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The accident in which three young children died crossing a river at Charlbury may have been caused by a "large lady" making the boat unstable.

As we recalled (Memory Lane, May 26), disaster struck on Ascension Day, May 29, 1924, when the town revived the custom of beating the bounds', to ensure a rich harvest later in the year.

After gathering in the vicarage garden, the congregation split into eight groups and set off to mark the parish boundaries.

Their journey took them across the River Evenlode.

Six of the groups successfully crossed the river by punt, at a point known as Devil's Hole.

On the seventh crossing, the punt was hit by a wave of water, rocked from side-to-side, and overturned, throwing the passengers into the water.

Evelyn Pickett, 17, James Bishop, 13, and Cyril Stanley, nine, drowned.

A report in The Oxford Times attributed the tragedy to a group of excitable children, who stood up when the wave struck and made the boat unsteady.

However, Amos George, the Charlbury bootmaker, in an eye-witness account written on his 90th birthday in 1976, gave a different version.

He wrote: "There were too many on the boat. Also one very heavy person moved while it was halfway across, upsetting the balance and tipping all the people out."

He had taken the punt out earlier in the day, and said the water had been high.

Mr Amos revealed that after the punt capsized, he pulled three children out of the river with a punt pole.

A copy of his account has been sent in by Terry Pratley, of School Road, Finstock, a distant relative of the George family.

Mr Pratley tells me: "Several witnesses recall the tragedy being caused by a large lady', a local butcher's secretary, upsetting the balance of the punt.

"However, a picture I have seen of an earlier crossing on the same day shows a punt with at least 12 people aboard, five of them adults.

"The top of the punt is only millimetres above the surface of the river - horrendously dangerous."

4:09pm Tuesday 15th July 2008

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