22 January 2020

By Philip Kuepper

‘I meet the river.
Or is it, the river
meets me, divides
to either side of my shell,
a divided river the blades
of my oars seek detente with,
to get past the impasse
between my being human,
and the elements being
what they are.  Water,
for all its softness,
outmuscles ripped physiques.’

(30 December 2019)

26 January 2020

By Tim Koch

Holocaust Memorial Day 2020, 26 January, marks 75 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. I make no apologies for once again referring readers to my piece marking Holocaust Memorial Day 2015, A Poignant Piece of Rowing History: Jewish Rowing Clubs in Nazi-Germany. In the introduction, I wrote:

(From) perhaps the end of the nineteenth or beginning of the twentieth century until 1938 there were numerous Jewish rowing clubs active in Germany…. What I have produced is probably full of inaccuracies and misunderstandings and certainly is nowhere near ‘the whole story’. However, rather than remaining in obscurity, I think it is important that some version of the story of the ‘Jüdischer Ruder-Clubs’ should be made more widely known. That they existed at all before 1933 is interesting; that they continued to exist (and for a time grow) in the first five years of Nazi rule, 1933 – 1938, is difficult to comprehend. Worldwide, a huge effort has and is been made to ensure that all aspects of Jewish life that were wiped out by the Holocaust are not forgotten and this is my small and no doubt rather inadequate contribution to this.

Three years later, in 2018, I produced Remembering the Jewish Rowers of Kalisz. For many hundreds of years, Poland had one of the world’s largest Jewish communities, numbering over three million. Kalisz, 260 km west of Warsaw, was perhaps a microcosm of the Polish-Jewish experience through the centuries and its Jewish rowing club, KW30, was a small part of this. In 1939, most of Poland was occupied by Nazi Germany and, within six years, 700 years of history was wiped out by the murder of 90 percent of all Polish Jews.

I later wrote:

Initially, I was worried that producing something that links something as important as The Holocaust with something as minor as rowing history could be considered crass. I continued for two reasons. If any part of what the Nazis tried to erase forever is actually forgotten, it is a victory for them. Also, as something as terrible as genocide is impossible for most of us to comprehend, our only chance of some understanding is to relate it to things within our own experience. For example, we cannot conceive of the deaths of six million people, but we can empathise with the loss of one person – such as Anne Frank.

I began by saying that I make no apology for urging readers to visit or revisit these posts; in the five years since I first posted Jewish Rowing Clubs in Nazi-Germany, not only anti-semitism but a general intolerance of those of different nationalities, races and religions has increased worldwide. It has become increasingly acceptable to dismiss people who are apparently different from ourselves. Where will it end?

26 January 2020

By Philip Kuepper

‘Falls a tender morning
rain I row through.
Not to,
would dry up
my desire.’

(30 December 2019)

28 January 2020

By Tom Weil

Tom Weil went to this year’s Power Ten Dinner on 16 January at the New York Racquet and Tennis Club in New York City. Here is Tom’s report:

Few rowing events off the course or the podium warrant – or receive – much attention, but one that does has attracted many of the U.S. “blazerati” to a mid-winter New York black tie affair for almost four decades. Priced this year at $300, the Power Ten Annual Dinner is neither for the faint of heart nor slight of fisc (nor, if one cared to be able to see one’s fellow attendees, for the stature-challenged – think of an oak stump in a grove of sequoia), but it does attract a significant number of American rowing movers and shakers, and typically promises (threatens?) a rousing and often rowdy good time.

Described on Twitter [!] as “A fraternal organization celebrating and supporting the sport of rowing”, the principal beneficiaries would appear to be the New York Racquet and Tennis Club, where it is held, and those who are the designated honorees, although the latter, who are generally the targets of slings and barbs as well as accolades, may regard it as a dubious honor.

The 2020 chosen were Sean Colgan and Dick Cashin, both the bow pair of the 1980 U.S. Olympic eight and both particularly generous supporters of the sport.

Not generally being a fan of such gatherings, three elements of the evening struck me as especially enjoyable. First, wherever else that $300 went, the Racquet Club did not stint on canapes or libations.  To mingle with the crowd before dinner was a pleasure, but to take in – literally – the diverse and scrumptious array of appetizers, offered by a gracious troupe of servers, who were better dressed than some of the guests, was a true feast. One should not expect to find culinary treasures at any sort of rowing event, but the Power Ten Racquet Club pre-prandial smorgasbord was possibly the best I’ve experienced in my 70-plus years.

Second, as one might hope, the company, fueled by an open bar, was delightful. I suspect that I missed many who were beyond my obstructed sight lines, but a number of old friends were accosted and some new ones made. It was a special surprise and pleasure to find myself seated next to Tom Quinn, a NYAC stalwart who often partnered in the lightweight double with the legendary Larry Klecatsky. Did he remember the only time we competed against one another, at the 1970 NAAO Nationals in Camden?  Indeed. A fierce storm the night before had washed out the Albano buoy system, removing any semblance of lanes from the course, as a result of which Quinn and Klecatsky (a future Olympian), in the midst of a titanic struggle with Duling and Belden (a future world champion and Olympian), ran into the river bank, allowing our New Haven Rowing Club double to win silver (we counted our blessings!).

Finally, the repartee, hosted by Power Ten Secretary Marty Crotty, was always lively, often witty, and occasionally in good taste. Had I been asked to give the grace, I would have proposed the following:

O Lord, we here beseech thee,
we creatures great and small –
please make the tall ones humble,
and make the short ones tall.
Amen.

But no such request came my way.

Those who wished for the good times to continue could gather for post-party thrills at a subterranean site named “Doubles”. And for some of us, the festivities ended in time to catch the last train to Connecticut from Grand Central, all aboard by 11:26 pm…

If you believe in bucket lists, a Power Ten dinner would make a good candidate.

29 January 2020

By Tim Koch

Tim Koch has run out of Blue puns but will report anyway.

Boat Race Day is just nine weeks away and the crews are raising the rate. On the official Boat Race website, three of the four Boat Club Presidents have posted their post-January training camp reports:

Augustin Wambersie, OUBC:

The OUBC have just made it back to Oxford after a successful ten day camp in Temple-sur-Lot. The team makes its yearly trip to this remote part of France for its long, uninterrupted stretch of flat water, as well as its seclusion…. Here, the first iterations of a Blue Boat lineup are tried, tested, tweaked and tested again…. Training camp is also a moment for the team to bond and strengthen ties… With term starting up again… and the added load of academia being felt anew, building on top of the foundations developed during camp will be crucial in carrying the team forward into the racing season. Returning to the flooded, fast flowing Thames will also pose its own challenges to training….

Tina Christmann, OUWBC:

We started out the 2020 Boat Race campaign in September 2019 with a diverse group of people, some internationally experienced rowers, seven returners from last year, college rowers from Canada to New Zealand and many homegrown athletes from the 2019 Development squad.

After a couple of weeks of productive training in small-boats and a successful start of term, we had our first challenge of high-water levels on our homestretch in Wallingford. We mastered the challenge with tough sessions on the ergo, rows at Dorney Lake and multiple trips to the Tideway early on in the year. Combined with the daily challenges that we face as student-athletes, this has made us grow together enormously as a team.

Our autumn racing season consisted of Upper Thames Regatta, where we won in the eight, then Four’s Head where we had a victorious coxed four and finally a well-fought Trial Eights race with a 6 second margin between the boats….

Ahead of us now lies the start of a new academic term, a series of physiological tests and seat races to form the fastest crews, many weekend trips to the Tideway and numerous test races. We’ll soon compete at Quintin Head, where we will meet the Cambridge eights for the first time. After that we’re looking forward to getting race practice in three fixtures against several national and international crews to practice various race scenarios and then build up for our best performance on the 29th March.

Larkin Sayre, CUWBC:

CUWBC has had a great first half of the season in the lead up to the Boat Races. We are currently (20 January) in Banyoles in Spain on our annual training camp, and got to ring in the new decade as a squad…

The highlights so far this season have been strong results at Fours Head, a Trial VIIIs race where both crews finished within 5 seconds of each other and bonding as a united squad. 

The Cambridge Openweight Women train alongside the Lightweight Men and Women which means we are a team of about 60 people. It’s never boring trying to manage logistics, and boating 15+ boats at 6:30am before sun rise is always hectic! We love training alongside so many different athletes and pushing each other to be faster each day….

We have a strong group of athletes on the team this year and a great mix of returners and those who learned to row through their respective colleges. Now that we have completed Trial VIIIs we are moving into the section of the season focused on forming racing lineups…. 

Freddie Davidson, CUBC:

Freddie must have left his report on the bus, but we can assume that the Cambridge men have been doing a bit of training.

On 25 January, both the Oxford and the Cambridge women entered Women’s Championship Eights at Qunitin Head. This is an increasingly popular and competitive 4,800m Tideway head race, the first such event of the year and a chance to get some racing practice over part of the Putney to Mortlake ‘Championship Course’. Unfortunately, The Cambridge Women’s Blue Boat had to scratch for some reason, but the reserve boat was a creditable seven-seconds behind what was presumably the Oxford Women’s first boat and 22 seconds in front of OUWBC ‘B’.

The day after Quintin Head, 26 January, a Leander development crew (a possible Thames Cup entry) did some work against the Oxford men’s first boat. The Dark Blues were victorious in all three pieces and the approximate distances were: a canvas from the start to Harrods; a length from the Mile Post to Chiswick Eyot; two lengths from Chiswick crossover to the finish. The Oxford crew with the names of Blues in bold was: Felix Drinkall (Stroke), Charlie Buchanan, Jean-Philippe Dufour, Tobias Schroder, Augustin Wambersie, Casper Jopling, Hal Frigaard, Achim Harzheim (Bow), Olly Perry (Cox).

Also, on the 26th, a Molesey Boat Club development crew did some pieces against Cambridge at Ely, Cambridgeshire, but the Tabs proved faster than their visitors.

Finally, if all this has put you in a Blue Mood, for only £75.25 you can sleep with the Cambridge Crew (of 1867).

31 January 2020

The 2020 World Rowing Indoor Championships has attracted athletes from a record 51 countries in the third year of this event, FISA, World Rowing announces in a press release.

