Latest / The Sheppertonian (for Shepperton village) / 🚣 Sunbury Skiff and Punting Club

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🚣 Sunbury Skiff and Punting Club · The Sheppertonian (for Shepperton village)

• 0:44
  I formed the club and then I set about getting the boat.
• 0:47
  Thames racing skiffs are very hard to get hold of.
• 0:51
  They're a specific specification and very, very expensive to make.
• 0:56
  The original boats are made out of mahogany.
• 0:59
  Rainforest mahogany.
• 1:01
  You can't just get hold of it anymore.
• 1:03
  That's John Graham, founder and chairman of Sunbury Skiff and Punting Club.
• 1:07
  I met him back in April on a warm Friday afternoon.
• 1:10
  A few hours into their 24 hour skiffathon.
• 1:14
  Two boats rowing laps around Desborough Island.
• 1:16
  Through the daytime, through the dark, through the small hours.
• 1:19
  Quite a challenge.
• 1:21
  Welcome to the Sheppartonian.
• 1:22
  I'm Gareth and this is the podcast bringing you stories, voices and events from in and around Shepparton.
• 1:28
  Before we get into it, a thank you to the partners and supporters who make production possible through the Sheppartonian Business Club.
• 1:35
  Business partners, the Ferry Coffee Shop, purveyors of fine coffee, tea and snacks.
• 1:39
  Me on media, small business support based here in Shepparton and the Sound Boutique.
• 1:43
  Thoughtful audio for every story and our business members, Island Motors, Shepparton based, family run MOT servicing and repairs and love Biltong.
• 1:52
  A better for you snack, whole protein with real flavour.
• 1:56
  If you're part of a community group and want us to cover your event, get in touch.
• 2:00
  It's free.
• 2:01
  The Sheppartonian is all about highlighting the community groups in this area and.
• 2:05
  And if you're a business who'd like to get in front of our audience, there are paid options too@theshepartonian.uk business club in this episode, then 24 hours on the water, all to fund a boat shed.
• 2:19
  I sat down with John to find out more.
• 2:22
  First things first though, what actually is skiffing?
• 2:25
  Skiffing basically is the Victorian art of rowing.
• 2:30
  I always liken it to what you have in Formula 1 now.
• 2:34
  Racing cars were originally sausage on sticks.
• 2:38
  And in the rowing world where they have carbon fibre boats, we still row the equivalent of a clinker built wooden boat.
• 2:46
  The same thing as Jerome Jerome, three men in a boat.
• 2:49
  The same thing as Victorians when they had ferries across London.
• 2:55
  Basically you've got the taxis and that's what people used to row in.
• 3:01
  So it's a fixed seat boat and it has foals rather than Rolex, which is a square working two pieces of wood with a bit of leather that goes through and it's quite complicated to master.
• 3:18
  Once you can skiff, you can more or less do any type of rowing.
• 3:22
  And it's part of a wider family of traditional Rowing boats.
• 3:25
  There's a lot of other traditional boats that people row.
• 3:28
  You might have heard of gigs, pilot gigs, cutters, etc.
• 3:33
  And how do they differ?
• 3:34
  So a Thames skiff is a certain length.
• 3:38
  It's usually a double.
• 3:40
  So two people rowing, one person cocks in.
• 3:43
  Okay.
• 3:44
  Gigs are usually made higher because they're for sea and they'll probably have rowers that have one or each that are offset down the boat.
• 3:55
  And those boats were originally made for bringing the fish off the trawlers or bringing the crew from bigger boats to the shore.
• 4:06
  So that's all the different types you have of boats.
• 4:09
  You have whalers, which are self explanatory and you have all the way down to a coracle.
• 4:15
  John didn't just join a club, he built one from nothing on a stretch of the Thames that didn't have one.
• 4:21
  I've born and bred some beyond Thames and four generations my family been around the water, went to school in Shepparton where we are now.
• 4:34
  And there's no rowing club around here, there's private rowing clubs.
• 4:38
  There was no club for the public.
• 4:41
  And I was brought up enjoying the river.
• 4:44
  It's given me a tremendous amount in life, really has.
• 4:48
  And I was down at a wonderful club in Thames Ditton.
• 4:52
  I used to be involved in, still am involved very much with Sunbury Vergatta.
• 4:57
  All the pubs, local shops, businesses used to come out for one day a year, do some rowing and some would like to stay on.
• 5:07
  And I'd feed those people to the clubs in Wharton or in Thamesdet and Kingston because there was no club for them here in Sunbury.
• 5:17
  The idea stayed with him until one day he just did it.
• 5:20
  So it was forever niggling away at me.
• 5:23
  And I achieved a great deal at Thames Ditton and I took the plunge one day, decided to leave Sunbury Regatta.
• 5:31
  I just happened to have some good people who wanted to join a club and I thought, no more.
• 5:36
  They shall join Sunbury Skiff and Punting Club.
• 5:40
  So yeah, I formed the club.
• 5:43
  There was just one problem, a club with no boats.
• 5:47
  Thames racing skiffs are very hard to get hold of.
