When I first entered IC in 1942 nobody knew how long the war would last. Neither America nor Japan was yet involved, and despite the fact that we were getting material aid from America Britain was standing alone against a powerful enemy. Although we never entertained the possibility of defeat, everybody expected the war to last for many years and our Government had to plan accordingly.
As soon as we left IC, with or without a degree, we had to either join the armed forces or go into whatever industrial position that the Ministry of Labour decreed for us. Under the ‘direction of labour’ wartime laws one could not simply go out and find the most congenial job. My intention was always to join the Navy, and to become an engineer officer one either had go through the full course at the Royal Naval Engineering College at Manadon or get an engineering degree elsewhere and then take a concentrated course at Manadon in naval engineering. I took the latter option.
During this period there were (if I recall correctly) about 4000 students at IC, although others feel that this figure may be too high.
Student accommodation at the college was very limited and most of us were in digs. The lucky ones were around S. Kensington area but many of us were out in the suburbs and had to commute. Thus opportunities for socialising were somewhat limited and consequently membership of one College club such as ICBC was really all that could be fitted into the work schedule as there were other commitments also. I was a member of the Home Guard, as were others, so we had to train for that, and when we went home for vacations we would also help local Civil Defence authorities by firewatching and similar duties.
There was the occasional dance held in the Union. However, we were very short of women. There were about four or five in C&G and somewhat more in RCS and none, as far as I recall, in RSM. However, Bedford College in Regents Park had the same problem in reverse so for our Union dances a busload of them would come to join us for the evening. Not all of them went back on the bus! I recall walking my partner all the way from S.Kensington in the early morning hours, in the blackout, across Hyde Park and back to Bedford College in Regents park where a ground floor window would be conveniently unlatched for her to climb back in. Despite the possibility of air raids I think we were safer on this journey than would be the case today!
It was usually very noisy at night with planes overhead and anti aircraft fire making as much noise as the bombs themselves. During a raid the sky would be all lit up with searchlights looking for incoming planes. We often had to take shelter in our digs, sometimes several times a night. When the siren went we had to go into our ‘Morrison’ shelter on the ground floor. This was a square structure like a steel table with a thick steel plate for the top and weldmesh sides joining the legs, the idea being that if the house collapsed around you there was a sporting chance of being dug out from the rubble in one piece.
Later the V1 flying bombs and, later still, the V2 rockets started coming. A member of ICBC’s second eight lost his father to the very first V2 to arrive. My digs were not far away and I heard this sudden explosion and wondered what it was as there had been no air raid warning nor had there been the familiar stuttering noise made by the ramjet engines of the pilotless V1 flying bombs. On arrival at College each morning one always hoped that there would be no bad news from one’s friends. Putney High Street was very badly hit one night.
Rowing
Since it appears that there is little or no information in the historical records of ICBC about this period I hope that the following recollection of my experiences will be of some interest. During those years membership of ICBC was about 180. However all were keen rowers as there were no ICBC social events except the annual dinner. I still have the menu for the 25th annual dinner and it illustrates very well the limited availability of foodstuffs in restaurants in wartime.
The first and second eights would have a couple of evening outings during the week and in the winter would row in the ‘tank’ on the roof instead. However, Saturday was the big day and we sometimes managed to get 14 crews out onto the water, of which about the first six were fairly stable crews and the rest scratch crews. People were moved up and down within the first six crews depending on their progress.
Charles Bristow would coach the first and second eights and then we would coach the other crews after our own outings. All coaching was done from bikes on the towpath. The club had 3 clinker eights and 6 fine eights of varying ages. We also had one four and two elderly pairs. There were 4 clinker rumtum sculling boats and six fine sculling boats suitable for various crew weights.
In my first year in 1942/1943 I mostly sculled, but rowed at somewhat irregular intervals although I became more interested in the rowing when I found that each time I rowed they put me into a higher crew!