To be staged in Paris, France, between 7 and 8 February, the indoor championships will be at the Pierre de Coubertin Stadium in the heart of the city. More than 2,300 athletes have registered to compete, including defending World Champion and record holder as the fastest woman in the world, Olena Buryak of Ukraine.

The event will be held in conjunction with the French Indoor Rowing Championships and this is reflected in a large number of entries coming from the host nation. Racing will take place over 500m, 1,000m and 2,000m distances as well as in relay events. The World Championship races will be contested in the 2,000m and 500m distance and open relay.

Races will be divided into age groups ranging from under 16-year-olds through to France’s Georges Basse, who will be competing in the 90-94-year-old men class. There are also para-rowing events with the men’s PR3, including 19 entries for the 2,000m distance.

Leading the way in the men’s PR3 is likely to be reigning World Champion Sean Gaffney of Great Britain. Gaffney also hold the World Record in this event for the 40-49-year-old men. In the men’s PR2, on-water World Champion, Corne de Koning of the Netherlands will be a strong contender for the medals. de Koning’s on-water partner, Annika van der Meer, is competing in the women’s PR2 and will also be a favourite to medal.

The French national rowing team, a number of them preparing for this year’s Olympic Games, have come out in full strength. In the open men’s Matthieu Androdias will be one to watch, but he will have to contend with his rowing partner Hugo Boucheron as well as Swiss national team member Barnabe Delarze among others.

In the lightweight men’s open event World Champion in the lightweight men’s single sculls and silver medallist at the 2020 European Rowing Indoor Championships, Martino Goretti of Italy is competing. He is likely to have strong competition from Pierre Houin of France. Houin is the Olympic Champion from Rio 2016 in the lightweight men’s double sculls.

The World Rowing Indoor Championships will be live streamed on the World Rowing website:  www.worldrowing.com as well as streamed on the World Rowing YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/WorldRowingFISA. The World Rowing website will also have start lists, results, photos and stories.

For entries click here.

1 February 2020

By Göran R Buckhorn

…and then there were 27.

So, we had to say farewell to Great Britain after all – although some heads of EU member states insisted that it was not a ‘goodbye’, it was an ‘auf wiedersehen’ or an ‘au revoir’. Time will tell.

The term ‘Brexit’ has made its rounds also here on HTBS, at least if there was a connection to the sport of rowing. Already four years ago, on 26 February 2016 to be more exact, our French correspondent Hélène Rémond produced a scoop of sorts when she published an article about the French editorial cartoonist ‘Kak’, who had a ‘rowing cartoon’ published in the newspaper L’Opinion, “How a Cartoon of a Racing Shell Explains Britain’s Brexit”.

It was an image of a quadruple scull with German Chancellor Angela Merkel at stroke, French President François Hollande at ‘3’, President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker at ‘2’ and a very relaxed British Prime Minister David Cameron at bow. Today, only Merkel is still in power.

The main reason I’m bringing up this cartoon again is not to gloat or lament on the Brexit matter, no, it’s to mainly point out that Hélène’s interview of ‘Kak’ and his rowing cartoon is the most viewed of all HTBS entries. At the end of 2016, the year it was published, it had had 11,386 views. As of the time of writing this, on 1 February 2020, it has had 13,377 views (and counting).

Who said that sports and politics do not mix?

3 February 2020

By Philip Kuepper

You can have all
the blacks and the whites you like.
Give me, instead,
melon, orange
purple, vermilion,
green, a blue of such violet
I can wear it as a pair
of trunks to go swimming in.

Give me, also, yellow,
the yellow of gold I see
through van Gogh’s eyes!

How dull the blacks, dull the whites,
when vast swathes of colors
lay across the sunset
sky reflected in the river,
where the colors transform
into boats flicking like flames,
on the wave-cut water.

(2 February 2020)

4 February 2020

By Larry Fogelberg

You’ve never heard of the San Diego Crew Classic? Neither had I. But early in April 2016, my sister celebrated her “round” birthday with the extended family staying in two big vacation flats at Mission Bay.

I was delighted to discover that San Diego Rowing Club (SDRC) was just a good walk along the water front from where we were. A member of the club had visited my club, FRG Germania in Frankfurt, rowing with us, and invited me to row with them. I did, but that is not what this is about.

I discovered that the San Diego Crew Classic was that very weekend, and the course was right there, on the far side of the island where I had rowed that morning. It is a major two-day regatta for eights, but “classic”, if I hadn’t heard of it? But I have been living abroad since it was started in 1973. Would the Brits or Germans consider a regatta to be “classic” if it didn’t date back to the 19th century?

Okay, maybe 40+ years is enough to make something classic in California. That wouldn’t astonish my friends at the San Diego RC, a club founded in 1885.

But it is a very impressive regatta, a season-opener at the first weekend in April. Crews come from as far as the East Coast to feel the sun and smell warm, salt air. The regatta website can tell you more about the regatta, much better than I can, so I will just add a couple of personal impressions.

The man I had sculled with that morning spent half a day in a stake boat – up to seven boats in a start. The course – which is not on a river – is a broad stretch of open water, susceptible to wind and tides. My rowing companion remarked that it was difficult for some crew getting their heading at the start. Coxes are advised to learn to use Bow and Two to correct drift.

You will never see so many eights in one place, and from my experience, so many stalls offering everything from socks to outrigger-roll-seat equipment one can fasten to a canoe. The big hospitality venues may not be as fancy as the ones at Henley, and the guests not as stylishly dressed, but then Crew Classic is not a Royal Regatta.

How did the family party end? I was rowing in an SDRC four, when the family photo was taken, that is why I refrain from reminding my wife about the regatta or the hospitality of San Diego Rowing Club.

6 February 2020

By Tim Koch

Tim Koch has some suggestions on where to put the small shouty person.

Asked ‘What’s the best place for a coxswain?’ many rowers would be tempted towards Biblical revenge and turn to The Book of Revelation, suggesting that the noisy deadweights all be sent to steer on the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and they shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. The justice of this can be debated but the question here is actually ‘what’s the best place for a coxswain in a boat?’

For singles, the question of coxswains rarely arises, and nowadays coxed pairs are almost non-existent (especially since they were dropped as an Olympic event in 1992). In fours racing, bow-coxing is universal for higher status crews while stern-coxed boats are reserved for the less experienced club crews. In a piece titled “Revenge of the bowloader”, Rowing News of 19 July 2017 noted:

The first boats to feature a lie-down cox were pairs, developed by Georg von Opel in Germany in the 1950s. They were immediately successful. Within 10 years, the bow cox had spread to fours.

Rowing News also held that the last time a stern-coxed four won an international event was in 1972:

In one of the most famous coxed four races ever, at the… Munich Olympics the bow-cox East Germans raced down the course with the West Germans in a stern cox. The West Germans, dubbed the Bulls of Konstanz for their musculature, caught the ‘Easties’ in the last 100 meters by rowing in the forties. People who were there describe it as the most frenzied, loudest crowd ever to cheer for a rowing race.

The obvious advantage of a bow-coxed four is that, with much of the coxswain’s weight below the waterline, the centre of gravity is lower, making for a more stable boat. Some claim that the weight of the five bodies is more evenly distributed in a bowloader but in fact there is little difference as moving the cox to the bow requires moving the rowers to the stern. It may be easier to steer a bowloader down a straight buoyed course but there is a great advantage in a cox in the stern being able to see the crew and their bladework.

As to eights, it would seem that coxing from the stern is the only choice. However, in the 1980s the Soviets, in particular, experimented with bow-coxed eights. Probably only Empacher made them and veteran umpire David Biddulph thinks that, in Britain, Walton RC, Lea RC and Westminster School BC each had one. Walton still has theirs (rigged as an octuple) and Lea certainly did have one, I raced against it in the late 1980s. Thus, if bow-coxed fours are dominant in high status racing, why do not eights use this system? A clue may be gained from my race against the Lea – the east Londoners were disqualified for steering into the boat racing alongside them.

The rudder on a rowing boat steers by swinging the boat at the stern, the bow stays fairly still. Thus, a cox in the bow has little feeling for how far the stern has moved. This effect is not too great in a four, but it is a problem in a much longer boat such as an eight. Another bow coxing problem exaggerated by an eight is that the cox cannot judge the distance between his or her boat and one alongside them. Because of this, in the UK in the early 1990s, both the men’s and women’s Head of the River Race banned them. They are still allowed under British Rowing and FISA rules, but the consensus seems to be that they confer no advantage in speed and that the coxes of eights can be more effective in motivating and coaching when they can see the crew.

Finally, as we have coxless fours, why not coxless eights? Someone clever at Oxford University has studied The Effect of Weight in Rowing. Section 7 is titled ‘Effect of Deadweight on Boat Speed’ (coxswains are, of course, ‘deadweight’). After lots of difficult sums, the conclusion is:

(The) percentage loss of speed is one-sixth the percentage increase in mass. An example: assume an VIII, total mass 800 kg (=8x80kg rowers + 50kg cox + 100kg boat + 10kg oars). An extra 10 kg (=22 lbs) represents 1/80=1.25% increase in mass. So the boat moves 1.25/6=0.2% slower. Over a 6 minute race (eg 2000m) this corresponds to 0.6 sec, or 4m (about 1/5th of a boat-length). How fast would a coxless VIII be? Minus 50kg represents a 6.25% decrease in mass, so the boat would be 6.25/6 ~ 1% faster.

Thus, the theory is that coxless eights would be faster. In practice, six competing coxless eights would actually take about an hour to cover 2000m because the race would have to be restarted every few metres as crews repeatedly veered into each other, any small deviation from a straight course magnified by the long, fast boats. However, this scene of carnage would delight a non-rowing audience, the general public much preferring swampings and clashes to boring old uneventful (if fair) racing. As FISA is desperate to entertain such people in order to keep the sport in the Olympics (suggesting such things as the ridiculous ‘beach sprint’ rowing), perhaps we will see eights sans coxswain in the Paris Olympic Games of 2024. The winner would probably be the last boat that was not disabled or disqualified.

7 January 2020

By Göran R Buckhorn

On Wednesday, 5 January, American iconic movie star Kirk Douglas passed away, at the ripe old age of 103.

