Open Writing

Water, as far as I am concerned, is to drink and wash in. Certainly not to be ventured upon in any kind of vessel, be it ocean-going liner or floating on a blow-up lilo bed in the shallow water off shore at a holiday resort.

The following episode in the life or Richard, myself and two young sons, Richard and Michael, did nothing to allay this fear, although many years later I really enjoyed a family holiday boating on the Norfolk Broads. But then we never lost sight of land -- at least I didn’t.

The year was around 1947. Dick had recently been demobbed after seven years in the army. We had been given the key to what the government called ‘a home for heroes to live in’. It was a prefab. It was our first home together. It contained everything we needed, especially our little family, and we loved it. Soon after being demobbed Dick returned to work. Richard started school, and we began to make contact with old friends again. It was during one of these meetings that we were offered, and gratefully accepted, the use of a small caravan on Lime Kiln Lane, Bridlington.

With petrol off the ration, my father brought out his little Morris Oxford car from under the shroud that had enveloped it all the war years. We all piled in somehow, luggage and all, for the grand adventure. He left us at the caravan, which was very, very small, but comfortable and adequate. The sanitation, by today’s standards, was very primitive, a tap with clean drinking and washing water and a toilet in a tent, which, being a chemical disposal type, had to be emptied down a cesspool in the corner of the field.

The sun shone most of the week, and we spent much of the time on the beach until about midweek. It was a day too cool to sit on the beach, and we decided to make our way to Bridlington harbour. It was very busy on the quay, fishing boats on the far side and pleasure boats where we were.

We were waylaid many times by the boat crews offering a trip around the bay or to Flamborough, with the promise to be ‘back in time for tea’. Rather an optimistic promise, I thought, as the tide had certainly not come in high enough at that time for the boats to leave the harbour. Richard was trying to persuade Dick to take us all for a row. Michael was, at this early age, unsure what was going on.

Looking down from the pier, the water seemed a long way down, and so did the stone steps. Fearfully, I watched Dick hire a rowing boat, assuming that I would be going with them, an action that was not on my agenda. As I hung back, three pairs of eyes looked at me with expressions of disbelief, and I found myself unwillingly picking my way down the steep, slippery steps to the boat.

We put the boys into the boat without any problems. I was the problem. Dick, with one foot on the step and the other on the boat, had great difficulty persuading me to let go of him and get into the boat. I eventually did.

Looking back, we must have been one of the most irresponsible couples around. I couldn’t swim. Neither could the boys. And if Dick had fallen overboard, he would only have come to the surface once, and that would have been to wave goodbye before he disappeared forever. Neither had we any lifejackets.

We set off around the harbour very slowly, Dick being an inexperienced oarsman. As his confidence mounted, we progressed without incident around the harbour. The fishing boats were preparing to sail when the tide was high. There was much of interest for Dick and me, and the boys loved being on the water.

We didn’t notice for some time that the tide had come in, and so had an enormous dredger which had dropped anchor in the middle of the harbour. Two to one, I was outvoted, and we set sail to get nearer the dredger, which had started to dredge on its far side. The nearer we got to it the larger it looked, looming above us like some sea monster. We rested just a short way from it and, with faces upturned, gazed in awe at the size of the thing.

Suddenly the operator changed the direction of the scoop to our side of the dredger, and with great speed started to lower it onto our boat. With only a whisker between that and us, the operator suddenly saw us and put on the brake. It shuddered to a stop, and all the seaweed, fish gut and slime from the previous load fell onto our upturned faces, all over the boat and us. They do say that in times of danger a person’s past life passes before their eyes. Mine hadn’t that chance. They were closed by a large piece of seaweed that obliterated everything else.

Quickly recovering, Dick snatched up the oars, and with the speed and agility of an Oxford Blue being chased by a man-eating shark, brought us to a rest with a scraping sound against the harbour steps, to be met by the owner of the boat, who seemed quite unconcerned at our appearance. He’d probably seen funnier things than us dredged up from the harbour.

We apologised for the state of the boat, collected our pushchair and moved away from the harbour to a side street where we tried to clean ourselves on a single beach towel. Nothing about our appearance improved. In fact we ended up transferring the sludge from one to another. We settled for cleaning the boys as much as we could.

When we had finished, it was obvious that no public transport would welcome us aboard. Even though it was a long walk back to the caravan, we set off, going by an even longer way to avoid being seen. We needn’t have bothered. The warm evening sun had brought many people out of their hotels and boarding houses for a walk before their evening meal.

The second disservice the sun did was to start drying out our clothes. Soon not only did we look a mess, but we began to discern the distinct essence of Bridlington harbour dredgings, and the flies couldn’t get enough of us.

We arrived back at the caravan hungry, tired, smelly and dirty. Having no available hot water, we stripped the boys’ clothes off outside the caravan, boiled some water and washed them. We did the best we could. All the clothes went under the caravan to be dealt with later, as there were no launderettes in those days. We never really got rid of the smell, even after repeated washings. Although we took them home in bags, they ended up in the dustbin.

And no one, but no one will ever get me into a rowing boat again.

(Huddersfield Universiy of the Third Age)