Finally we reached the Cherwell boathouse, where the afternoons entertainment was to be held. It was one of my life’s goals to steer a beautiful damsel up a river on a sunny afternoon like in the Victorian novels. Somehow I’d never got around to it, due, I think, to a lack of rivers, punts and damsels. Today was to be the day.

 The Thames in the city had a fairly stiff current, and I didn’t like the look of it for a new punter. So we went upriver to the Cherwell on the advice of our friend (and erstwhile best man) Simon.

 The Cherwell Boathouse has been hiring punts since 1907 when it was built as Tim’s boathouse. Punts have been used for centuries as small commercial vessels, but in victorian times were introduced for pleasure. They were used all over the waterways of Britain until, with the introduction of power boats, whose wash made them unstable, are now used only in small quiet waterways.

What’s more, punting was considered especially suitable as a gentle entertainment for young ladies: the oldest of the women’s colleges, Lady Margaret Hall, still keeps its own punts on the river.  Accordingly we deemed it suitable entertainment for Sally.

Driving a punt is not all that simple – it is easy to make a mess of it, but takes a bit of practice to persuade it to go in a straight line, especially with the current and snags in the river. The long pole is just about long enough to reach the bottom in the middle of the river, and has a tendency to stick into the mud and catch on the trees at the edges. There is no rudder, so the pole is used to push the boat in a straight line, then you hang it off the back as a steering oar. So you can’t propel the boat and steer at the same time – plus of course you have to push it fast enough to get the pole working to actually control the direction.

These guys were entertaining. The bloke with the pole was being instructed by the lady who obviously knew what she was doing. This was just after they had biffed into a bush and backed off. With ribald comments from the audience (me) and chortles from the inmates, they managed to get free. All taken in good part – after all, nobody was in a hurry.

I got the hang of it after a while, but with the help of Sally paddling the single oar as a bow-thruster at times of crisis. Everyone was pretty good-natured, and it’s not a place for driving personalities, so the afternoon was pretty peaceful.

In a heroic pose I brave the hazards of the river – ducks and tree branches – to steer my lady on a voyage through the bucolic pastures of the Oxford countryside. Something which chaps like me have done for the past 100 years.

Meanwhile Sally sits, demure as ever, in the punt trailing her fingers in the water and dreaming romantic thoughts….