Among his many great films, it’s probably Spartacus (1960), directed by Stanley Kubrick, that stands out the most. Who would not like to be brave and stand up and shout ‘I’m Spartacus’? The film was a box office hit although it ‘only’ generated one Oscar, to Peter Ustinov for best supporting actor. Douglas’s film gave full credit to its screenwriter Dalton Trumbo – one of the Hollywood Ten – who for several years had been blacklisted as he had refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947 during the committee’s investigation of Communist influences in the American film industry. Later Douglas would say: ‘I’ve made over 85 pictures, but the thing I’m most proud of is breaking the blacklist’.

One of my favourite Douglas movies is The Vikings (1958), which was partly filmed in Norway with 125 Nordic oarsmen playing the rowing Vikings. In April last year, I published an article here on HTBS about the film and how my Swedish rowing coach, Tore Persson, played one of the rowing extras in the film. Maybe worth a re-read?

8 February 2020

The opportunity to grow indoor rowing has just been made stronger by a partnership between the World Rowing Federation, FISA, and indoor rowing manufacturer Concept2, FISA writes in a press release.

The partnership means that Concept2 will be the Presenting Sponsor of the World Rowing Indoor Championships from 2021 to 2024. The new World Rowing Indoor Championships is in its third year and Concept2 has been the key partner for the event. The 2020 championship will be held in Paris on 7-8 February. The venues for the 2021 to 2024 World Rowing Indoor Championships are not yet determined as the bid process is underway.

As presenting sponsor Concept2 will supply the competition and warm-up equipment as well as technical and operational support for the event. Concept2 will also be supporting a special budget for travel costs so that key athletes around the world can participate at the events.

“Concept2 has supported World Rowing’s development activities for many years but this partnership now solidifies the new World Rowing Indoor Championships project,” says World Rowing Executive Director Matt Smith. “We are proud to be part of the growth of indoor rowing globally and having Concept2 as Presenting Sponsor for the World Rowing Indoor Championships will help make the championships the pinnacle event for the sport of indoor rowing.”

“The World Rowing Indoor Championships has quickly established itself as a highlight of the indoor rowing year,” says Peter Dreissigacker, founder of Concept2. “We love that the event brings together so many para, junior, senior and masters athletes and we’re excited to continue working with World Rowing to showcase the global appeal of the sport.”

In addition, Concept2 will be an Official Sponsor of the European Rowing Indoor Championships for the 2021-2024 period. The 2020 European Rowing Indoor Championships was recently held in Prague, Czech Republic.

Concept2 began in 1976 in the back of a bread truck when Dick and Pete Dreissigacker, fresh from Olympic training, started making composite racing oars. Concept2 oars have since gone on to become the oar of choice among the world’s rowers. In 1981, Dick and Pete created the Concept2 Indoor Rower, which swiftly became the best-selling rowing machine in the world. Now several models later, it’s used every day by Olympic athletes, cardiac rehab patients, individuals at home and every calibre of rower in-between. Concept2’s product line now includes oars, RowErgs, the SkiErg and the BikeErg.

9 February 2020

By Philip Kuepper

Fall soft fat flakes of snow
on the brightly painted boats,
sober in their stillness on the still
water, sober
to the point of thoughtfulness,
as though they are about
to think aloud.

Then one blows its horn,
a cheeky little working craft
the season do not determine
the actions of.  There are
fish to be caught, regardless,
And the need to eat
is just that,
a necessity.

I think to imagine a cat on deck,
as I cannot see one.
I think it there for good luck.
As for gear, a trap, a net?
These, also, are not in sight.
No problem.  I imagine them
there, as well.

The still water is moved
by such a craft,
moved that such a craft
would go out in a morning like this,
the snow falling as it was forecast to do,
falling from its Eden
because it is its nature to fall,
melt, and rise back
into the atmosphere.

The boat, also, can only do
what is is doing because it is doing it,
moving the still water to motion
through the falling snow,
its deck furnished, gratis,
my imagination, with a good luck
symbol to help see to it its passage
is safe, safe to catch
the fish waiting to be
caught.

(2 February 2020)

10 February 2020

By Larry Fogelberg

When I’m in a skiff with a scull in each hand,
And the only sound is the splash at the catch,
Watching my wake as my puddles expand,
There’s no feeling elsewhere can match.

My skiff, my sculls, myself, we are one,
Together a unit that only we share.
Others may think I’m just having fun,
Cannot fathom my feelings so rare.

For me in my skiff, when the water is calm,
And evening sunlight casts shadows so long,
I wish for a poem with words like a psalm,
To express my emotions, a heartfelt song.

I’m nearing the dock and hear the cox call
In the eight just ahead:    “easy all.”

13 February 2020

By Stephan Ploke

When Tim Koch posted his article on the “The Contest for the Democrats’ Stroke Seat” a while ago, it prompted me to write a few lines about a caricature which is hanging on my corridor wall and which deals with a similar subject, the 1884 U.S. presidential election campaign between James G. Blaine and Grover Cleveland.

The above lithograph by Bernhard Gillam was published in Puck in 1884 and refers to the rivalry and races between the American rowers Charles E. Courtney and the Canadian Ned Hanlan.

These two oarsmen raced for the professional world champion title in 1878 and 1880 and the formerly unbeaten Charles Courtney lost both races. The original re-match of the 1878 race was scheduled for 1879 but did not take place as Courtney’s shell was vandalised with a saw the night before the race and he refused to use any other boat. The delinquent was never identified, but many people believed it was done by Courtney himself to avoid another defeat. Some observers thought that both rowers had tried to fix the race in exchange for the $6,000 prize sum and supporters of both parties tried the same as they had bet significant amounts on either rower, and they were afraid to lose their money. Whilst the truth was never revealed, there was apparently quite some corruption involved and the same applied in the 1878 and 1880 matches.

Courtney was hence a perfect caricature for the republican candidate James G. Blaine, who was notorious for being involved in possibly every corruption case and political scandal. At this time, he served as speaker of the House of Representatives and the Senate between 1869 and 1881, and then as Secretary of State in 1881.

After he was nominated as the Republicans’ candidate in 1884, the campaign was very aggressively led by both parties in respect of the involvement of the candidates in scandals and personal misconduct. Also, the issue of personal character was more strongly emphasized than in previous campaigns and a very tight vote was expected. All this made a comparison with the single sculls matches between Courtney and Hanlan obvious.

The caricature itself shows a scene at a boathouse where Blaine’s team tries to prepare an exhausted rower for the presidential race whilst Grover Cleveland is already waiting at the starting line. The caption: “Come, Jim, show some nerve, or nobody won’t believe you’re in the race! Ain’t you never going to be Aggressive!” is uttered by A. Logan who readies the single scull named “Aggressive Campaign”. Senator John A. Logan from Illinois was Blaine’s running mate and the vice-presidential nominee. The boat is stuck in “Monopoly Mud”, alluding to the fact that he was widely suspected of corruption in the awarding of railroad contracts.

In the meantime, American industrialist and, later senator, Stephen B. Elkins is looking for the proper medicine in a box which contains “Remedy, Record Cleaner, Tariff Fever Cure, Record Purifier, Tattoo Eradicator, and Vermont Reviver”. The “Tattoo Eradicator” is of particular interest – Blaine actually had no tattoos, but a cartoon which appeared in the April 1883 edition of the Puck showed him covered in tattoos displaying his scandals engraved like brands on his skin. After the success of this caricature, 21 more tattooed Blaine cartoons were drawn by Gillam – one of them being the Political Courtney – convincing the masses that Blaine was actually a tattooed man.

In the boathouse, Stephen W. Dorsey carries oars labeled “Soap” and “Star Router”. Soap refers to the slang word “Soap Money”, i.e. bribes paid to buy votes. “Star Router” refers to a scandal in which postal officials received bribes in exchange for awarding postal delivery contracts.

In the background of the boathouse, the “Speakership Records” boat alludes to merits during Blaine’s time as speaker of the House of Representatives and the Senate, but this boat is useless as it has been sawn just like Courtney’s shell, as mentioned before. The “Guano Statesmanship” boat refers to his diplomatic role in the War of the Pacific whilst supposedly owning a stake in the Peruvian guano deposits being occupied by Chile. Hence, he also suffers from “Guano gout” (as noted on his bandage).

In the background, Carl Schurz stands at the entrance to the “Independent Boat House”. German-born Schurz was a member of the Republican Party and the Secretary of the Interior under Rutherford B. Hayes. Schurz sought to make civil service based on merit and integrity, and hence, became the leader of the “Mugwump” movement, a group of Republicans who supported the Democratic candidate, Grover Cleveland, in the presidential election of 1884.

Both the Mugwumps as well as Gillam’s cartoons on James G. Blaine played a large part in Grover Cleveland’s election to office; he won the predicted tight race with 48.9% of the popular vote, while Blaine received 48.3%.

What happened to the antetype for Blaine in the caricature, Charles E. Courtney? He continued competitive rowing after his loss against Hanlan in 1880, but the two never raced against each other again in a single scull.

Courtney then won the double scull championship of the world together with his partner P. H. Conley in 1885, but the two lost a challenge from archrival Hanlan, who rowed together with George W. Lee in 1886. After that race, Courtney finished his remarkable career of 18 years of competitive rowing, both as an amateur and a professional, in which he lost only seven out of 137 races.

In 1885, Courtney started coaching the Cornell University rowing team and as their coach he won 14 varsity eights titles at the Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship Regatta. Courtney died in 1920.

14 February 2020

By Tim Koch

Tim Koch observes that rowing generates physical displays of affection for all sorts of reasons.

16 February 2020

By Philip Kuepper

I.

Shed of shell,
shed of oar,
the desire to be
a fish coursed
through the rower.
He imagined his shoulder blades
fins.

II.

How to be one
with the water
was the thought
in her mind when waking.
Waking.  How suggestive
of being waterborne
at each day’s beginning.
Waking.  Water.  Woman.
Womb.  Each time she set out,
rowing was a giving birth.

III.

‘No,’ she thought,
the day would be hers.
She showered, threw on
loose clothes.  She strode
to ocean’s shore.  She would
row later.  For now,
she would read the waves,
read the hieroglyphics
of them, watch their dissolve
into Sanskrit, into Aramaic.
She would read the evolution
of writing in the waves,
of speech in the waves.
She would row later,
in her own language.

IV.

Tired of being ‘”the jock,”
he threw off his muscles,
threw off the elasticity
of his limbs, and embraced
rest, rest
from competition, from the obsession
of winning/losing,
from the need of being seen
the preeminent athlete.
Later, he dove
into the river,
his arms become oars
he rowed his body-shell with.