• 5:50
  They're a specific specification and very, very expensive to make.
• 5:56
  The original boats are made out of mahogany, rainforest mahogany.
• 6:00
  You can't just get hold of it anymore.
• 6:03
  They now make them out of beach.
• 6:06
  So I set about putting an event on in Sunbury and all the clubs came and raced and some Sunbury people came and said, why are there no Sunbury crews?
• 6:17
  I said, I don't have a boat.
• 6:19
  So at the time I'd started the club and I was the chairman, I refused to call myself a captain of a club that didn't have any boats.
• 6:27
  Then over a meal one evening, everything changed.
• 6:30
  I went out for a Chinese that night and a lady I know, I used to teach her daughter to row.
• 6:36
  Somebody Junior Igata said I was going to buy a bench for my late husband put on the side of King's Lawn.
• 6:45
  I'd rather buy you a boat.
• 6:46
  So I said, well, they're very hard to get hold of.
• 6:48
  I know of one that's for sale.
• 6:50
  It's been for sale for a couple of years because no one else has started a skiff club.
• 6:54
  It's a privately owned boat.
• 6:56
  They want 8,000 for it.
• 6:58
  I've been offering 5,000 for it for the last three years.
• 7:02
  And she said, come around Monday, give you the money.
• 7:05
  So I rung up the boat broker and said, look, you know, I've been offering you 5,000 for this boat for the last three years.
• 7:11
  They said, yes, John.
• 7:12
  I said, well, I never had the money, but I can tell you, you know, I've started the club.
• 7:18
  Five grand sitting on my coffee table.
• 7:20
  Please tell the owner no one else is going to be crazy enough to start a skiff club.
• 7:24
  They all started in the 1920s.
• 7:27
  I think the last one was started the 1980s.
• 7:30
  Anyway, the deal was done and next week we got our first boat.
• 7:36
  That first boat was going to be called Heart of Sunbury.
• 7:38
  The donor had other ideas.
• 7:40
  The lady donated it, said, do you mind if we change the name?
• 7:44
  Change it to anything you want.
• 7:46
  So that became Spirit of Sunbury.
• 7:49
  We now have Heart of Sunbury, Soul of Sunbury, and we now have a fleet of 10 boats.
• 7:56
  We now have a shed that they're all housed in and have about 40 active members.
• 8:02
  We've moved from Sunbury to Shepparton and the club is doing very well for itself.
• 9:23
  I asked John who actually comes through the door.
• 9:26
  So I'd say a lot of our members are people who've got bored going down the gym.
• 9:33
  A lot of them, the kids are grown up, they're looking for something to do.
• 9:37
  Some people just see us out in the boats and contact us from the website or they see a regatta on, or they've been turned away from a rowing club because a rowing club is very full on.
• 9:50
  So those that sort of in our encatchment area is people who always wanted to have a go at rowing and they're the kind of people we get.
• 10:00
  Getting a home for those 10 boats.
• 10:02
  Has been its own story.
• 10:03
  It started with the second boat.
• 10:05
  It was on a scrap heap for £100.
• 10:08
  Someone donated a large amount of money to have that boat rebuilt.
• 10:12
  A regatta played the rest.
• 10:14
  It was really heartwarming because didn't have any money for these boats and all of a sudden I had two that people believed in my dream, you know, they wanted to see this side of the river have its own
• 10:25
  boat club.
• 10:25
  So a lot of people bought into the story, which I'm very passionate about still.
• 10:30
  But the location they started in wasn't sustainable.
• 10:33
  We originally were renting some land off the landlord, between the swimming club and the sailing club.
• 10:40
  We couldn't survive there.
• 10:41
  We just had a pontoon.
• 10:43
  The boats were getting battered by the elements, the wind, they'd been damaged quite a bit.
• 10:48
  It was very dark and gloomy over there.
• 10:50
  Desborough Sailing Club stepped in.
• 10:52
  The sailing club took pity on us and invited us to come and join them.
• 10:57
  And a bit of negotiating went on.
• 10:59
  They gave us a bit of land, a bit of lease, and first of all, we had to get red tape of getting the planning permission.
• 11:08
  Not only is this floodplain, it's greenbelt, it's also a place of natural beauty and if you look around, you can see why.
• 11:17
  So we were quite restricted for the building we built, but we got the planning in.
• 11:22
  Council were very keen for us to have a rowing club here as well.
• 11:26
  So we set about fundraising.
• 11:28
  Which brings us to today, the fundraiser that started it all and one they've now run for three years.
• 11:35
  Today we are doing what started some of the fundraising, which is we are doing a 24 hour row.
• 11:40
  We've got one of our skiffs outside where we've got two of them.
• 11:45
  They're going round Desborough island and back to the clubhouse and then the other one goes and they're rolling 24 hours constantly, you know, through the dark, which is great time.
• 11:55
  Three in the morning, beautiful time to be out there.
• 11:58
  And that raised a load of money.
• 12:01
  And we've done that for three years to the point that this year we've actually halving the money for a local charity.
• 12:09
  That charity is Cruise Bereavement Care.
• 12:11
  A name listeners might recognise from an earlier episode of this podcast link is in the show notes.
