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"It was white nearly till the end of February, and then the thaw set in, and where there had been snow, there was now water. The dykes and drains couldn't deal with it fast enough, and then the bank of the river blowed, and the hundreds of acres of fen flooded, especially the low bit between the river and the main drain. It was just a sheet of water stretching away as far as you could see into the distance, with only a reed or two sticking out here and there, as bleak as it could ever be.
Ah, it was lovely to live in the old fen when a frost set in after a flood. It's a pleasure nobody knows these days, since the new ways of draining keep the fen from being flooded. Skating on a river or a drain is alright, but it isn't the same as having a square mile of ice you know is nearly solid under your feet. On a river or drain, there would always be a few weak places where somebody had kept breaking the ice to dip water for the house or farm. When the dipping holes got frez over, they made skating dangerous, because if you got in under the thick ice there wasn't much hope for you. Nobody could help you because if they came over towards you the ice round the edges of the hole broke away with their weight. If there didn't happen to be a pole or a clothes prop handy, there wasn't much anyone could do".
Read more on Pages 35 and 39 from The Silver New Nothing by Sybil Marshall
The blades of these skates were attached by a leather strap to the wearers' leg.
As Sybil describes in this extract, skating over frozen flooded fields and meadows was a risky yet eagerly-awaited part of Fenland life each year, and a big part of this region’s heritage.
AT THE MUSEUM
Seek out the Skates on display in the Pump Room.
They show different styles and materials used over time and different methods of attaching these to the wearer.
Can you see a bone? The earliest skates were made from leg bones of horse, ox or deer. How would these have been attached?
Further Reading
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