Can you remember the ferryman who gave a rowing boat service between the Quay and the Shipwrights Arms on the Lower Hamworthy side and Burdens and Piplers on the Poole side? The fee was 1 penny per trip per person.
My mother would use the ferry boat some days when she’d been shopping in the High Street. Now, if you wanted to get the ferryman’s attention from the Piplers side of the quay you had to shout at the top of your voice “OVER” because if he was in his wooden hut he couldn’t hear you.
My mother could never shout so she had to wait for someone to call out. He didn’t like rowing for a single fare, so he would wait for 3 or 4 people, and on occasions mum couldn’t wait any longer and would walk all the way round over Hamworthy bridge to our home in Harbour Road, which reminds me of we 3 Boys Big Swim.
We used to swim from the ferry steps quite often, when the ferryman wasn’t about because he didn’t like his steps getting wet.
One day he caught me off guard and threw me in the drink. I went down very deep and I found myself just like a “limpet” fixed to the bottom of the mine sweeper moored at the quay. I was scared. Slowly I eased myself to the surface seeing the shade of the water getting lighter. What a relief to breathe again.
One day three of us boys decided to swim the quay width when the tides were still. We set off and slowly swam to the other side of the ferry steps.
One boy even did “Dog Paddle” all the way. Standing at the top of the steps we looked across the quay at the distance we had swum.
Then the three of us had to make up our minds, do we swim back or walk all the way along the quay over Hamworthy bridge then down Harbour Road, back to the ferry steps at the Shipwrights Arms? Walking bare foot, and just swimming trunks it was quite an achievement for eleven and twelve year olds.
At some time later, I decided to do the swim again, hoping to swim to the “Piplers” side and back. I asked an older lad (a teenager named George) to accompany me this time.
When we set off the tide had started running (ebbing) and at two thirds of the crossing I was beginning to feel the strain and this time I was drifting off course towards the Fish Shamble Steps. I shouted to George for assistance and he nursed me to the steps. I was so glad he was at hand otherwise it could have been a sad ending, and this time the ferryman rowed us back to the Hamworthy Steps.
The event taught me one thing, especially when you’re young. You can be over confident and sometimes you don’t give enough thought to the task you are undertaking. Most old Poole lads swam in the quay, and it was allowed. People came out of the pubs and threw coins in the water and we would try to gather them, it was almost impossible, you had to be extremely lucky to bag one.
When I was called up for “National Service” in 1950 into The Royal Navy I thought “I’m glad I can swim”.
