The Ferryman(Ken DaSilva-Hill) The Ferry Man.
Harty ferry, Kent, England.

Some years ago, I and a friend, walked the coastal path around east Kent. This is a desolate place on the Thames Estuary, and much of it is a wildlife preserve where many different species of birds and mammals can be seen in their natural habitat. Part of this path skirts the Swale, a tideway which separates the Isle of Sheppy, the old English name for Sheep Island, from the mainland around the town of Faversham, Kent. Faversham was once an important sea port, but is now only served by a drying creek, and which is used mainly by local sailing enthusiasts.
Faversham made its fortunes from both the sea trade, but more importantly, smuggling, a semi criminal craft carried on over about three hundred years, and which, as likely as not, is still carried on to this present day.
The area known as Oare, is an expanse of wild land reaching from the town down to the Swale, now the haunt of the bird watching community, who use the long narrow and twisting lane as their base for photography across the wetlands. This lane is otherwise little used, as nowadays it leads to nowhere, and at a Hard, Harty Ferry, disappears under the muddy waters of the Swale, at low tide it carries on for about two hundred yards, weed covered and muddy. This point is called Harty Ferry, and in past times was the only access to the Island. Just along the lane, back towards Faversham from the Swale, there is a freshwater spring, said to be the best and freshest water to be found in Kent. The water that you drink from this spring today, fell as rain upon the higher regions of the Kent chalk ridges six thousand years ago, being very slowly filtered through sand, clay and chalk until emerging from the ground close to Harty Ferry, and is used by local folk and boat enthusiasts as a supply of quality fresh water, free for anyone to take at any time - we use it ourselves, collecting it frequently, it is delicious, and of course, completely natural.
The ferry at Harty, has not run since WW2, although there was an attempt to revive it using hovercraft, back in the 1970’s. The owner of The Ferry Inn on the Island, which is close to the Swale, also owns the right to operate the ferry, but this is no longer an economic possibility, as a modern bridge now spans the Swale, about a mile away from the ferry.
Sheppy is a popular place for holiday makers, and during the season the number of these are very much in excess of the local population, and also there is a very secure prison on the island. Leysdown, a coastal village, is surrounded by caravan parks and amusement arcades - the locals call it ‘Dodge City’, and it does get a little wild at times!
So now the scene is set, quiet and middle class Faversham on one side, and the less respectable holiday isle on the other.
I know this area very well, as back in my childhood I learnt to water ski on the Swale, and we launched our boat, a Fletcher Arrow ski boat, from Harty Ferry, as it was stored on the Island for us by a friend. As kids we roamed far and wide, built rafts, caught crabs and fish, and had impromptu barbecue’s on the foreshore, after swimming in the muddy waters or the nearby lake. Fairly recently I almost bought a house there, a lovely place with almost a circular view of the sea. Having to go back and forth across the bridge put us off of the purchase.
Until quite recently explosives were manufactured in this lonely spot close to the Swale, and the old gunpowder mill close by, is now open as a museum. In 1916, an accident at the guncotton works at Harty took the lives of 108 workers, as the whole complex was instantly destroyed, only the concrete foundations of the buildings remain to be seen, the rest was obliterated. The bodies, largely unidentifiable, were buried in the local churchyard. The explosion was so loud, it could be heard both in France, and the Netherlands!

Yes, - Harty Ferry is a haunted place.

To walk the lonely lane to the spring is an experience in itself, the wind whistles across the marsh and is the only sound apart from the calls of a dozen different species of birds. Even on a bright summers day, there is a gloom about the place, shadows falling between the hedges bringing a chill to one’s legs as you stroll towards the water, unseen apart from maybe the peak of a sail in the distance, signalling the confined waters ahead.
And these waters are confined, being only a couple of hundred yards wide at low tide, and about a third of a mile at high.
As the tide falls, swatchways appear in the mud, narrow meandering channels of deeper water, navigable by a shallow draught small boat, and great fun to follow, desperately trying not to run aground on the mud and shingle. I, like many others, take a long stick with me when sailing here, to use as a depth finder as I voyage along. Occasionally one goes aground on the falling tide, so a book and thermos of coffee usually accompanies me on these solo passages, it will often be four hours or so before there is enough water to float the dinghy again, so that I can push off home. But it is peaceful, just reading a good book, in a small stranded boat, beneath the wide blue skies of Kent, wedged fast within a desert of mud, too deep to wade through, as the gulls circle above, and a world of worries disappear.

