Regarding the Bridge falling down in 1968,in 1964 ,I and a great fisherman, the late JRR Pile who had three trawlers at the outbreak of war ,and three sand barges in 1964 ,took one of the fishing trawlers down through the first arch on the western side of the Bridge and noticed a crack right down the middle of the arch. - then in 1968 the Bridge collapsed. The arches did not collapse because of scouring or freezing water expanding, but by traffic lights on the western side. Lorries over 40 tons thundered over the Bridge when the lights were green. . But as the lights changed to amber and then red the lorries had to brake hard and this meant they were pushing the top of the Bridge forward all the time. This was the real reason for the Bridge collapsing.
When they closed the Bridge there was no way across the river ,so we launched our three salmon boats, I and my brothers Michael and Tony. We started to ferry people across in their hundreds - doctors ,nurses people to do their shopping , and school children- we worked for nothing They then decided to bring in some army 'ducks.' They started at the slip way where the new slip way is now at East the Water. But all to no avail as the army 'ducks' got stuck in the mud.
Then they built a scaffold walkway down across the mud , east side ,where the goods station used to be. This worked quite well . As the tides came in and out ,a lot of boats came from Appledore to help with the ferrying . Later,a walkway was constructed ,across to the top end of the Quay.
The Times newspaper came down from London and printed in the paper that we were using Seagull outboard motors- then the Seagull company sent down hundreds of spares for our outboard motors
DS Barnes
Below photos from Mr Barnes' photo archive (More Bridge memories next month...)