(16 January 2020)

Crash Positions: Ditching a “Flying Coffin”

17 February 2020

By Gavin Jamieson

One of Great Britain’s most successful oarsmen and controversial coaches during the mid-1900s was Hugh Robert Arthur Edwards (1906–1972), also known as ‘Jumbo’ Edwards. He was an Olympic gold medallist (two gold medals on the same day!), British Empire Games and Henley Royal winner, Oxford Blue and Oxford winning coach. Edwards was also a renowned pilot in the Royal Air Force (RAF). 

HTBS is happy to publish the following four-part article written by Gavin Jamieson, who is married to Melissa, granddaughter of Jumbo Edwards. Writing this article, Gavin has accessed the extensive family archives to research the extraordinary life of Edwards. Included in the family archive is an unpublished memoir written by Edwards shortly before his death in 1972. Many of Edward’s personal recollections are included within this article. 

Besides publishing this article, the aim of Gavin’s research is to expand the narrative on Jumbo Edwards’s career and to publish a book, encapsulating an eventful life from the Boat Races to the Olympics, from the Battle of the Atlantic to the coaching of Oxford. Gavin would be delighted to receive anecdotes from readers who may have been coached by Jumbo Edwards or had relatives that handed down stories of Edwards’s time in a boat, on the tow path or in the air. He would also be pleased to hear from anyone who expresses an interest in a book dedicated to the exploits of Jumbo Edwards. Gavin can be contacted at gmbjamieson@gmail.com or on Twitter @gmbjamieson

Sunday: 21st November 1943
1430 hours

Buffeted on the waves of an endless grey expanse of the Atlantic floats a bright yellow inflatable life boat. The nearest land, the Scilly Isles, is 12 miles to the east. There is a solitary bedraggled and sodden figure lying injured and exhausted within the inflatable. Wing Commander Hugh Robert Arthur Edwards struggles to release two flimsy aluminium oars from the on-board supply bags. Edwards begins to row east, fighting against the swell and waves of a wintry Atlantic, leaving behind him an expanding patch of oil and the wreckage of his downed RAF Liberator.

1944 RAF Liberators, Coastal Command. Footage of the Liberator airplane similar to the one flown by Jumbo Edwards.

Eleven years previously, on a sweltering Californian day in August, ‘Jumbo’ Edwards was celebrating his two Olympic gold medals – won within an hour – for the coxless pairs and coxless fours. On that day in 1932, he rowed for national glory and pride. On this late November day, and four days after his 37th birthday, Edwards is rowing for his life and darkness is beginning to fall.

The B-24 Consolidated Liberator that Edwards was piloting had lost power simultaneously to three of its four engines, nose diving into the bitterly cold Atlantic from 300 feet. There had not been time for the crew to issue a mayday. Nobody was aware of the fate of Liberator BZ819 and its crew of eight airmen. There would be no search party until at least 5 hours after their intended arrival back to 53 Squadron and their temporary base at RAF St Eval, Cornwall.

On the previous day, Saturday 20th November, eight B-24 Liberators of 53 Squadron took off from the North Cornish airbase for a destination in the North Atlantic. In mid-afternoon, Squadron Leader K A Aldridge was the first to take-off from St Eval in his Liberator BZ816. This was followed by a further six Liberators at regular time intervals. Finally, at 2312 hours, Liberator BZ819 took to the night sky. On board the Liberator with Edwards were a crew that he had personally chosen as the “best-of-the-best”. The crew were: Flight Officer Alexander Davis (co-pilot), aged 26, of Cricklewood, Middlesex; Flight Lieutenant Francis Halliday (navigator), aged 24, of Toronto, Canada; Flight Lieutenant Bruce Hamilton (radio operator and gunner), aged 22, of Gosforth, Northumberland; Sergeant Stanley Johnson (flight engineer), aged 22, of Harrow, Middlesex; Flight Sergeant William Owen (gunner), aged 23, of Great Crosby, Lancashire; Flight Sergeant George Shield (gunner), aged 23, of Goring-by-Sea, Sussex and; Sergeant Leonard Terry (gunner), age and address unknown.

The mission for 53 Squadron was to rendezvous with a large convoy of 66 Allied ships, escorted by 20 warships, that was carrying vital supplies of food, equipment and raw materials from Port Said, via Gibraltar, to the UK. The escort mission to protect Convoy SL139 would be a round trip of approximately 1,500 miles for the Liberators. Carrying up to 2,500 gallons of fuel, the modified B-24 had an impressive range – about three hours of patrol time after flying 1,000 miles from its base. This made the Liberators the ideal long-range aircraft for escort duty and protection against German attempts to sink Allied shipping.

The Allied convoy had been spotted by the German Luftwaffe as soon as it had entered the Atlantic from the Mediterranean. As a consequence, it was being shadowed by a fearsome U-boat wolfpack. By the late evening of the 20th, the convoy had reached a point approximately 620 miles due west from the north-west tip of Spain. The Liberators of 53 Squadron made radio contact with the convoy and in the early hours of the 21st the collection of Allied ships reported the comforting sight of the planes a few hundred feet above the Allied ships.

At 0400 hours on the morning of the 21st, the crew of BZ819 obtained a radar contact on one of the U-boats that had surfaced close to the convoy. The heart of the Liberator’s anti-submarine capabilities was its microwave radar equipment, known as the Airborne Surface Vessel Detection ten-millimetre (ASV–10) radar. A skilful operator could identify a surfaced submarine at more than 40 miles and a conning tower at 15 to 20 miles.

Edwards brought the Liberator down to 50 feet above the ink-black expanse of the Atlantic. When the plane had reached the limits of the radar, and a kilometre from the target, the order was made to switch on the Leigh light. This 24-inch and 22-million candlepower spotlight, fitted to the underside of the starboard wing, lit up the churning ocean. In the distance the outline of the 220-foot U-648 was detected. The downside of the Leigh light was that the illuminated U-boat was now aware of the approach of the Liberator, and under the command of Leutnant zur See Peter-Arthur Stahl, the German vessel was quick to man the anti-aircraft gun. A few hours previously, and unknown to Edwards, Squadron Leader Aldridge had also identified U-648 with his Leigh light equipped Liberator. Aldridge’s aircraft had already performed one run towards the U-boat and coming around for a second attack it was shot down about 1,000 metres from the submarine by the quadruple 20mm anti-aircraft gun. Aldridge’s Liberator, in a trail of fire and smoke, plummeted into the ocean. All nine crewmen were lost.

Edwards continued to steer his plane towards the U-boat when tracer fire from the upper turret of the Liberator temporarily blinded him. Simultaneously the U-boat opened fire from its anti-aircraft gun. Edwards yelled to the bombardier to release the depth charges and then pulled back desperately on the yoke, whilst putting the plane into full throttle. As the Liberator thundered away from the U-boat the depth charges exploded at a depth of 25 metres.

They were not accurate enough to cause significant damage to Stahl’s vessel. The U-boat slipped back under the waves, and Edwards returned to the Allied convoy.

Not long after this return to the skies above the convoy, the Liberator picked up a further radar contact. Once more the crew manoeuvred the plane into position to attack another of the surfaced wolfpack. Edwards brought the plane down to 50 feet and this time the U-boat that was targeted was U-967, commandeered by Oberleutnant zur See Herbert Loeder. Edwards issued the command to switch on the Leigh light and ready the depth charges. The spotlight failed to switch on. The Liberator had been damaged by the anti-aircraft fire from the previous encounter. Without the illumination provided by the spotlight there was nothing Edwards could do other than to abort the attack and return to escort duty.

At 0800 hours, as weak Winter daylight began to filter through the thick cloud cover, Edwards left the convoy and the navigator plotted a course due north east to return to England. The fuel level was sufficient to fly the 700 miles, or so, back to RAF St Eval, but as with all these Atlantic missions the plane would be returning with very little fuel left from the mission. It was a cold, grey, November day and due to the low cloud level Edwards had to fly only a few hundred feet from the tops of the Atlantic waves to ensure that there was sufficient visibility and to avoid any chance encounter with enemy aircraft.

Six hours into the return flight, and only 20 miles from reaching the Scilly Isles, Alex Davies left his co-pilot seat and clambered down to the bomb bay. A decision had been made to transfer fuel from an auxiliary tank to the main fuel tanks. The crew began to flip the fuel switches to manage the flow.

Almost at once, the Liberator shuddered violently.

Three of the four engines ceased working, though the propellers kept rotating in the headwind. With an altitude of only 300 feet there was no time at all to make any desperate attempt to restart the engines. At a speed of 120mph, the 17-ton Liberator went into a lurching nosedive towards the ocean. Crucially there was also no time to reduce the speed and lower the flaps, no time to issue a distress signal, no time to pull the lever in the fuselage that would automatically inflate and jettison the life rafts.

All that there was time for was one frantic yelled command from Edwards: “Crash positions”.

The U.S.-built Liberator was first adopted by RAF Coastal Command in 1941. The high cruise speed, long range and heavy bomb load made it an ideal plane for operating over the Atlantic for U-boat hunting and convoy escort duty. However, it soon gained the ominous nickname of the ‘flying coffin’ both for its rather rectangular looks and, more darkly, for its limited options of exiting the plane in the event of a crash. The U.S. Army Air Forces soon gathered statistics on the Liberator and its performance in a sea ditching: two-thirds of the planes broke up on impact.

Although it was only a matter of seconds before Liberator BZ819 was to hit the Atlantic, the term ‘flying coffin’ would have crossed the panicked minds of the eight-man crew.

The Liberator hit the ocean nose first. The plane snapped in two with the rear portion of the fuselage breaking off aft of the bomb bay. The windscreen shattered instantaneously, and a surge of freezing cold seawater swept into the cockpit. The tumultuous noise of shattered metal and machinery was quickly replaced by silence. Without a sealed fuselage, Liberators would sink instantly. Miraculously, the front portion of the Liberator was still floating on top of the waves – thanks to the fact that the wings were still attached. However, it would surely be only a matter of minutes, if not seconds, before the ocean would claim the entirety of the plane. Edwards managed to release his seat belt and desperately clambered through the smashed frame of the cockpit and up on to the roof of the plane. Bloodied, soaking and panicked, the only instinct was to get out. Wearing heavy flying jackets and multiple layers, the Atlantic would soon drag them down. The crew were wearing ‘Mae West’ lifejackets, but these required the wearer to release a valve to inflate the lifejacket.