My friend and I reached the ferry as darkness took a hold, and decided it was time for a drink, so we sat on the small parapet around the spring, and opened our sandwiches and bottled beers. The rippling water behind us, as the water tipped merrily into the ancient brick basin, was like a gentle melody as it then gurgled away into the marsh, through the high reeds and dense bushes. It had been a long walk, and the bridge was still a mile away, so we rested awhile and gently dozed from the effects of the day and the pleasant taste of the warm Moretti beer. When I awake I looked at my watch, we had both dozed of for a couple of hours, and still had a way to go, it was now quarter to eleven, but the air was still warm from the summer day. I gently woke my friend ( I shall not name him, he was very well known internationally, but has now sadly, passed away ), who stretched and rubbed his eyes, “We better move on, it will be half an hour to the bridge, then another three quarters until we arrive” he said, as he picked up the bottles and sandwich wrappings, and put them into a nearby bin.
“ Youse lookin to crossing to Sheppy,” a voice intoned from the darkness, “Ye cum along a me” it said, “I is just abaht to move the ferry across, fer t’night”, it continued in a broad Kentish accent, obviously a true ‘Man of Kent’ of the old style.
“Still running” I said, “ and so late at night too!”
From out of the darkness beyond the hedge, a gloomy face appeared, above a collarless shirt neck and beneath an old Breton style sailors cap, his clothes were dark and shadowed in the moonlight, but his seaman’s boots shimmered with wet mud.
“Oh aye” he mumbled, “ Last crossing, eavry eve when tide is up unner a good moon”.
He strode ahead, slightly stooped, I guessed he was about five and a half foot tall, and from his grizzled features around sixty odd years old.
“ Come along gentleman, boat won’t wait” he murmured .
Floating by the Hard was a smallish boat, to me it looked like a local oyster boat, but stripped out after the foredeck and without its mast, a few old worn sacks of straw hung along the gunnel as makeshift fenders, and rudimentary thwarts had been fitted as seats. The mooring chain was thick with weed and the painter looked well past being useful in an emergency.
The ferryman sat on the third thwart, and we took up the stern. He reached back a let off the painter pulling the wet and glistening cordage back into the boat behind him as it slipped the mooring ring, he had obviously done this many times before, certainly a competent seaman. He spread the oars, very long ash sweeps almost two thirds of the length of the boat, and we started away. As he turned the boat into the stream, he waved to the shore, and his wave was returned by a number of small shadowy figures who had appeared from somewhere on the Hard. I found myself waving too, but my friend only stared out at the blackness of the marsh, he made no movement or comment.
Our ferryman stroked his way into the stream heading in a broad curve upstream, as the force of the tide took the boat. I guess that he rowed for about a mile, all the while the tide carrying the boat backwards against his efforts. I have done this many times myself, in order to land at a desired spot, working hard against the tideway as it tries to carry you away from your destination.
The ferryman paused for a moment to light his pipe, an old clay type with a small delicate bowl, striking a red tipped match on the iron crutch which held the oar. He had taken both the pipe and match from under his cap, quite obviously as he had often done before, hundreds of times, I thought.
The glow from the pipe bowl lit up his eyes beneath the peak of the cap, they glowed mysteriously red but with a vacant stare as he took up the sweeps again, and rowed on. In the bilges of the boat, water dribbled about as he carefully navigated across the Swale, and I noticed a particular carving of a number 7745, on one of the top planks of the keelson, with a distinctive star at both ends of the number.
The night had now turned chilly, and I pulled up my collar to protect my neck. My companion seemed to have dozed off again, and his head was resting on my shoulder, as our craft headed into the tide on its slow trip to the other side.
Suddenly the whole boat shook, and I found myself waking from a slight slumber. The ferryman was standing up above me, the coils of the painter rope dangling from his hands like a hangman’s noose, as he stepped onto the thwart and ashore onto the hard. I awoke my friend and we scrambled ashore, making sure that we had everything with us. “Ferry Inn shall be closed fer night by now” said the ferryman, “ Ye best walk up lane, and stay in the barn till morning” he carried on.
“Yes, we may well have to do that” I said, “Our place will be closed up now, even though they were expecting us, how much do we owe you”.
The ferryman stared at me, and for the first time I saw the raised scars on his neck, probably from fighting in the First World War, I reasoned with myself.
“Oh that be nuthin, sir” he replied, “A pleasure to see a gentlmun agin, pay me when’s we meet agin”.
My friend, always generous, had taken a fiver out of his wallet and thrust it into the old seaman’s hand, but it was not taken. The ferryman turned his back on us and silently tied up his boat. He sat on the gunnel, relit his pipe, after stuffing it with tobacco from his cap, and stared out across the Swale to the faint sky glow of the lights of Faversham beyond.
It was as though we no longer existed for him.

