rkstudio

A Ferry Tale

I fished this painting out of a draw today because my wife remembered it and thought it would be nice to send as a birthday card to a friend who has helped with her genealogy researches. They go back a long way, so to speak, he is a distant cousin several generations removed. It turns out he is also related in a similar way to the guy who was once the ferryman which I suppose my wife is too.

The ferry has long been replaced by an ugly footbridge and in the old days you could ferry a horse and cart and farm animals across the Severn - now you can't. This was one of my early watercolours - must be 20 years old - and I''ve never thought of selling it because in our courting days my wife and I would walk upstream along the west bank of the Severn from Bewdley cross on the ferry and walk back downstream on the east bank. We never realised as a couple of dewy-eyed lovers that she might be distantly related to the ferryman.