Today's TV News tells of a baby being rescued from the water at Watchet, Somerset, when its push chair was blown into the harbour with him still in it.
Over 70 years ago another push chair fell into the same harbour at almost exactly the same point on West Pier. It was mine! Fortunately I was not in it - or otherwise I must not be here to write on this blog. I had reached the toddling stage and as my mother rushed to grab me as I suddenly started to totter towards the harbour edge the pushchair vanished over the edge and into the water.
The above picture was taken by a local photographer called Bert Hole in about 1910 and the West Pier (where both the accidents happened) is on the far side of the harbour. The picture is of interest to me because when Bert Hole died my father took over the shop from his widow in 1939. He did not continue the photographic side of the business and I gather a large storeroom full of photographic plates was carted away as rubbish. This rubbish possibly included the original negative slide from which this picture was taken.
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