Edwards emerged onto the top of the fuselage just as the rear section sank below the waves. As there had been no time, the internal overhead lever to release and inflate the two life rafts had not been pulled. Edwards would have to deploy the life rafts manually. This involved turning the raft-release levers located on the top of the fuselage and then clambering to the wings to free the now exposed life rafts from their cradles. This was a difficult enough manoeuvre when practiced on a Liberator parked up on a runway, but now this vital task had to be completed on a fast sinking plane with waves sweeping over the slippery metal of the broken fuselage. At this point, as Edwards frantically made his way to the release levers, he was aware that three of his crew had made it out of the gaping hole that was once the cockpit: Bruce Hamilton, William Owen and George Shield. They were all bloodied and injured, clinging to the plane and unable to assist, with their only hope resting with Edwards and the successful deployment of the life rafts.

As Edwards reached the lever his mind was trying to recall the instructions that were held within his well-thumbed operator’s manual:

“LIFE RAFTS. Two Type A-2 life rafts are carried in the fuselage above the wing between Stations 4.2 and 4.4. To release either raft from inside the airplane, pull the ‘T’ handle at the centre of the airplane on the upper part of the forward face of bulkhead at Station 4.0. On B-240 No. 41-23640 and on, the ‘T’ handle is located immediately aft of the top escape hatch. The pull cable releases the lock pins holding the life raft doors closed and allows the spring bungee to throw the raft out, clear of the fuselage. A rip cord attached to the raft cradle automatically opens the valve which controls the raft inflation from the CO₂ bottle. To release either raft from outside the airplane, the lever flush in the fuselage aft of each door should be lifted up and twisted 90 degrees. This action pulls the same cable that attaches to the ‘T’ handle on the inside and releases the raft in the same manner as described above. Do not release rafts until plane is at rest in the water.”

Edwards reached the first lever. At any moment, with the ocean continuing to rush into the broken fuselage, the remains of the plane were sure to sink. The freezing water continued to pound over the stricken Liberator but, with immense difficulty, the lever was lifted up and rotated. The door to the life raft cradle sprung open. But that was all. The life raft remained in the cradle uninflated. Frantically, Edwards manoeuvred himself towards the location of the second release lever. Once more the release lever was located and with hands numbed by the freezing water the lever was turned. This was the last chance for survival. The second cradle sprung open. The life raft, as with the first, remained uninflated.

The damage caused by the ditching was preventing the spring bungee from releasing the raft. With one final effort, Edwards pulled desperately on the trapped life raft. With more of a whimper than the expected explosion, the life raft emerged from its cradle but without the energy required for the CO₂ canister to work fully – it only partially inflated the rubber cavity. However, it offered hope. Again, relying on his pilot training and a memory of the manual, Edwards pulled with what strength he had remaining on the rip cord. A further release of carbon dioxide provided some further inflation to the life raft, but it was not sufficient for any kind of buoyancy. There was only one further means of inflating the life raft and this was a top-up valve to which a hand operated concertina-type inflation bellows could be attached. Edwards located the bellows and managed to attach them to the valve. He had only a matter of minutes before the Liberator would disappear for good. Working desperately, Edwards could only hope that his three friends would be able to cling on to the fuselage. It would take a further 5 minutes before the life raft could be inflated enough to provide any kind of sea worthiness. Fully rigged, but near total exhaustion, Edwards turned back to help his injured crew into the raft.

They were not there. All that could be seen on the waves surrounding the stricken wreckage was a growing patch of black oil. Edwards yelled out but there was to be no reply, no cries of help.

Edwards clambered into the life raft just as the front portion of the Liberator sunk, serenely, into the Atlantic. Edwards manoeuvred the life raft in circles, calling out and frantically looking for any of the crew in the hope that they had managed to inflate their Mae Wests. By this time, darkness had now descended. His crew, his friends, had gone. In this despair it was only then that the agonising pain of his injuries hit home. Edwards had suffered five broken ribs and a collapsed lung.

With no further options available, Wing Commander Edwards, double Olympic champion and Oxford Blue, looked at the compass and took a bearing. He began to row east.

It was common knowledge amongst the Coastal Command aircrew during the Second World War that the chances of surviving in an inflatable life raft (assuming one made a successful ditching) in the North Atlantic were very slim. By the end of hostilities, 53 Squadron had lost a total of 13 Liberators, 107 crew, in incidents of ditching at sea. Not including Edwards, no aircrew had survived. In fact, only two bodies had ever been accounted for – one washed up on the shoreline of France, the other in Spain. Regarding the particular area of the Atlantic that the BZ819 Liberator ditched in, 17 Allied aircraft came down within a 70-mile vicinity of the Scilly Isles. Of these 17 aircraft, 83 crew were involved. Excluding Edwards, no one had survived. The odds of survival were very grim.

Within the life raft, Edwards would have had very limited supplies or equipment. A typical life raft would be stocked with the aluminium oars (some had a basic sail and mast), a few cans of fresh water, chocolate, a puncture repair kit, compass, the pump that Edwards had already put to use, a tin of brightly coloured dye to sprinkle on the water to attract the attention of any planes flying above, and a flare gun. Edwards knew roughly his position when the Liberator ditched, 12 miles West North West of Longships Lighthouse on the Scilly Isles, and there was only one option – to row towards land.

The late November afternoon sunlight had disappeared and with the thick cloud cover there was little moonlight and no sign of the stars. The temperature was soon below zero degrees and the only sound was that of the waves. Occasionally the engine drone of a high-altitude plane would be heard, but with the low cloud level the chance of being spotted was nigh on impossible. Edwards continued to try and row using the limited capabilities of the aluminium oars.

Part II will be published tomorrow.

The 1926 Boat Race: Lost Race for Oxford

18 February 2020

By Gavin Jamieson

Here Gavin Jamieson continues his story of Jumbo Edwards from yesterday.

Back in 1932, British Pathé News reported on that golden day at Long Beach, California, when Jumbo Edwards had rowed to Olympic triumph. The grainy newsreel was entitled “Something We Did Win! Great Britain Wins Exciting Race for Olympic Coxswainsless Fours!”. In the short newsreel Edwards, along with Jack Beresford, John Badcock and Rowland George, appear effortless at their oars as the winning British boat flashes past the finish line by a good two lengths from the defeated Germans. (Incidentally, two members of the defeated German four, Hans Maier and Walter Flinsch, were killed in action earlier in 1943.) One hour previously, Edwards had won the first of his two gold medals with Lewis Clive in the coxless pairs.

The Atlantic Ocean, at night, was a far cry from Marine Stadium, Long Beach, but that familiarity with a sporting life of long hours practicing on the Thames gave Edwards some succour. He knew he had to row almost 12 miles relying on kind currents, and the dread realisation was that he was now entering a heavily mined area of the Atlantic. He had to stay awake, but his adrenaline levels were dropping and the acute pain of his injuries as well as the biting cold of the heavy sodden clothes were sapping what energy he had left. Hypothermia now became one further peril to face.

To survive, Edwards would need to call upon an enormous amount of courage, determination and ability. Ironically, the exact qualities that in 1926 the British national press, and The Times in particular, claimed that he conspicuously lacked. On 27th March 1926 during the 78th Boat Race, with the Cambridge and Oxford eights side by side at Chiswick, Edwards collapsed in the Oxford boat. He stopped rowing. The Boat Race was lost, and it was apparent to the press that he was to blame.

Saturday: 27th March 1926
78th University Boat Race

In his unpublished memoirs, Edwards describes the Oxford crew for the 1926 Boat Race:

“The crew that was finally formed for the race in 1926 consisted of Peter Murray-Threipland at bow. Tim Shaw, at two, had been in the Shrewsbury crew which won the Ladies Plate at Henley in 1924. Geoffrey Crawford was at three, like all Brasenose men of the time he was a great character and always kept the crew in good spirits. William ‘Nono’ Rathbone was at number four. He was a Radley Boy, and a tower of strength though perhaps a bit rough. I was at five, and James ‘Spud’ Thomson was at six. My brother Cecil ‘Sphinx’ Edwards was at seven and Chris Pitman stroke. Sir James Croft was cox.”

The selection of the 18-year-old Edwards was a surprise to the rowing community as he was a freshman in 1925 and the youngest of the crew. However, the coaches had seen his prowess in a boat. In his first term at Christ Church College, Edwards was selected to row in the first four. Christ Church, along with Magdalen and New College, was considered at the time as the preeminent College for rowing. One year previously, in 1924, Christ Church had a winning crew at the Head of the River and narrowly lost the Grand at Henley Royal Regatta, beaten by Delft University of the Netherlands. Of this highly lauded crew, five remained, and the College decided to enter two crews for the University fours. Much to his personal embarrassment, due to his inexperience, Edwards was selected for the first four – at the expense of his future crew mates in the Oxford Boat: Nano Rathbone and Tim Shaw. The faith in Edwards was justified. Along with Peter Murray-Threipland, Chris Pitman and his brother Cecil, they won the University fours. This victory in his first term, along with a win in the Silver Sculls, resulted in the Oxford coach, Dr Gilbert ‘Beja’ Bourne, selecting Edwards for the 1926 Boat Race crew.

Edwards was young for his years, shy and reserved, but nevertheless became by his own admission rather conceited. This conceit was fed by the success he had already achieved and his selection for the varsity crew but was countered by the overall feeling that “being an Oxford crew we couldn’t possibly win”. This pessimistic view enveloped Oxford as a consequence to the results since the resumption of the Boat Race after the First World War. Oxford had only been victorious once (in 1923, and then by only three-quarters of a length) since 1920. This losing mentality had a detrimental effect to the intensive training regime that was about to begin for Edwards early in January 1926.

In the period before the January term-time commenced, the crew were coached in the morning in ‘tub pairs’, a wooden training boat fitted out for two oarsmen – with the coach sitting in the stern and barking out orders. The purpose of this was to iron out faults and improve oarmanship before the crew got settled in the eight. In the afternoons, the crew would go out in the eight with the coach on the towpath keeping up alongside on his bicycle.