We made our way to the barn, only to find it a wreck, but managed to shelter from the rising wind and a gentle shower until daylight, when we continued our walk to the old coastguard house were we were to stay for a couple of days. We spent the time on aviation research, as Sheppy has a right to call itself the earliest aircraft development centre in the UK. There is a fine monument to the first experimental flights from the island. We enjoyed the pubs, picked fossils from the beaches and found a fine price of natural mica in the the clay cliffs, but soon it was time to retrace our steps.
We hovered over the question of taking the bridge, but decided that the ferry would be a better choice. We could cross the Swale, and walk the long lane into Faversham, and then, from there, take the train to Canterbury. We wandered over to the Ferry Inn at Harty Ferry, and had a drink before the crossing, we decided to stop there for a meal too, and in conversation with the publican we mentioned our crossing of a few days before, my friend asked particularly about the ferryman, he was determined to give him the fiver, he said.
The publican had a hearty laugh, and going to the wall took down an old sepia photograph, which I judged to be from the late nineteenth century. It showed a young seaman, his clay pipe poking cheekily from the side of his Breton cap, long leather sea boots covered with mud an slime, and sitting on the gunnel of his neat and very tidy oyster boat, the number 7745 very visible, carved into the fore post.
“You can’t pull my leg with that story” he said, “You have obviously been here before and seen my old photos, now, what are you two jokers having to drink”.
Well we had a fine meal, and the pub is a great place - do drop in if you are on the island some time, - but the publican was still thinking that we were pulling his leg.
We asked him more about the ferry, the boat and the ferryman, and this is his story. :-

One night in June, just before the turn of the century, there was a violent storm which appeared suddenly across the Swale and Oare marshes. At the time the ferry was operating as normal, and as the storm struck at full force, the small boat was carrying children home from the village school, along with their school mistress. There was nothing that could be done, as the children panicked and, trying to keep dry from the surging waves, went to the leeward side of the boat. The ferryman tried to get some order in the boat, but it was too late, the boat was unbalanced and took in water to the extent that it fully capsized. All of the children, and the school mistress were lost, drowned in the cold muddy waters of the Swale, their bodies only recovered three days later, washed up on the beach at Whitstable.
The ferryman survived, and later managed to salvage the boat, but from that time on his heart was no longer in the job of ferryman. He carried on into the twentieth century, but eventually had had just too much to cope with.
He hung himself from the pier at Harty Ferry, with the painter from his boat, its number, 7745, late on the night of June the eighteenth. The boat remained for a few years, being still used as a ferry by others, but in another storm, and whilst moored, just off of the opposite bank, it finally sank. Its timbers can still be seen rising from the mud at low tide today.

So were we were ferried by the ghost of the ferryman?

I firmly believe so, as we certainly did not swim across the Swale that night in June.
Before we left, we threw a fiver into the water, in memory of those who had lost their lives, and watched for a while, as the paper banknote slowly drifted away towards the open sea.

Sadly my friend, the only person who could collaborate my story, let’s call him Dean, has passed away, and I sincerely hope, that in a better place, he will meet once again, and finally pay, - the ferryman!

If you should travel to Harty Ferry, please toss a small coin into the waters of the Swale for me, and wish for your own luck.
And, if by chance you are there on the night of the eighteenth of June, at around eleven PM, and by the still flowing and gurgling spring, then please pass my regards on to the ferryman himself, - he will do you no harm.

Copyright - Ken DaSilva-Hill. 2024
No reproduction in any media
without specific permission.
All rights reserved.

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