Geoff Brown on Sea Scouts

When I was in my Senior Scouts, I would have been about 16, 17, I was being examined for a Rowing Permit, or Pullingness we call it in the Scouts, for rowing basically in the river. We were allowed one mile off the shore and we were up at Cement Mills, we camped up there every September in amongst the old cement mills and the old railway carriages that they were dismantling and what have you which was good because one carriage we actually slept in it, in a railway carriage which was lovely save putting the tent up.

The Water Activities Adviser for the County came up in his boat, moored in the middle of the river and I was rowed out by my crew, left on board and he started asking me theoretical questions.

“Right, you’re coming out of Southampton Water and fog comes down. What do you do you see?”

And the way, of course, the trick was to work out which way the tide’s going, go with the tide so that if the tide was flowing, it was flooding, you actually aimed for Osborne Bay so to speak ‘cos you know that when you hit the shore it didn’t matter where it was you could then work your way back along the shore. Whereas if you just tried to aim the other way you didn’t quite sure where the tide would take you.

So, the first thing I said was “I wouldn’t be allowed over I’m only allowed one mile off the shore.”

He didn’t ask me any more questions after that because he thought I was a clever dick.