Charles Bristow arranged for our keenest scullers to be coached by Dan Cordery, who was introduced to us simply as a veteran Thames waterman. He was a fine coach and I learned a lot from him but it was only later that I heard that he had coached the German sculling squad for the1936 Olympic Games. During those war years anyone who had had German connections kept quiet about it! Dan coached us afloat from one of the rumtums. I sculled quite often during the week, somewhat to the detriment of my coursework and normally had the river to myself, sculling usually as far as Barnes or Chiswick. The club was always open as our boatman Charlie Newens worked there full time. Charlie walked with a bad limp and consequently was not able to join the armed forces.In my second year I was moved into the first eight, mainly on my sculling record, and rowed at 7 in the crew for the next two years. We had a couple of crew changes due to failed exams but the same basic crew remained constant for the two years, during which time we took on all comers and never lost a race. We had two outings on weekdays after college and one each on Saturdays and Sundays. After the outings and our coaching sessions were finished we would repair to the bar in Thames RC via the connecting stair which was no longer in use when I last went to Putney in 2002.
The 1st VIII was a close-knit crew and despite being from different colleges we spent much time together when not actually rowing. Opportunities for travel were limited but we did go to Reading and beat RUBC again after beating them at Putney. We also competed successfully in local regattas at Putney and Barnes. In 1944 we won the Head of the River race from Mortlake to Putney. About 100 eights started. We won it again in 1945.
We also had an annual row up to Hampton Court, lunch at the Mitre hotel and then rowed back
Within the ICBC we had club championships for scullers and pairs. I won all the sculling races I entered but in the pairs championship our strokeman Joe Eldeen and I were beaten in a race we might have won had we not been overconfident.. After some trials we had decided that we did not need a rudder and went very well without it in practice. However when we got into a race needing maximum effort our steering went a bit wild and we were beaten by other members of our crew.
We raced the CUBC ‘Goldie’ crew just before the Boat Race. In 1943 they had beaten ICBC but we beat them in 1944 and 1945.
There was an annual race between the three colleges for the Morphy Cup. Apart from being Secretary of ICBC I was Captain of the C&GBC which really had no separate existence apart from the Morphy race which Guilds won both times I rowed in it. However we were awarded full C&G colours for the event. There was always a large turnout of supporters from all three colleges on the towpath for this race and a fair scuffle normally developed to secure possession of the other colleges trophies and protect the Guild’s trophy spanner! I was surprised, when visiting ICBC in 2002, to find that nobody knew anything about the Morphy Cup racing and so I do not know when and how it died out.
There were no women rowers in ICBC, nor was there any provision for them in the design of the boathouse. London University BC upriver had a women’s crew and Reading UBC also had one, but women’s rowing was only just beginning and I regret to say that noone took them very seriously. I have made amends since by teaching many women and young girls to scull, coaching them from my own boat just as Dan did for me. I have always been delighted when some of my pupils got good enough to beat me!
I have also rowed in some very fast mixed eights at FISA Masters regattas in many countries in recent years..
The first eight used the boat ‘Prince Consort’ and when I returned to ICBC in 2002 for one of Bill Mason’s sculling courses I was pleased to see that her bow section was still preserved there although I do not think that anyone knew that this was the boat in which we won the Head of the River in 1944 and 1945, also the Danesfield Cup in the Henley Peace regatta in 1945.
The second eight used a boat called ‘Webber’ although I do not know the origin of the name. There was also a newer boat called ‘Bill Henry’, which resided on the rack in a tailored canvas cover and only got used once during the war. One evening in about October 1944, and before Charles Bristow had got to the club, our Captain decided to try ‘Bill Henry’ out. Bad decision, as it was strong wind over incoming tide and we filled and sank just above Putney Bridge. It was nearly dark but we managed to swim her ashore near London RC and were emptying her out on the beach just as Charles Bristow arrived on his bike. When he saw which boat we had sunk he was absolutely livid. He had been cherishing that new boat as new boats were unavailable in wartime.
Anyway, we did not like ‘Bill Henry’ as much as ‘Prince Consort’. ‘Bill Henry’ was rather like a modern boat with more or less constant beam along the seating area, flattish bottom, and tapered ends but ‘Prince Consort’ was a ‘Bourne’ boat, slightly fish shaped with the maximum beam about 1/3 of the way aft and a gradual tapering towards the stern .The bottom was not so flat either. This was a very fast design for a crew that could sit the boat properly and hit and maintain a good rhythm.
By modern standards the state of the river at Putney in those days was absolutely disgusting and it was highly undesirable to have to swim in it!
Our oars were of wood and the buttons were of leather firmly affixed in the position decided by the oar makers. Nothing could be adjusted except the stretchers but you could alter pitch by crudely twisting the riggers. We left that sort of thing to Charlie Newens. Span was not adjustable.
