From George Parsonage
There is no doubt that boatmen were different in ancient Greece (10 February, p 46). The ancient Greeks rowed hours, days, weeks, months, years, doing nothing else during their waking hours but rowing. Our modern-day sportsmen and women would be hard pushed to stay shoulder-to-shoulder with these lads.
My father, Ben Parsonage, was the last of the river Clyde boatmen/watermen. Without using outboard motors, he could easily row as far as 30 kilometres downriver with a 20-stone (130-kilogram) man sitting at the back of the boat and, after a day of work on the river, row back. He could row upriver against currents I have never been able to overcome, to places I have never been able to reach and in times I have never been able to match. At the age of 75 he could still row faster than I could, even though at the young age of 63 I am still the fastest fixed-seat sculler in Scotland. He was 5 feet 1 inch (1.55 metres) tall and weighed only 65 kilograms.
Glasgow, UK
