Rosie’s Ramblings – Autumn 2024

Welcome to the Autumn edition of Trowse Villager!

Having survived a summer which – with the Olympics - seemed to be even more dominated by sport than usual, I’ve been reflecting on the small part sport has played in my own life. At present I’m reading a book “The Master and his Emissary” by Iain McGilchrist”, about the two halves of the brain and the different roles that sections of them play. It’s a vast tome, and I haven’t got far into it, but so far I haven’t come upon the part of the brain responsible for sport appreciation. I would be interested, because I firmly believe that in my case it’s completely missing.

Nevertheless, I did have a very brief and far-from-illustrious sporting career in my youth, so for these Ramblings I’m taking a trip down Memory Lane, or to put it more accurately, a Row down Memory River. In my teens I joined the Norwich Amateur Rowing Club down Whitlingham Lane. At the time I was at an all-girls school, and the club’s main attraction may not have been the opportunities it offered for sitting in a boat, oar in hands, getting cold and wet while moving backwards over the water. There weren’t many girls at the club, and it now seems quite incredible that, when my friend Pat and I voiced our desire to form a “Ladies’ Four” to row in Bedford Regatta, we were taken seriously and given the opportunity.

Our first slight problem was that there were only two of us, but then Pat and I were joined by Jane, daughter of Jack Sursham who was in charge of the rowing club, who was a lovely man. I think Jane was 24, which seemed a bit old to me and Pat, but beggars can’t be choosers. So now we were three. Then out of the blue an old lady of 30 turned up and we had our Four! We only had time for a couple of practice rows on the river, but entered Bedford Regatta full of enthusiasm. In the case of male rowers, they would be paired to race against another crew with roughly the same level of expertise and ability, but in those days there were so few women rowing, you just got put against whoever was available.

Thus it was, for our very first race we had to row against Bedford Ladies who had just won an international event in Amsterdam!!! Needless to say they beat us easily, but were incredibly kind. They could have finished the course effortlessly miles ahead of us, but kept only just in front the whole way, so we didn’t look too terrible. So ended my rowing career.

A couple of years later, when I was a student at UCL, we had Wednesday afternoons free so we could engage in sporting activities. Needless to say, I found other things to do! But one Wednesday, my friend Elaine and I decided to board the coach to the UCL Boat Club on the Thames. With another woman, we took out a “tub” and set out rowing down the river. It turned out I was the only one who had ever been rowing before, but we made astonishing progress, thoroughly enjoying watching the banks whizz by, until we decided we’d better turn round to get back to the coach. Alas, trying to go back was a whole other story. Though we rowed as hard as we could, we made absolutely no progress – now the tide was against us! All we could do was pull the tub into the bank and get out to find out where we were. It goes without saying, this was well before mobile phones!

Praise the Lord, Hallelujah! Providentially we were right by Emanuel School’s Boat Club and on hearing about our plight, their coach kindly took us into their launch and motored back to UCL’s boat club, towing the tub behind, so we arrived just in time to get the coach back. Sometimes things work out brilliantly, despite the daft things we do. (I have quite a list.)

Back to the present and to solid ground! You can be sure of a warm welcome at all of Trowse Church’s services and events.