Sculling in the harbour
Noreen Honey: …boats and punts… I’d just go down and only go inside the breakwaters. I wasn’t allowed outside. Just skull… I could skull and row. I’d spend a lot of time there. Once there was a visitor stuck on the breakwater and he beckoned to me and I took him ashore and he gave me half a crown! I thought that was wonderful.
Interviewer: How old were you then Noreen?
Noreen Honey: Not very old, about nine or ten. Not very old.
We’d go right in around the cliffs and they’d say ‘Can we have a go Noreen?’ And I’d say ‘No you can’t do it’ and I wouldn’t let them. Wouldn’t let them do it. I must have been a terrible child! I thought ‘It’s my boat!’
Interviewer: Did your boat have a name?
Noreen Honey: Can’t remember now.
Noreen Honey: The boys used to keep the punts when the big boats came in from sea. The tide was just coming in around the rocks and I went down and ran over the rocks and I said ‘Come on I want the boat’. So he came over and I couldn’t wait to get the boat. The bow was coming in and I just leaned over like that. The boat went and I went flat in the water! So of course I had to go right home, I was soaking wet and that served me right for doing that! I didn’t do that again. The boy never said anything. He didn’t laugh or anything. He was a bit frightened I think.