My best chum Alex was also being tempted to start and I was convinced that it was where big hearts and lungs were made!
I started rowing because some nice people at college offered me the chance and put me at 5. It was fantastic and I never looked back.
I have always been fascinated by the water from as far back as I can remember. Sitting in a rowing boat was the natural progression for me from flooding bathrooms and crashing around in sailing boats. I jumped at the first opportunity when I came down the hill to the senior school.
A great family friend, who was four years my senior, had always rowed at Monkton and waxed lyrical about it. By the time I arrived in the 3rd Form, he was rowing in the 1st VIII. Having been dragged out of bed at 6am for some "character building" exercise by some senior oarsman in School House, I not only questioned whether I was going to enjoy boarding school but also wondered what sport required a term's worth of pre-season training. When I sat in a boat a term later, it all became clear, and I was hooked.
I started rowing because as a child in East Africa there was an oar in my Dad's study from Caius College Cambridge which had 2 Lea-Wilsons in it, and they had won the bumps in 1940.
When I came to Monkton in 1968 I consciously thought that this was the route to 'growing up' to sign up for 'tank rowing' with Messrs Hole, Pritchard, Grimwade and Bewick .
It wasn't that much fun, as I can remember breaking ice on 'the tank' with my oar and Dick Hole saying that if we kept the water moving in the tank it wouldn't re-freeze.
It got progressively better from then on... and now that same oar has been given to my son Jake 58 years after my Dad got it, to inspire him to Henley and on.. ..
In April 1960 my family moved from Warwickshire to Surrey where I started attending Kingston Grammar School aged thirteen years. On a Saturday afternoon outing with my parents towards the end on my first term at KGS, we happened to be walking alongside Molesey lock. In the lock was the KGS 2nd VIII who were rowing back to Kingston having competed at Molesey Regatta. They were chucking a ball up and down the boat as it sank down in the lock and were obviously in very good spirits. What a contrast from standing on the boundary of the school cricket field. I wanted to be part of that ... and I suppose I still do, nearly fifty years later!
Nuts and bolts, spanners, equipment; a five mile cycle ride to the river, giving an escape from school; an influential coach and Physics teacher, whose most regular notice on the rowing board was "There will be rowing whatever the weather".
I started rowing because I tried out Rugby and was put into the front row! When a hand came up from beneath me between my legs and grabbed my........ shorts I knew this was not the sport for me.
I chose rowing for a variety of reasons. The alternatives were at the time hockey and cricket and while I enjoyed hockey, I loathed cricket. Too slow and not enough physical action. Also I belonged to Farm house which had a great rowing tradition with the Lea-wilson's, Bertie's, Silcox's, Mitchell's, Leakey's inspiring me, and the blades adorning Farm House from many years of successful bumps.
My father had had a Cambridge Trial ('23 or '24 I guess) and had obviously enjoyed rowing, so for me, arriving at Monkton with the opportunity to row while at school, there was really no difficulty making the decision. (Also I had never picked up a hockey stick and as for Cricket . . .!) So rowing it was and I never regretted it.
My first contact with rowing was watching my big brother Nick compete for Hampton School. I'll never forget the excitement and exhileration of following them around the country, watching them race at the Schools Head, National Schools and Henley. Because I went to a non-rowing school, I persuaded my mum to take me down to our nearest rowing club (Walton RC) and soon joined a really keen bunch of J14's who were being coached by an equally keen and dedicated young coach called Mike Hendry.
At 10 years old and about to start senior school in Bath my parents took me to the independent schools exhibition that was being held in the city. I'd grown up messing around in boats on the banks of the Thames in Hampton and I was keen to go to a school that offered kayaking, sailing or rowing, all of which I had watched with interest from my grandparents' house on the river. At the exhibition I asked many of the teachers on the stands what sports were offered, but nobody was able to offer what I was after, until that is I ended up at the Monkton stand. Luckily for me Mr B was manning the exhibition that evening and was just as keen to talk to me as I was to him! I started at Monkton the following autumn and the rest is history!
Starting to row was an easy decision for me; I'd always enjoyed sport at Monkton and whilst rugby captured the imagination, neither hockey nor cricket required the same degree of commitment either physically or mentally and this quickly translated into my mediocre and half-hearted contribution. Horses for courses - hockey and cricket are passions for some people and that is fine, but the draw of the river came from the beauty of the surroundings, the familiar almost tribal bond of the Monkton boat club and of course the relentless challenges that were put in front of crews of all ages. I know I am not the only one to think this - I still speak to and see most of my old crew-mates from Monkton 15-20 years later and they say the same things.
I rowed throughout my Monkton years and eventually found the sport a great balance against the commitments of formal education and exams as well as a source of self-confidence as the crews in which I rowed became successful and competitive both in Monkton terms and nationally; look no further than the 1992 2nd Eight - still the holder of the fastest ever 500m in Monkton history I am led to believe. Rowing through University in London gave another set of challenges as the controlled environment of school fell away and competition hotted up both at a College and University level, but it always provided a balance to a hectic London lifestyle of juggling lectures, socialising and occasional cramming.
Though it is 2 years since I last sat in a rowing boat and several more since I did so competitively, I see the boats on the tideway each morning as I live no more than 300 yards from the Thames in Mortlake. The Tideway and its crews are a constant reminder to me of the platform that the sport provides for those willing to sacrifice their time and energy to propel a boat with like-minded people as fast and perfectly as they can. It has never been sport of 5 gears where the act of simply doing can become an end in itself, and level of effort applied - the gear you choose - is graduated according to personal preferences. Rowing for me is an old fashioned sport, it demands competitiveness; it demands commitment too, therefore for those people willing to close that rigger gate and push off from the pontoon every week and willing to plan their lives around a constant crew of like-minded sorts, it can be one of the most fulfilling pastimes that there is. I suppose I realised that pretty early on, and then it was Rowing 1, Hockey and Cricket nil.
I had always loved Rugby at school and enjoyed being fit and had a prep school dream of playing Rugby for Cambridge. Lack of absolute speed and modest hand ball coordination restricted my success in other sports at Prep school, other than in the swimming pool where I managed to scrape a few records. When the big decision came whether to row or play cricket and Hockey I had never seen a cricket or hockey varsity match on TV but I had seen the Boat Race so I thought that would give me a second chance if I didn't make it to Twickenham.
The teacher in charge of rowing (JMB) was my newly chosen tutor (I hadn't got on with the first who thought I should be happy to be in the B stream). He was also my Maths teacher and soon after became my house master. I took this as a good sign and despite being young in my year and not particularly tall thought I could succeed if the main criteria were strength and fitness. Jokingly I put myself forward for coxing but I was not that small.
It took me a few years to get to grips with the sport but the Christmas Holidays before my Colts (J16) season started I packed some weights from the Gym in my trunk, and my parents nearly crippled themselves trying to carry it upstairs before discovering the weights. I trained hard and was rewarded with the bow seat for that Summer. It was my first of many successful racing seasons and the start of a love for the sport that is still alive and well some thirty years later.
I never got to Cambridge or Twickenham but I did row for Oxford on Boat Race day.