MAY I FLOAT THIS BY YOU?

Chapter 1-The third installment.

Through my late teens holidays on the Broads continued, not annually but often enough.

Different crews depending on who had money enough, who had fallen out with whom, who was currently in love etc. Being teenagers there was always the possibility of someone falling out with someone else but I had a theory that if there were more than 4 we should have more than one boat. Then if there was a row the combatants could be separately accommodated. It worked a treat and because there was such a safety valve there were no serious upsets.

Thus it was that when I was eighteen we hired three boats, a 4 berth with me and friends Geoff and Dick, a two berth with Steve and Dave and another with Neville and his girlfriend who obviously didn’t want to share accommodation with an all male crew. 

Whilst camaraderie and bonhomie existed these trips were not without incident. During a few rare hot, sunny days we discovered the joy of water fights between boats starting first with cupfuls of water hurling the contents at the other boat from fairly short distances, escalating to plastic bagsful being hurled greater distances as one boat sped past another. Then things took an agreeably nasty turn when someone, i know not who, discovered that an excess of eggs meant ballistic warfare could be elevated to another level replacing water with egg missiles which had the advantage to the attacker of landing on the hot deck of the target craft and almost immediately frying in the heat cleaving the missile to the surface and making it almost impossible to remove. Deep joy. Until the egged victims returned fire and all three boats looked like floating omelettes requiring a ceasefire so as to get rid of the splattered missiles before nature did its worse and the odour became sulphurous. A ceasefire I suspect caused not just because of good housekeeping requirement but more likely because we’d all run out of eggs. The yoke was on us. Sorry-I did warn you.

Potter Heigham Bridge holds a special place in my heart. Infamous amongst Broads holidaymakers because of its restricted height its situation is such that if you want access to the beautiful Hickling Broad (and the Pleasure Boat Inn) or equally lovely Horsey Mere the bridge has to be negotiated. In the days of sail this wasn’t much of a problem-as long as you remembered to lower your mast on approaching and quant (punt) or paddle your way through. With the advent of powered cruisers it became more of a hazard with hire boats frequently losing parts of their superstructure-particularly windscreen- as the poor sod at the wheel realised too late that their boat was taller than the bridge arch.

The height of the arch, of course, varied depending on the amount of water underneath. The River Thurne is tidal, albeit only varying some six inches, and as we all know some six inches can be important- plus on the odd occasion n that Norfolk had any significant rainfall i.e. weekly- the rise and fall can be greater. The narrow central arch restricts passage to boats needing headroom of less than 6.6 feet (2.0 m), and is the lowest bridge on the Broads

Potter Heigham is a medieval bridge   It consists of three arches, two triangular ones built in the fourteenth century, and a central circular arch built when the bridge was altered in the fifteenth century

Just to the north of it there is now the A149 Potter Heigham Bypass bridge, which  carries  most of the traffic which formerly used the medieval bridge,

Whilst such a remarkable edifice is obviously protected, throughout the boom in hireboats in the 50s its historical status wasn’t safe from the inexpert boater who for over 20 years knocked lumps off it (not the same bloke obviously) when misjudging their passage (Ooooh Matron!), though to be fair the boat usually came off second best.

Then in the 60s a Pilot service was introduced mainly at the behest and expense of the hire boat companies. Apart from damage to their fleet and occasional injury to crew there were also cases of boats having negotiated their way upstream being unable to return because the levels had changed. There was one occasion when a boat got stuck fast under the arch and everyone was buggered and for some time passage was impossible at great cost to the hire fleet owners. The Pilot Service was required for any hireboat over 2 berths. During the same holiday involving the egg missile incidents this ruling meant that as the 2 berth boat hired by Neville and his girlfriend could proceed pilotless whereas the 4 berther that I was on, had to stop to pick up the Pilot. Normally this involved a short wait but on this occasion the Pilot was waiting for us and hopped on board , took over the wheel and gunned the boat midstream and headed towards the bridge. Meanwhile Neville who had started early on the cider had forgotten about his windscreen and was now between us and the bridge having reversed out and was going round in circles whilst trying to reposition the windscreen remnants before attempting another go.