By the time that term started, after about two weeks training, the crew were beginning to settle down. The Proctors of the Colleges would forbid any rowing in the mornings in term-time and so the morning tub pairs ceased. At the end of a further two weeks of training, the President informed the crew to order their kit which included a white sweater trimmed with blue ribbon, and with the initials of the rower embroidered across the chest, blue ‘stockings’, ‘blanket trousers’, blue blazer, blue dinner jacket and trimmed white waistcoat to match with white trousers for evening wear. As Edwards fondly recalled, once the kit arrived, he felt enormous pride and the realisation of a dream come true.

From the fifth week, the crew was moved into ‘strict training’. Edwards, in his memoir, recalls the regular routine: “No smoking, no cinemas, 7.30am training run, 10.30pm bed”. Additionally, each oarsman in turn would provide breakfast for the others in their rooms, and fulfilling a long tradition also provide a bunch of violets which were to be obtained from an early visit to the flower market.

In the seventh week of training, even though the academic term had yet to finish, the crew moved down river to a long reach of water at Bourne End and took up in residence at the Spade Oak Ferry Hotel. The boat was housed in the boathouse of Rudolph Lehmann, a former Oxford rowing coach and who, between the years 1877 and 1888, had the distinction of finishing last in every heat he entered at the Henley Regatta.

At the end of the eighth week, the crew moved down to Putney and this is when the training became a lot more varied and interesting. Edwards recalls:

“In truth, training up until now had been infinitely dreary, slogging up and down the river with no aim or object in sight, and the Boat Race itself hidden away in the womb of the future. We never had another crew alongside us for pacing; we never knew how fast or how slowly we were going. We had to endure a cutting east wind, insufficiently clad with bare knees. Frequently splashes of water would freeze immediately on the oar handles. Tucked away in the wastes of Bourne, we did not even have an audience to perform for except for the visits of the Press Correspondents who seldom said anything nice. It was not a joyous time.”

The core belief of Edwards was that to go fast a crew must have esprit de corps and must all get on well together ashore as well as being uniform on the water. They must all think alike. There must be no discrimination, unconscious or conscious. This is how you get the boat to fly, and to sing, in the water. This is how you beat Cambridge.

In the Oxford crew there were a number of like-minded men. There were five who had rowed together in the excellent Christ Church Head of the River crew (including his brother ‘Sphinx’) and three Etonians, but Edwards was the only freshman. By now, after two months of intensive training, the eight were beginning to form that trust in one another that was so crucial. To strengthen that esprit de corps the crew were put up in a house on Putney Hill, about a mile away from their rowing headquarters at London Rowing Club. For the next four weeks up to the date of the Boat Race, the crew, in Edwards words, “were subjected to a continuous barrage of publicity”. For those in the crew who had not experienced the Boat Race (Thomson, Pitman and Sphinx had all competed the previous year when, in only the second time in the history of the Boat Race, the Oxford boat sank), the first outing to Putney was frightening. It was recalled by Edwards that “taking the boat out one had to run the gauntlet, not only of the general public, not only of the press photographers, but also the cine-cameras of Pathé and Gaumont”. Such was the clamour and interest by the public in the Boat Race that there were articles published in the national newspapers on a daily basis concerning the form of the two crews. The Oxford crew were so besieged by autograph hunters that the cox, Sir James Croft, took it upon himself to forge the signatures of his crew to relieve them of this time-consuming chore. Cartoonists for the daily papers, such as The Tatler and The Sketch, were constantly amongst the crew on the bank and in the boathouse – the crew’s only sanctuary away from this intrusion was in the house on Putney Hill.

These last few weeks were used by the coaches to work the crew up to what Edwards described as a ‘racing pitch’. This term encapsulated not just the speed of the boat on the water, but the morale and fighting spirit of the crew. Herbert Hartley, who a few years earlier had stroked Cambridge to victory three years running was heard to exclaim about Oxford: “I hate the bugger. I regard them as Germans”. This was used as further incentive to the Oxford crew when facing scratch eights during practice on the river, and these opponents would be easily despatched.

A useful ally was gained in famed boat builder and the King’s ‘Bargemaster’, John Thomas Phelps, better known as ‘Bossie’ Phelps. Bossie was one of the watermen of Putney and knew intimately every stretch and bend on the 4.2 miles of the Thames course. He would sit down, twice a day, with Sir James Croft and go over with him the intricacies of the course and where every advantage, no matter how small, could be gained for the Oxford boat.

The weeks and days quickly passed in a routine of practice, more practice, and for Sir James the task of forging more autographs. The day before the race, Friday 20th, the crew had only one short outing on the river: the coaches demanded that the crew row at ‘high pressure’ – building to 34 strokes at the end of one minute, after which they all felt completed exhausted. For Edwards the thought occurred to him that the next day he would have to row at high intensity for not just one minute but for 20 minutes, and in front of an immense expectant crowd exceeding 300,000. The thought, he was to admit, “turned his muscles to jelly”. He put this down to nerves and, along with the crew, had an early night in the hope that sleep would quickly descend.

The crew woke up to a gloriously fine morning with a gentle breeze blowing south to south-east. Due to the tide conditions, that year’s Boat Race was to start at an earlier time of 12.30pm. By 8am large numbers of crowds were already making their way to the banks of the Thames to ensure they had secured the best vantage points as the crews sped past. One hour later, barges and tugs began to fuss about the starting point to make sure everything was in order. There was plenty of activity along the towpath, with a large police force beginning to handle the growing crowds. Numerous ‘hawkers’ set up stalls selling food, drink, rosettes and other trinkets to allow the spectators to proudly display which side they were cheering for.

Opinions as to the prospects of the rivals seemed to be fairly evenly divided amongst the newspapers and correspondents. However, the apparent exhaustion of the Oxford crew during the short practice of the previous day had not gone unnoticed, and this led to a slight favouring for the Light Blues of Cambridge. Bossie Phelps was reluctant to speak to the press but when they managed to get him to utter a few words during the morning he simply declared, “In fact, I think there will be very little in it”.

The French polishers had spent the greater part of the night giving the finishing touches to the Oxford boat, ensuring that it was in the best possible state to take to the water. Shortly after 9am, the Oxford crew arrived on the scene for a brief trial row. As the Yorkshire Evening Post correspondent reported, they all “looked bronzed and fit”.

At 10am, the sun broke through the mist hanging over the river. It was a little under three hours before the starting time. Over the next hour, both crews took the opportunity to practice a few starts and to try and dampen down the nerves and excitement that was beginning to build. A number of jazz bands had taken their place on the river bank and Edwards could hear the jaunty music drifting over the river.

Stanley Baldwin, the Prime Minister and a keen follower of the sport, arrived with his wife and displayed his affiliation by taking up position within the Cambridge enclosure. The Dundee Courier reported “Mr Baldwin, who was smoking a cherrywood pipe, declined smilingly to say which crew he favoured”. Nobody was in any doubt though about his light blue allegiance. By now, with just an hour before the start, there was, as The Daily Mail stated, “a kaleidoscopic view of a procession of all sorts of craft making their way up river. There were barges and tugs on which were immaculately attired men and women, steam launches, luxurious motor boats and to complete the picture dinghies hauled by the lusty watermen with full cargoes. All these churning the water into wavelets in their endeavours to get up stream in good time to view the race”.

Seated on one of the more luxurious motor launches was Colonel Nawabzda Hamidullah Khan, the son of the Begum of Bhopal, and invited guest of the Prince of Wales. As all of these dignitaries and Old Blues made their way to the best vantage points on the river, the crews were trying their best to fight their nerves.

Sir James Croft sat with his crew in the boathouse and, out of the windows, they could clearly see the vast crowds that had gathered. He recalled that “it almost felt as though we were to be sacrificed, that the crowd will gloat”. Bossie Phelps took Sir James out in a launch for one final inspection of the conditions and the last instruction. “It was always during this last run over that I realised how very imperfect my knowledge of the course was. I would return to the changing room, wondering furtively if there was no way out, and wishing heartily that I could suddenly get run down with a taxi and get an arm or a leg broken and thus escape”.

And then it was time to leave the boathouse and carry the boat down to the river. Edwards remembers “it was difficult to get through the crowd and one had plenty of time to read the posters carried by the religious sandwich men ‘Prepare to meet thy God’ – which didn’t help”. The crew of the Oxford boat was by 4 stone, at a total of 110 stone, the heavier of the two. Again, opinion was divided as to whether this provided Oxford with an advantage or not.

One advantage that Oxford did gain was in winning the toss of the coin. Oxford opted to take the Surrey shore but with the wind conditions so ideal it was difficult to ascertain any major advantage in winning that year’s toss. One of the Cambridge coaches expressed the view that losing the toss was actually to their advantage as it would compel the Cambridge crew to go all out at the start in order to prevent Oxford gaining an immediate lead.

Being the challengers, the Oxford boat went afloat first, and to the accompaniment of a great cheer paddled away to the stake boats at the start. Even this manoeuvre is not at all easy – especially for Sir James as cox: “Getting up to the stake boat is no easy feat. An eight is an awkward craft to turn, the tide is running very fast and there is not much room to spare. If you miss it, there is no chance of backing up to it, the tide is too strong”.

Thankfully both boats made it successfully to the stake boats, being held there by a waterman. Sweaters and scarves were removed, passed down the boat and deposited in the stake boat. Both boats were now poised, the crews waiting for the umpire to lower his flag to signify the start. Sir James readied his crew. “At that moment, as far as I was concerned at least, all fears departed. The crowd was forgotten, even the self-doubt that I never even knew the course properly was forgotten”.

The official starter held the flag aloft. On the opposite banks of the river, the crowd fell silent. At 12.26, the flag dropped. A tremendous cheer went up from the banks. The oars of the Oxford and Cambridge boats dug into the water, and both boats sprang forward simultaneously.

The Oxford crew, in the first minute, found their rhythm quickly and went from 10, 19 to 37 strokes for the 20-second intervals. Cambridge, aware that they would need to ensure that Oxford did not draw away, responded with 10, 19 to 36 strokes. Oxford had a slight lead, by a canvas, at the end of that first crucial minute. In the second minute, the power of the heavier Oxford crew began to show and they were rowing 32 strokes to Cambridge’s 30. Oxford had established a quarter length lead. This increased further to a lead of a third of a length at the Mile Post. This was reached by Oxford in 4 minutes and 5 seconds, a fast time considering the minimum of tide flowing in the Thames.

