, where I consumed a pint. After that I decided it was time to call it a day as I was unsurprisingly feeling ‘peopled out’ – 27 King Street attracted a lot of visitors while I was there. Here is a picture taken while at the club:
This is the view looking downriver from the club’s terrace.
There at least three areas of mathematical knowledge that would give you an ‘in’ to this one – logarithms, compound interest and Pascal’s triangle. Since I have some knowledge of all three this problem barely brought a crease to my brow. Here are a couple of good solutions from others:
The second solution I am sharing here had a particular appeal to me:
Just to finish, the exact power (in terms of positive integers) of 101 that is the the first to begin with a number other than 1 is 70, and 101 ^ 70 runs to 140 digits.
Some important autism themed pieces and a few of my photographs.
INTRODUCTION
I have several important links relating to autism to share with you, and I urge you to continue that sharing process. Just to remind my readers I am#actuallyautistic, and also branch secretary of the National Autistic Society’sWest Norfolk branch, and in that latter capacity I will conclude this introduction by reminding you of NAS’s catchline:
UNTIL EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS
A NOTE ON ATTRIBUTIONS
I found some of these pieces by way of people other than the original author. In such cases as well as crediting the actual author I also intend to mention the person who gave me the tip off. If you seen an underlining anywhere it is a link, and those links that are body text will be in a colour other than black to further highlight them.
This piece was brought to my attention when the Neurodivergent Rebel reblogged it. It is a long piece, but very readable and absolutely bang on the money. The list itself is too long to quote here, but the screenshot below which explains the problems that the post goes on to address brilliantly is a good start:
THE LEFEVER BIKE RIDE
Paul and Jamie Lefever recently undertook a sponsored cycle ride from King’s Lynn to the National Autistic Society’s HQ in London, a distance of 118 miles. A full account, under the title “11-year-old Jamie cycles 118 miles for our charity (4 September 2017)” is available on the NAS website.
ABA THERAPISTS BUSTED
This piece, written by Amy Sequenzia, a well known autistic person and advocate for autism, was originally posted on the autismwomensnetwork under the self explanatory title “ABA Providers Making Fun of Autistic People“. I include a graphic from this post below:
Image is a photo of a group of human figure-shaped wooden pegs clustered to the left and a single wooden peg standing off to the right. Text says, “It is about how ABA “therapists” REALLY see Autistics. It is about them making fun of us because they see us as broken and hopeless. -Amy Sequenzia, autismwomensnetwork.org”
As always, I end this post with some of my own photographs:
The pigeon in the background helps to show how tiny this wagtail is.
No I have not rotated this shot – the squirrel really is on a vertical tree trunk.
This shot shows Hanse House and the Rathskellar, the latter of which is hosting a charity beer festival this weekend.
I was due to steward at 11-13 King Street between 12 and 2PM on Heritage Open Day, but this has now been changed to 27 King Street, which is this fine building.
The Eastern Inshore Fisheries and Conservation Auhtority.The cockling boat Baden Powell and a Fisheries Research vessel.
