A conundrum. A family of six (a mum, Mu, a dad, Eric, and four children aged 8 to 15) is stranded on a sand bank by the incoming tide. They have no phone and the sand bank is completely covered at high tide. There is no one on the main beach who can see their predicament and get help. They have a rubber dinghy. And oars. But the dinghy only takes three maximum and not two adults together. How can they get to safety? Or are they doomed? Very similar to the fox, the chicken, the grain and the farmer needing to get them all across the river. Only more dystopian…
But wait a minute… the fox… the chicken… There’s our answer…
But first, how did we (for it is the Hassell family) even get here in the first place? And what has it got to do with showering?
I was about 15 or 16. We had upgraded our two week camping holiday in Brittany to a two week camping holiday in Bordeaux. Presumably chasing some guaranteed sun after too many wet days in previous years. I had spent my hard earned paper round money on a rubber dinghy. Cool huh?
I couldn’t wait to try it out. But first I needed to play the slot machines on the ferry with the remainder of my afore mentioned hard earned paper round money… It cost 6d a go. 6d in old money back then is equal to (depending which website you click on) anywhere between 23-42p today. As much as 17 times as much. Would I play a slot machine today at 42p a pop? Nope. I would not. The impetuosity of youth. Would I be allowed to use such a machine today as an under 18? Also no.
I don’t know how long it took me but I only went and hit the jackpot! The buzz I got as hundreds of sixpences poured out of the machine was unreal. But I was savvy enough to know if it’s paid out mega bucks once it’s not going to do the same thing any time soon, so ‘pocketed’ my winnings and rushed off back to show the rest of the family the result. Mu was suitably unimpressed and promptly decreed that I must share it with the other siblings… WTF? I still, 50 years later can’t quite get over how unfair that was. I pointed out that if I had lost all my money would Mu have made the siblings pay me back? “That’s different” Mu replied. Though was unable to satisfactorily explain why. Or even unsatisfactorily cos she didn’t even bother. Now, many years later, I think it probably had something to do with this. When Mu was a kid her Mum (Maggie) scrimped and saved until she had £5 which was enough for a down payment on a house. She gave it to Harry (Mu’s dad) to take it down to the council to pay it in. Harry popped into the bookies to put it all on a sure bet. Which, true to form, didn’t come in. And Nina was never able to save the money up again…
Anyhow, onto the main point of this blog… the day I saved the family from drowning… the story I want told at my funeral. As already mentioned, the camp site was next to an estuary and the nearest beach was on the estuary too with a very fast incoming and outgoing tide. Midge learnt to swim on this holiday by dint of taking his feet off the bottom and ten seconds later being 50m further along. But I digress.
We were on a large sandbank having a picnic, when we realised that the tide had come in faster than we had anticipated and so we were now cut off. The sandbank was covered at high tide and it was pre mobile phone days and there was on-one around (lunchtime siesta?) to raise the alarm. Luckily we had my dinghy. Unluckily it was only big enough to take two/three small kids and certainly not two adults. We couldn’t swim back due to the massive current. Luckily we used to do riddles in our family so this is how we sorted it…
Eric rowed Midge and Chris across and came back by himself. He rowed Jenny across and came back by himself. He rowed me across and then… drum roll, I rowed back, picked up Mu and rowed back again. All rescued! Thanks to Cath and her dinghy.
And the shower the more alert blog readers ask? Well, we were camping. So it was definitely showers and not baths. It was probably cold showers to boot. But we were hard back then…
Lastly, I recently realised that these blogs won’t be available on the internet in perpetuity, which is rather sad and adds to my feelings of mortality since I had been under the mistaken impression that I would live for ever, even though only in an online kind of way.