• 12:17
  I asked what a night shift on the Thames actually looks like.
• 12:20
  It's beautiful out there.
• 12:21
  There's less water, traffic, you've got the moon, full moon out there.
• 12:25
  It's unbelievable.
• 12:27
  So by then, you guide yourself a little bit.
• 12:29
  There's always a bit of shadowing from the trees.
• 12:32
  The wildlife is still there.
• 12:34
  Yeah, it is a bit eerie, but it's a beautiful time to be out on the water.
• 12:39
  It really is.
• 12:40
  You feel quite privileged.
• 12:42
  You know, no one else is out there tonight at 3am there won't be any.
• 12:46
  Well, anyone between midnight and 5am and we've done Summer Solstice, where we go out and watch the sun come up.
• 12:55
  It's pretty cool.
• 12:56
  No engines, no noise.
• 12:59
  Just wooden boats moving quietly through the water.
• 13:02
  You're moving through the water in these really traditional old wooden boats that are gleaming in varnish and, you know, they've got real characters, all the different boats and no noise.
• 13:14
  Yeah, just.
• 13:15
  It's a great time to perfect your technique because you can hear the clanking.
• 13:19
  Beyond the skiffathon, the club has a proper racing calendar and one event that's become a tradition of its own.
• 13:26
  So we, as a club, we do a Thames meander, which is we take all our boats up to Lechlade, we stay the night there and then in the morning, we slip them in at Lechlade Bridge.
• 13:39
  You have to pass under Lechlade Bridge, that's the official start of the Thames.
• 13:43
  And we take four days to meander down through 44 locks, stopping off at pubs along the way.
• 13:53
  We used to sleep on cricket club floors, but we do hotels now.
• 13:59
  It's not a competitive event.
• 14:00
  We try and bring all our new members to come along and it's a great time for new people mixing with experienced people.
• 14:08
  They learn, you know, 44 locks.
• 14:11
  You're going to learn a lot about the weirs, the locks.
• 14:14
  There's kingfishers all the way down and it's.
• 14:18
  It's grueling, but it's very rewarding.
• 14:20
  If any of this has caught your interest, the way in is simple.
• 14:24
  They can just reach out to us via website contact information.
• 14:28
  You're allowed free taster sessions, so you can come down three times and see if you, you know, can adapt, enjoy the boat.
• 14:37
  I mean, it's not easy.
• 14:38
  We say it takes about six times to learn to skiff properly.
• 14:44
  But people, you know, who want to do it, you can see they get hooked.
• 14:48
  There is a whole race circuit.
• 14:50
  There's lots of different things.
• 14:51
  We do the great river race, the meander.
• 14:54
  We go abroad sometimes.
• 14:57
  There's a good social fitness side of it.
• 15:01
  So they'll basically come down, they'll get a coach, we'll take them out three times, about an hour each session, and they'll go through the techniques and, yeah, they make A decision whether they'd like to join and come down
• 15:16
  to this tranquil, beautiful bit of the Thames.
• 15:18
  The membership runs from tax year April 5, so it's £275 for a year.
• 15:26
  That gets you the use of all our skiffs.
• 15:29
  You know, they're very expensive boats.
• 15:31
  You get the use of hold of the clubhouse, includes the showers, parking.
• 15:36
  I mean, that's less than the gym, isn't it?
• 15:38
  I think it's 75p a day or something, you know, and the experience you get, all the coaching and everything's free.
• 15:46
  You only have to.
• 15:47
  Most people say they're joining just for pleasure after B.
• 15:52
  So how much is a race top?
• 15:54
  Because they want to come and race for us as well, you know, and we have social evenings on the summer bars, open cycle down, get the barbecue going.
• 16:05
  So, yeah, 275.
• 16:07
  And then I think your partner only joins for a third of that.
• 16:10
  So I think, yeah, it's only another 100 pound for your partner to join.
• 16:15
  So compared to a gym golf club, the outlay is very minimal for what you get.
• 16:23
  That was John Graham, founder and chairman of Sunbury Skiff and Punting Club.
• 16:27
  10 boats, 40 members, a boat shed built bit by bit, and a fundraiser that kept skiffers on the Thames for 24 straight hours.
• 16:35
  This year's Skiffathon money is being split with cruise bereavement care.
• 16:39
  If you'd like to try skiffing taster sessions are free.
• 16:42
  Head to their website to get in touch.
• 16:44
  That link is in the show notes and if you're part of a community group and want us to cover your event, get in touch.
• 16:49
  It's to time.
• 16:50
  Totally free.
• 16:50
  And if you're a business who'd like to get in front of the Sheppartonian audience, there are paid options@theheppartonian.uk Business Club.
• 16:59
  Thanks, as always to the partners and members backing the Sheppartonian through the Business Club, the Ferry Coffee Shop, Me on Media, the Sound Boutique, Island Motors and Love Bill Tong.
• 17:08
  Their support keeps this podcast rooted in the community.
• 17:11
  I'm Gareth, this has been the Sheppartonian and until next time.
• 17:15
  I'll see you around, Sam.