Posted by Jock on October 20, 2005 at 18:21:42 from 81.79.209.48 user Jock.
In Reply to: Re: Skiffs was ?Finish on Scarab posted by Owen Roberts on October 20, 2005 at 17:39:44:
Rubbish, [Pauses to think. Is "Rubbish" a suitable term for this forum?] I mean barbecued billygoats and pig trotters in aspic. True, the Thames is polluted by hullabaloos and floating gin palaces during high summer. But it is wonderful the rest of the year round. Also, the largest cruisers can't get through Folly Bridge in Oxford. So it keeps the Upper Thames relatively peaceful. A bit like the low bridge at Potter on the Broads.
My children used to row down from Oxford to Richmond in about 5 days, but they would do it during the Easter or Whitsun holidays. They would refer to the bigger motor cruisers, especially those trailing clouds of black smoke as "f*rt buckets" ! They loved the Thames so much that one son became a Salters captain, and one daughter, then aged 9, coxed (note for landlubbers, you "cox" rather than "steer" a skiff) all the way from Richmond to Greenwich during "The Great River Race".