The Mile Post was the Oxford stroke’s marker to put in a spurt and to gain his boat a distinct lead over the Light Blues on the approach up to Hammersmith Bridge. Pitman increased his stroke rate and the crew followed him. Oxford’s lead was now up to half a length, but Cambridge were not to be shaken and Cambridge’s stroke, Hamilton-Russell, responded. Both boats were now rowing at a stroke rate of 30 and swept past the Harrods Depository. This was a crucial moment for Cambridge, this is where the Boat Race could be lost. Cambridge had to ensure there was no clear water between themselves and Oxford as the approaching sharp bend of the river at Hammersmith would clearly benefit Oxford. Edwards recalled at this crucial point that Justin Brown, the Cambridge cox, bellowed out: “Oxford you are in my water. Give way you buggers. Croft, you c**t, get out of my water”.

Despite this being Croft’s debut in the Boat Race, whereas the far more experienced Brown was on an unprecedented hat-trick of victories, he was well aware of his role. “My job was to do the opposing cox down, to bluff him out of my way. . . a continuous flow of epithet passes. One cox may know perfectly well that he is in his opponent’s water, yet he will continue to warn him that unless he gives way he will foul him; the one with the best bluff wins and may in the first two miles of the race gain a very considerable advantage for his crew.”

The Oxford crew maintained their slim, half a length lead as they reached Hammersmith Bridge in a time of 7 minutes 27 seconds. Sir James Croft was steering the Oxford boat to perfection – as one old Oxford Blue remarked “almost criminally well” – keeping Cambridge at bay. Up to this point, despite the crowds thronging the banks, the Oxford crew were unaware of any noise drifting over the water, they were concentrating fully on pulling the oars and keeping in front of Cambridge. But then a wall of noise avalanched over the boats. The hooters and sirens of all the factories on the banks were turned on to greet the boats. For Croft, this was the first time that he became aware that the boat was not going along in complete silence. “One begins to realise that there are several hundreds of thousands of people on the bridges and along the banks, all using their lungs to make the most noise possible. The result can be best described as a dome of sound which seems to cover the river at an immense height like the dome of a cathedral.”

This dome of sound was at an unprecedented level in 1926 – nobody could remember a Boat Race that had been so tightly contested. This was a classic encounter. As the correspondent of The Times recounted: “In no race since Bourne’s famous race against Stewart [editor’s note: Douglas Stuart] in 1909, when they kept together till Duke’s Meadows, have the crews rowed neck-and-neck together for such a large part of the course. Leads have changed in other races since then, right up to and after Barnes, but it is rarely one has the thrill of two crews rowing alongside for almost 10 minutes”.

The crowd packed onto the Hammersmith Bridge were thrilled and in a first for the Boat Race, circling 1,500 feet above the river, was an Imperial Airways Handley-Page biplane chartered by a group of Cambridge supporters keen to view the race from a unique vantage point.

Oxford’s wining of the toss had given them the advantage of the Surrey station and the bend of the river towards Chiswick steps. Sensing this was the time to press home this advantage, Pitman put on a spurt. This time, his Oxford crew did not respond. Cambridge, realising that the bend was in Oxford’s favour, also put on a spurt and the crew increased their stoke rate to 32. This brought Cambridge level with the Oxford boat. The Oxford crew started to falter and, only just perceptibly, lose their rhythm. Oxford hung on heading down the bend towards Chiswick. Hamilton-Russell, the Cambridge stroke, implored his crew to spurt in a series of ‘tens’ on the outside of the bend and suddenly, for the first time in the race, it was the Cambridge boat that edged ahead of their bitter rival. Then, as the Evening Post reported, “approaching Chiswick steps, the race was marred by one of the greatest tragedies in the history of the event”. As the Cambridge boat took the lead, the number 6 in the Oxford boat, James ‘Spud’ Thomson, glanced around at the passing Cambridge boat. Such a thing was not ‘Etonian watermanship’ and if he must look round, he did so over the wrong shoulder. Consequently, Thomson’s rowing faltered badly and threw the rhythm of the crew out. Edwards, rowing at number 5, seeing ‘Spud’ look round cracked. Edwards collapsed in the boat. From the bank it looked, to the spectators, as if Edwards had confusingly disappeared in the boat. He was slumped backwards, fallen on the knees of ‘Nono’ Rathbone at number 4, his oars dragging in the water. Rathbone shouted at Edwards to get up. With one hand, Rathbone managed to shove Edwards back into the sitting position. Edwards collapsed once more. With the disarray in the Oxford boat, Cambridge shot ahead. Two minutes after Edwards collapsed, the Cambridge boat had a three-length lead. The Oxford crew rowed on, as Croft recalled, “like a creature with a broken back”. Rathbone pushed Edwards back into a sitting position and he finally came to. Edwards gripped his oars and began to row.

At the three-mile mark Oxford were back rowing in rhythm at 30 strokes. But the race was lost. Cambridge’s lead was now at four lengths and by the time the Oxford boat reached Barnes bridge, and the final slight bend into the finish, Cambridge were five lengths ahead.

The Cambridge boat finished in a time of 19 minutes and 29 seconds and won by five lengths. In the British Pathé newsreel of the race, the boats are seen drifting past the finish marker. The Cambridge crew are triumphant but exhausted, and in the Oxford boat Edwards cannot be seen. He has once again slumped down into the boat. The closest Boat Race for 17 years, up until the two-mile mark, turned into a non-contest. Cambridge had won, and for the newspapers the reason was simple: the inexcusable collapse of H. R. A. Edwards.

1926 Boat Race, Pathé various news clips, including Edwards collapsing in the boat.

As the dejected Oxford crew waded ashore with their boat, a small boy broke free of the swarming crowd and approached Sir James Cox with an autograph book and a hopeful look on his face.

The reporters were gathered at the boat houses to obtain quotations to complement their race reports. In the Sunday Post, under the headline ‘Disaster for Oxford’, the Cambridge stroke, Hamilton-Russell, was quoted as “We were all very glad to win. However, I don’t think I want to go through it again”. Pitman, the Oxford stroke, was understandably upset: “I am very sorry to have let the crew down”. As for Edwards, he was surrounded by the press desperate to find out what had happened in the boat. “I felt groggy; that is all there is to it. But tried to pull as best as I could for the last two miles. I am fit again now, but for the moment everything was blurred.”

Cambridge’s jubilant cox, celebrating his record third consecutive win, stated “that he never doubted the issue after the crews had passed Hammersmith Bridge”. Cambridge had won seven of the last eight races.

Part III will be published tomorrow.

Good-bye Oxford – Hello London!

19 February 2020 

By Gavin Jamieson 

Here Gavin Jamieson continues his story about Jumbo Edwards from yesterday.

The Times was the most scathing about Edwards and his collapse in the Oxford boat. The following day, in a summary of the events, the correspondent declared “Individuals in crews are allowed to eat too much and drink too much and are not made to work hard enough to keep themselves from getting fat. The result is they come to the post for the most gruelling athletic contest known in the world, not trained as a boxer would step into the ring, but overloaded with fat, which, in the first place, by being mistaken for muscle, leads one to expect more of them than one would of men of their true weight, and, secondly, by placing a dangerous strain on their heart renders them liable to collapse.”

Specifically about Edwards, The Times correspondent went on: “Number 5 in the Oxford crew was a young though not entirely inexperienced man, who was a good enough natural oar to be able to exhaust himself, which is a thing of which many heavyweights are too slow to be capable. He was never made to row hard during practice, and his weight was a stone too much. The Boat Race is not like a schoolboys’ race, and a man must really be trained to undergo it or risk permanent injury to his health”.

After the race Guy Nickalls, the former coach of Yale and British Olympian, referred directly to Edwards that he was more than a stone overweight and laden down with “baby blubber”.

The Oxford crew devastated and exhausted after their loss were keen to stay indoors, away from the press and the celebrations of Cambridge. However, they had one further contractual commitment to fulfill – a trip to the cinema.

The crew arrived at the Rialto Theatre in the West End of London, to a packed audience, at 4pm. The European Film Company, the British subsidiary of Universal Pictures, had agreed the previous week with Oxford that the boat crew should be present at the cinema for a re-run of the race. For the crew there could be nothing worse than to have to sit in the velvet seats of the Rialto, surrounded by a sell-out crowd of 800, and watch their losing efforts. To make it even more of a horrific experience, the Rialto in association with the Daily Mail had installed on the stage a large scenic panorama which showed, in model form and to scale, all the familiar points of vantage such as the Fulham football ground, Harrods Repository and the bridges. In the centre of this large panorama were two troughs of water, and in the two troughs a Light Blue boat and a Dark Blue boat. The Daily Mail installed their special ‘Macroniphone’ loud speakers which had recorded the crowd noise at over a dozen various points along the course, from Putney to Mortlake. From the time the crews embarked and left the bank to proceed to the starting stake, until Cambridge finished as the winners, the boats on the panorama moved simultaneously with those on the river, accompanied by movie clips from the race and the recorded cacophony of the crowds. A newspaper of the time, The Bioscope, noted that the Oxford crew were “immensely interested and at once saw where they cracked. The whole sporting spirit of the beaten crew was shown when they all stood up and cheered when Cambridge went over the line as winners”. Surrounded by an audience of 800, it was the only option open to the crew. In a concluding paragraph, the newspaper went on: “It was noticed on arrival that Number 5, Mr Edwards, was still in a very exhausted condition”.

That night in the West End was an unusually uneventful evening of disorder for ‘Boat Race Night’: there were only 50 arrests. A great many of those arrests resulted in fines for drunkenness and disorderly conduct. Amongst the celebrating Cambridge fans some wrestled with each other on the pavements for the amusement of onlookers, whilst others pushed people off the pavement for their own amusement. The police were delighted with such few arrests.

Edwards returned to Oxford bitterly disappointed by the loss and his part in it. He was sent to the doctor to be examined. “The doctor who examined me afterwards with the aid of X-ray plates told me that due to a dilated heart I must never again take any strenuous exercise, and in bidding me adieu he extended to me his best wishes for my gaining a ‘blue’ in crown bowls”. His rowing days, according to medical wisdom, were over.

