Me again.  I seem to have the writing bug, I have just published a dozen or so books on iBooks etc.  It all started when my Mum died and I was doing a website in memorium.  This time I thought I would relate my experiences with swimming.  As soon as I arrived in Canada i was swimming.  I remember the first swimming hole was just outside Lucknow and I used to come out with dozens of leaches hanging off.  Still I wasn’t deterred. Pat and I  used to go  swimming  regularly and when we moved to Wingham we carried on at the swimming hole near the bridge.  I always felt that it was not the most hygienic place to be, but in those days I don’t think we thought that much about it.  Unfortunately there was no swimming pool in Wingham but eventually I found out about the pool in Teeswater and opted to go there as much as possible.   It was odd when you think about it.  the population of Teeswater was only 1200 only about one third of Wingham  and yet they had a pool and we didn’t?  It was a much more civilised experience.  I used to get there however I could. I even cycled on some occasions although it seemed a bit off cycling there, having a nice refreshing and clean swim and then getting all sweaty on the way back.  Let’s face it there are a lot of days when it got pretty hot out there during the summer.  I remember one of the favourite songs of the time ‘we wear short shorts” - thankfully it applied to the girls.   Anyway I often resorted to hitch hiking and was usually quite successful and being a big 12 - 13 year old I wasn’t bothered.  Indeed when we went back to Canada from a brief stay in England I got talking to a bloke on the train and he thought I look 19 or 20.  Mind you I was shaving virtually every day from the age of 14.  Anyway back to the story.  This one particular day I hitchhiked to Teeswater and quite quickly.  On the way back to my astonishment a motorcycle stopped to give me a lift, but he already had a mate on the back.  He thought it was quite feasible with 3 up.  I wasn’t sure but glad of the lift.  After a few minutes on the bike I was aware that there was nowhere to put my feet and the wheels were spinning around at quite a speed.  I even wondered whether this was some sort of torture test.  Perhaps they were waiting for my dangling legs to get caught up in the spokes as a bit of a laugh.  I wasn’t laughing!    We eventually got to the roadhouse at the outskirts of the town and I told the boys to drop me there.  It still meant quite a long walk but to be honest I couldn’t stand any more of that.  That was the once and only time I ever went 3 up on a motorcycle.  Terrifying and bloody dangerous and now totally illegal.

The image with this little story is of Teeswater swimming pool at its least inviting.  It is still up and running today and as you can see on the lower left inset it is a nice new building and has solar heating.  The bottom right inset shows a motorbike with 3 up - just on that fateful day during summer ’55.

Brian Rider

As far as I can discover there are only 3 Winghams in the world.  Wingham in Kent, Wingham in New South Wales, Australia and our own Wingham.  Clearly they were all named after Wingham England but why?  Wingham in Kent is a sleepy little hamlet just outside of Canterbury.  Very quaint, very Kent.  Up until recently it didn’t seem to have much going for it in this modern world, although it now boasts a growing zoo.  In the 13th century, however , it seemed to be a thriving place.  The Church - St . Mary, was established back then and the current building is of Norman and Victorian construction.  In addition to this the Archbishop of Canterbury - the highest Churchman in England - used to own Wingham Manor.  And Archibishop Peckham founded a college back then.  So it has quite an illustrious background as villages go.  In fact Wingham Kent actually started as a Roman Village and even has activity dating from the stone age.  Possibly  the mods and the rockers - they liked the Stones.  We can only assume that Wingham was still an important town at the time of English Canada.  Considering it has a population of only 1600 souls and probably about the same in the 16th and 17th century it is still a bit of a mystery.  It is a pleasant enough place but not that remarkable.

Wingham Australia also named after Wingham England is a larger town even than our own Wingham and 3 times the size of Wingham Kent.  It is a lively town 200 miles north of Sydney but apart from that it doesn’t seem to have that much going for it.  I have never been there.  Anybody been? It is a typical modern Aussie town but I haven’t bothered to include any images.  As Wingham, Kent is obviously the place that most visitors to the UK will head for, I know that a number of Wingham residents have ended up here.All the images in this montage actually date from 1955 = quite a coincidence really

 Comment by Bob McIntyre on above story:

 Brian, it is indeed a quaint and charming place, Thelma and I lived there in the spring of 1964 for about a month while waiting for the ship the Carmania to sail us home from Southampton after hitch hiking  two months in Europe. I worked for a small construction company in Wingham and had occasional use of company car, it was fun getting used to driving on the "wrong side of the road". I remember how charming the pubs were with different rooms for different clientele, I remember the first day we went to the pub and I ordered a draft beer,it was "tepid", couldn't drink it so had a cold Guiness in bottle, it waquite a change after drinking German beer for eight months. Also! Thelma remembers walking down the Main Street one day and meeting an elderly couple in front of their cottage and being invited in for tea. The people of Wingham were very kind and hospitable to us especially when they found out we were from their namesake on the other side of the pond.

Bob McIntyre