Country Life by Richard Williamson

I was out in a gunning punt, without a gun, one of those long, narrow, shallow-sided coffins that men once used to earn their living among the wild ducks, geese, swans and wading birds that throng the muds all over our harbours, estuaries and shallow sandy seashores on the east of our island.

The gun punts are tapered at both ends in case the occupant needed to row forwards or backwards. This may sound absurd to a conventional yachtsman or motorboat owner but they never had to get up to the kind of tricks our longshoreman needed to have up his sleeve if he was ever to survive the abysmal weather, storms and blizzards included, amongst ice floes and tidal surges as he crept almost unseen among the blind alleys of mud banks and winding slimy creeks that bisect the saltings like the veins on his sinewy arms.

For full feature see West Sussex Gazette, March 16