Our Pilot was not used to hanging about and let Nev have the benefit of our hooter and a suggestion that he might like to get out of the way. Because we had been so rapid in collecting the man, Nev now provoked by the tooting guessed wrongly that we had decided not to bother to make use of the service and were thus pilotless. In return for the hooter and shouted admonition he gave us the benefit of a double two fingered response accompanied by the advice we should go away. Again I paraphrase.

Thus when at the end of the week when he returned his somewhat damaged craft to the hire base and was met by the hire company manager clutching a report from the Pilot.  He lost his deposit and not long after, the girlfriend.

 Allegedly with the rise in water levels over the past few years the number of boats able to negotiate the bridge has dropped from over 10,000 to less than 1800 per year. This may also be in part attributable to the increase in size of boats to meet the modern need for more luxury on board.

Later when I owned my first boat which, as a former hire boat had required a pilot, it was very satisfying to “shoot” the bridge unaided and on one day did it six times just for the pleasure of it.

Nowadays a pilot is also required at Wroxham Bridge for the same reasons as Potter Heigham. Those folk in the Middle Ages might have known a bit about building bridges that last but were obviously blissfully unaware of the existence of Blakes and Hoseasons Hire business.

The teenage hirings declined as we variously discovered other reasons not to go off for a week boozing  afloat with chums. Those reasons included the advent of foreign travel, women, occasional penury and just that old fashioned wish for a change.

The main disadvantage of the arrangement whereby we hired more than one boat was that whilst I could cook something edible when necessary-and this was back in the 60s when very few pubs served food- on another boat there was a crew of non-cooks and were therefore destined to die of scurvy by the Wednesday.

One evening my advice was sought on how to cook boiled potatoes. Easy I said. Peel ‘em, put ‘em in a saucepan and boil ‘em till they’re cooked. Straightforward you would have thought.
Wrong.

The more observant of you will have noticed that I left out one vital ingredient, water, out of the recipe.

Later that evening there was a piercing scream as Steve, on finding a saucepan burning on the oven top containing very burnt potatoes, had grabbed the handle of the pan with resultant painful injury. The damage was not good so we repaired to the pub. Where else? The pub was in the middle of nowhere which in Norfolk is easily achieved. By the end of the evening it was obvious even to us thickheads that Steve was in a bad way. The failed cook, who shall remain nameless, took the initiative by finding the only phone box for miles where there were phone books! Can you imagine a phone box with telephone books and phone unvandalised being found anywhere nowadays? But I digress.

Anyway Dave, the nameless cook, found the nearest doctor in the book and rang the number.

Imagine, if you will, a country doctor abed with his good lady and it’s round midnight. The phone rings and a voice tells you his mate has burnt his fingers.

“Where?” yawned the Doctor.

“On his hand”

Dave could never resist a cheap joke, a quality we share, but on this occasion...well, as they say there’s a time and a place.

The Doctor hung up.

Steve spent a miserably uncomfortable night and the following day we took the boats to the nearest place with a pharmacist, the already famous Potter Heigham The chemist took one look and said “Hospital”.

I asked where we could catch a bus to Norwich but a voice behind us said “It’s ok I’m going that way. I’ll drop you off” The voice belonged to a uniformed policeman.

How kind I thought.

Till we got outside.

I had imagined riding, guilt free, in the back of a police car looking for all the world like a tv detective. (That’s short for television not transvestite. What have they done to our language!?)

There was a mini-van parked outside. Given his condition Steve obviously had to ride in the one passenger seat. Our friendly bobby opened the rear door of the van. “In you go” he said.” Don’t worry he’s very friendly”

There inside was the biggest German Shepherd Police Dog in the world. He demonstrated his unquestionable friendliness by bearing his yellow fangs and uttering a welcoming snarl.

I’m not a dog person. I don’t much like them and they reciprocate accordingly. However, whilst this has not normally caused a problem, my encounters before Police Dog Fang had not been with an animal trained to deal with criminals one of whom I obviously was. Why else would I have been placed in the back of the van for him to guard. Every time on the 25 mile journey that I moved to find a more comfortable position or avoid his intense gaze he snarled. He looked like he would eat me as though I was a Boneo biscuit. From Morse to morsel in a twinkle.