In pictures our wartime crews may look a rather scruffy lot to modern rowers but clothing was rationed and we did not have clothing coupons to spare for rowing kit so scrounged secondhand stuff where we could. Most of us did manage to scrape up enough coupons for an IC blazer as, surprisingly, Lewins had enough cloth in stock from before the war to make them for us.
In my final term I decided that I had better temporarily refrain from rowing in the eight to enable me to catch up on my coursework if I wanted to be sure of a degree, and did so, much to Charles Bristow’s disgust. Although I had attended all the lectures and knew my stuff OK I was somewhat behind in course work because I had missed a number of course work periods to go sculling at Putney! Course work accounted for a significant number of marks but I managed to catch up with it during that last term and Charles put me back into my position in the first eight for Henley.
The Henley 1945 ‘Peace’ regatta was a one-day event and the banks were crowded with spectators. We raced three abreast as there were no booms in place. ICBC entered our first and second eights in the Open race. The second eight was a fast crew but were narrowly beaten by Trinity Hall, Cambridge in their first heat.
However, we in the first eight, after two heats, got through to the final to win the Danesfield Cup for Open eights. This was the first major post-war success for ICBC and although a week later I was in the Navy several members of our crew went on to win the Thames Cup in the following year.
[POD: The Danesfield Cup that was won and is shown below is now being given out as the winning prize for the J16 2- at the Nat Schools Competition.]
While in the Navy I had an outing in Australia with the Sydney RC but otherwise did not sit in a fine boat again for some 40 years. However in 1989 on Alumnus Day at IC an opportunity was offered for alumni who had been club members to have an outing at Putney. I jumped at the chance but did not let on how long it had been since I rowed, since most of the other crew members in our eight seemed only to have only left IC within the last 10 years or so! The outing went well and got me keen to restart my rowing career.
Soon afterwards I saw a nice Carl Douglas sculling boat for sale locally. Encouraged by my wife I went to have a look at it. A test scull revealed that Dan Cordery’s intensive coaching had remained with me despite the intervening 40 years. I found that I could just scull it away without any problem at all. So I bought the boat and joined Dart Totnes RC and embarked upon a whole new sculling and rowing career on the Masters circuit.
Since then I have rowed and sculled for Dart Totnes RC and became their Chairman.
I was the first member to attend and win a sculling medal at National Veterans championships and later the first to race abroad and bring home a medal from the FISA Masters Championship in Cologne.. I taught many people to scull and Dart Totnes’ sculling squad is now the strongest in the Westcountry.
In 1995, 50 years on from our victory in the 1945 Henley Regatta and through the good offices of one of our crew members, David McLellan, who was himself a Steward, the Stewards of HRR said that if ICBC could muster at least six of the original 1945 winning crew we could have a ceremonial paddle over the Henley course during the lunch hour. Enough of us were willing and able so we borrowed a boat from ICBC and were very well received by the spectators as we paddled down the course. When, after passing the finish, it was ‘easy all’ we were proud that the boat still ran level with all blades clear of the water!
Masters Rowing
I have also rowed for many other British and foreign clubs all over Europe and in USA. There is a demand from many clubs on the FISA Masters circuit for fit older rowers to join composite crews if they can still pull their weight, as they can raise the age group of the whole crew, sometimes into the next older category. As one ascends the age categories active rowers become, regrettably, fewer in number and clubs can no longer provide an eight or a four unless they organise a composite crew. For this reason we older rowers have to go wherever the action is!
However it is important to appreciate that FISA Masters Championship rowing is not a soft option to enable older rowers to keep active in their chosen sport. It is highly competitive and there is a strong possibility that one’s opponents have won championship and/or Olympic medals and have maintained their fitness throughout their lifetimes. Some of the hardest and most memorable races I have ever rowed in have been on the FISA Masters circuit and I have had to travel long distances, even abroad, for pre-race training sessions.
I hope to be racing at FISA Masters in Vienna in September 2009.
I emigrated to Norway in 2003 and have stroked the Tønsberg Roklub veteran crew in various regattas in Norway and also in the 22km headrace on the Gota canal in Sweden. I still have my sculling boat for early morning outings before the numerous power boaters make the water around here almost unrowable for scullers.
Rowing has provided me with much enjoyment and many friends and my only regret is that I missed 40 years when I should have been rowing as well as working! So now I intend to keep going as long as I possibly can!
‘Eddy’
E.J.Cove.
April 2009