In The Footsteps Of Dead Poets.

A Memory of Grantchester.

Just out of Trumpington, on the road to Grantchester, was the entrance to an area known as Byron’s Pool, named after Lord Byron who apparently frequented the area whilst at Cambridge University. Probably hoping to find somewhere discrete to make his next sexual conquest from what I’ve read about him since. Once through the clapper gate you made your way through an area of rough woodland that was criss-crossed with footpaths; some major and well trod; others less so with the occasional hazard of stinging nettle or bramble. If you made your way to the river, then walked upstream on the adjacent path, your ears would guide you to the weir, where between the ages of eleven and thirteen, I used to indulge in probably the most foolhardy stunt of my entire life.
The weir was basically a submerged concrete dam, in those days only about ten inches in section at the top, and which spanned most of the entire width of the river; just leaving on the far side a narrow channel with an adjustable sluice that could only be accessed via private land on the opposing bank. I believe it was originally built to create a mill-pool to provide water power to nearby Grantchester Mill, sadly defunct since apparently a fire in 1928.
The water poured rapidly over the top of the weir and dropped several feet to its new lower level. Myself, and a few other brave, or should that be foolish souls, would climb through the safety rails, and utilising them from the wrong side, lower ourselves onto the top of the weir. Standing with our backs to the flow, and hooking the heels of our wellies over the upstream edge of the concrete to avoid being swept away, we would slowly shuffle sideways across the weir, on our insteps, inches at a time, whilst trying desperately not to slip on the slimy algoid surface, and ignoring the splashes that made it inside our boots. The fact that I couldn’t swim a stroke wasn’t really relevant. Swimming in Wellington boots is apparently almost impossible anyway. When you reached the far side there were some more safety railings you could hang on to whilst psyching yourself up for the return journey in the same dangerous manner. I now live in South Bedfordshire, but I’ve since been back once or twice as an adult, and looking at the weir, even in the gentlest flow of summer waters, I cannot believe my own stupidity. I suppose it was our version of ‘playing chicken’, and at least we didn’t involve innocent motorists as the current crop of idiots seem to do when trying to prove their misplaced bravado.
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