We arrived at the hospital and thanked the policeman, albeit I wasn’t effusive and certainly wasn’t going to attempt to shake his hand with Fang still maintaining his stare at the accused.

Steve was duly sorted, we got a rollicking off the nurse for not having come sooner and out we came to look for a bus.

The words I least wanted to hear rang across the hospital car park.

“It’s your lucky day!”

The friendly policeman was coincidentally returning to Potter Heigham so despite, my protestations that we shouldn’t impose on his kindness anymore. We walked to the van. I suggested to Steve that as he was now repaired he should try riding in the back but either he still didn’t feel too grand or held me responsible for not stating the bloody obvious that when you “boil” something you put water in it. I don’t know. He got in the front seat.

I again climbed in alongside Fang. He looked overjoyed as only a police dog who might have thought on the first occasion that I was a felon was absolutely certain on the return. A real bad’un.

“Don’t worry” said the driver, “he is very friendly” I took some comfort from that until I realised that between him and Fang was a welded steel grill which I assumed was not to stop the handler from attacking the dog. By the time we got back to our boats, I was cramp-ridden, stiff as a board and increasingly terrified because he got closer as each long mile passed. I wondered if German Shepherd dogs have no sense of smell....and I’m not talking about his breath. Nerves do that to a chap.

Good memories and good fun.

 

Those Broads holidays with my parents and later my friends sowed the seed. One day I would buy my own boat.

Friend Ady and I had talked of buying something floatable but never had the money. I was in my mid twenties, broke and at a pretty low ebb having not long broken up with someone after a five year relationship.

Then I won the Football Pools.

It wasn’t a fortune, £440 to be exact but it was a tidy sum back in the 70s. It was to be the deposit on my first boat which I bought jointly with  Ady .

 That ex-hire cruiser on the Broads started a life of boat ownership lasting over five boats and five decades proving that had I never won the Pools I would be considerably wealthier than I am now. Broad Wave 2 had been part of a small hire fleet at Clifford Allen’s Yard in Coltishall at the northernmost tip of the Broads. I say “Yard” because that’s what they were called in those days. Boatyards. Not poncey marinas. The yard was being sold for redevelopment, a trend sadly that crept throughout the area with people buying second homes which the locals couldn’t afford particularly now their places of work-the boatyards and shops that supported them- had gone and with them skills never to return.

The consequent auction of the Coltishall yards’ contents was an experience. We had already viewed the boat, had her surveyed and paid a deposit. I was surprised therefore to receive a call from the local agents to ask If I was going to come up for the auction. I replied I was and was told my boat would still be in the catalogue and not to bid. I expressed some concern. What if someone bids more than the price we’ve agreed? Don’t worry he assured me. The boat is yours. Ady and I duly attended partly on the look out for any bargains by way of equipment. For some reason I was attracted to a job lot of can openers-about 50 of them- which I slowly gave away over the next 10 years. Not exactly Alan Sugar.

We also wanted to make sure there wasn’t some dubious double dealings going on over the sale having agreed a price of £850! When Broad Wave came up for auction the bidding went roughly along the lines of £400 initially and rose in stages to £850. If I was going to be diddled this was the crunch point.

“900” came a bid from a scruffy ‘erbert in cloth cap and old raincoat. “950” was the response from some disembodied voice in the middle of the throng. I was getting agitated and became more so when cap and raincoat called out “1000” After a few seconds of making a show of getting more bids the auctioneer brought down his gavel. “Name?” he asked.

“Wall” answered man. Obviously planted to make sure we got our boat and the provenance of the Catalogue was upheld. Afterwards I told the auctioneer I got a bit anxious but he shrugged. Cap  and Raincoat man’s instructions were to keep bidding till the opposition gave up and “you should be pleased, boy, you now know your boat has gone up 150 quid since you bought it”

Anybody want a can-opener?