Looking back on the race, many years later, Edwards conceded that “with the lack of any additional exercise, which I always needed, I put on too much weight and was far from fit at the end of training”. However, there was also a lingering anger at the press for putting so much of the blame on his shoulders. “Though I deserved every word of it, I was pretty disgusted with the press I received, especially from The Times. I was bitterly disappointed, but this was primarily for letting down my crew and especially my brother Sphinx”.

There was one former rower and coach who did defend Edwards in the press. Steve Fairbairn, who would soon become such an important figure in his life, wrote in the press that Edwards was not the one to blame. “The one person who showed kindness, if not truthfulness, was Steve Fairbairn who wrote that I had been pulling the whole boat along for the first two miles”. These few words of kindness gave Edwards something to cling to.

With his rowing career at an end, Edwards had to turn his attention to his academic studies. The devastation at the medical prognosis and the effect of all the press scrutiny resulted in Edwards finding it difficult to concentrate at his studies. The thought of playing crown bowls did not appeal.

Edwards would often take walks through the Christ Church meadows and up to the river. He would sit watching the oarsmen and their coaches. Rowing was his passion, and the draw was irresistible. Tentatively, he plucked up the courage to go out sculling with the initial belief that his dilated heart would stop beating at any moment. The depression that had settled on Edwards was lifted as soon as he was back in a boat. Finding no ill-effects, he was soon strenuously rowing up and down the river, rebuilding his fitness and confidence in his health. In his mind he was now ready to be selected to row in the Christ Church summer eight, which was Head of the River. The coaches refused to select him and it was then that realisation dawned on him, “what the doctor told me was merely a kind and polite way of letting me know that I was no longer required as an oarsman in any crew”. He did not have a dilated heart. The College thought it best that he quietly gave up on rowing, and instead recommended that he put his efforts into coaching. His collapse in the Boat Race was an embarrassment to those who had selected him in the first place.

This slight just added to an already smouldering desire to prove everyone wrong. Returning to Oxford in the Michaelmas term, after the long Summer vacation, Edwards entered the Christ Church regatta single sculls event. To the shock of the spectators, Edwards made it to the final. Awaiting him was R. T. Lee (Worcester) who the following year would go on to win the Diamonds at Henley. Several of those witnessing the regatta commented that they fully expected to see Edwards collapse once more and feared for his well-being. Edwards won the race by a length. Almost eight months to the day from the calamity of the Boat Race, Edwards was once again victorious in a boat.

At the end of the Summer term in his first eventful year as a freshman, Edwards sat his exams. In the words of Edwards, “One of the bugbears of University life is that you have to take examinations from time to time. I eagerly went along when the results were posted, but my name was not listed among those who had satisfied the examiners, not even in a single subject”. His only hope was to re-sit the exams at the end of the Michaelmas term and to achieve a pass. Just after he retook the exams, but before the term had ended, Edwards received a note from the Proctors stating that he had been seen in the Carfax Assembly Rooms dancing “with a lady from the Town” and inviting him to attend the Clarendon Buildings the following morning. There was a very sharp line drawn between ‘Town’ and ‘Gown’. Gown comprised of all the gentlemen and ladies of the University, while Town included all the rest who lived in Oxford. Undergraduates were not permitted to mix in any way with them. There was an additional problem for Edwards. If you went to a dance, inevitably you had to surreptitiously climb, literally, back into College afterwards, and this Edwards had done. “There were reputed to be several ways in, but I knew only one. I climbed over the railings in the Merton Street entrance to the Meadows and then over the wall into the college grounds. From there, I scaled the wall into Canon Locke’s garden, shinned up a convenient tree to mount the 10-foot wall of Meadow Buildings and then dropped down on to the roof of the bicycle shed and so to the ground. The Meadow porter was waiting for me. I was in double trouble”.

Edwards declined the invitation to the meeting with the Proctors, and telling the Senior Proctor, Mr Chaundry, exactly where he could put his gown. Edwards walked out of Oxford.

Jobs were hard to come by in 1927, and Edwards moved back to live with his mother (his father, Reverend Robert Edwards had passed away in January). Edwards thought of emigrating to one of the Dominions to take up sheep farming. He obtained all the information he could on the merits of merino sheep but failed to raise the capital required to travel. So, to ease his boredom, he spent most of his time sculling on the river. Edwards belonged to both the London Rowing Club and its rival Thames Rowing Club. Julius ‘Old Berry’ Beresford (the father of the lauded Jack Beresford) approached Edwards and asked, “would you like to row in our Thames Cup Eight?”. The reply was a polite, but short, “No thanks, Berry”.

In the mid-1920s, Thames Rowing Club had been successful under the aegis of their Australian-born coach Steve Fairbairn. However, it had been split into two factions: those who were disciples of Fairbairn and those who favoured Julius Beresford. Fairbairn decided to quit Thames and was immediately asked to coach at their bitter rivals London. The captain of London was Robert ‘Archie’ Nisbet, a great admirer of Steve Fairbairn, and Fairbairn accepted the offer and several of his disciples came over with him. Much to the surprise of Edwards, Nisbet approached him and invited him to row in the London Rowing Club Grand Eight. Remembering the kind words that Steve Fairbairn had told the press after the Boat Race, Edwards jumped at the invitation. From that day on, Edwards never set foot in the Thames Rowing Club for over 20 years.

The rivalry between the two clubs was not a friendly rivalry. “We did not have a good word to say of each other and, when the opportunity offered, were distinctly unkind to our rivals. In the evenings Thames men had to walk past the London boathouse and we would stand on the balcony and jeer as they went past. John Badcock was the mainstay of the Thames Grand Eight, so we would pick him out as our main target, but it annoyed us that he never looked up but just kept on walking, always immaculately dressed and complete with bowler hat, tightly rolled umbrella and a copy of The Times under his arm. In fact, he reminded us of the cartoon character Felix the Cat and the nickname stuck. After marrying Joyce Cooper, the Olympic swimmer, they christened their eldest son Felix”.

Five years later, in Los Angeles, Edwards was in the coxless four at the Olympic Games winning gold. Alongside him was, by now, his lifelong friends from Thames: John ‘Felix’ Badcock, Jack Beresford and Rowland George.

For Edwards, it was a very proud moment when he first stepped into the London Eight with Steve Fairbairn alongside in the launch. Unlike his experience at Oxford, Edwards was of the strong opinion that he had found his home. “Rowing in that crew was an absolute delight. The rhythm set by Terence O’Brien at stroke was out of this world, the smoothness, power, balance and control were the epitome of poetry of motion”. His experience of the coaching under Fairbairn was equally uplifting. “Unlike ‘orthodox’ coaches who were always nagging about little points of style, Steve said very little, and never seemed to address an individual, but spoke to the crew as a whole. During one whole outing he might repeat at intervals, ‘Sit back at the finish; sit back till the cows come home’. On another trip it would be ‘Round the turn, just like turning mother’s mangle’, ‘If you cannot do it easy, you cannot do it at all’, and ‘Mileage makes Champions’.”

Fairbairn worked the crew hard, and each man in the crew vied with the others in “sending down the biggest and truest puddle”. Fairbairn would work with both the First and Second Eights, handicapping the crews so that the Grand Eight would go ahead in the last few hundred yards. Edwards recalled, “I asked him one day in the club about a point of technique when he grabbed me at waist level by the sweater and said, ‘This is the way to finish the stroke’ at the same time flinging me across the room. I was no wiser than I was before, but I pondered on the episode for a long time. Shortly after, Ted Phelps was brought into the boat at number 6 to substitute for a man who was sick. I noticed Ted’s outside shoulder coming at me like a sledgehammer at the finish of the stroke, and at last I understood what Steve meant”.

Under the guidance of Fairbairn, Edwards had fallen back in love with the art of rowing. When the London Eight took to the water, Edwards could at last truly hear the boat sing. In 1927 the London Eight won every race they entered in, home and abroad, save only the Grand and Stewards at Henley. As well as the teaching methods of Fairbairn, Edwards was driven by a sense of redemption: “Victory would begin to teach Guy Nickalls and the rest of the Leander pink-cap brigade to talk about ‘baby blubber’”.

It was in the London Eight that Edwards would acquire his nickname. From this point on he would always be referred to as ‘Jumbo’. “In the London crew I was placed in the middle of the boat being 12 stone 9 pounds, one of the heavyweights. Put at number four was ‘Fatty’ Webb turning the scales at 12 stone 10 pounds. The day came when my weight went up to 12st 11lb and Fatty went down to 12st 8lb.  He proudly declared, “You are a lump; you are nothing but a jumbo. And the name stuck”. It is unknown whether Webb was still referred to as ‘Fatty’.

Jumbo Edwards had rediscovered his passion, but a life spent rowing was not viable. He needed to find work. At the end of 1927, he was approached to become an assistant schoolmaster at Courtenay Lodge School for Boys. The salary was a very reasonable £100 per year, and as well as teaching the boys in English, mathematics, history there was an opportunity to coach the senior boys in rowing. The school was located in Sutton Courtenay, south of Oxford, and very close to the Thames, so Jumbo could row in what spare time he had. At weekends he would dash back to London on his Norton motorbike and continue his coaching with Fairbairn. The London Rowing Club Eight were building towards Henley and a shot at the Grand.

The rivalry with Thames Rowing Club was as intense as ever, and there were also battles on the river with Leander. As Jumbo articulated in his book The Way of a Man with a Blade, the London crew had a huge respect for Leander, but this was coupled with contempt as they were of the ‘wrong faith’. Leander was an adherent to the school of ‘Orthodoxy’ when it came to their rowing technique, whereas Steve Fairbairn had created such a unique technique that this was now commonly referred to as ‘Fairbairnism’. For Jumbo “it was a disgrace to be beaten by a crew rowing the orthodox way”. However, this is exactly what happened in the final of the Grand at Henley in 1927 – Thames won by three quarters of a length. Despite this defeat, the London crew were improving month by month, year by year. The boat was getting faster, the crew possessing that esprit de corps that was so vital to compete against the best crews in the world.

Gavin Jamieson would be delighted to receive anecdotes from readers that may have been coached by Jumbo Edwards or had relatives that handed down stories of Edwards’s time in a boat, on the tow path or in the air. He would also be pleased to hear from anyone who expresses an interest in a book dedicated to the exploits of Jumbo Edwards. Gavin can be contacted at gmbjamieson@gmail.com or on Twitter @gmbjamieson 

Part IV will be published tomorrow.