Thanks for the memories of days by bridge

WHAT a pleasant surprise to see the archive photograph of Boothferry Bridge (Yorkshire Post, April 21). It brought back many memories for me.

When my parents were “courting”, my father lived on the Howden side of the river. My mother, who was in service at a farm there, used to go to visit her family at Goole on the other side of the river on her day off.

My father would take her to the ferry at Booth on his motorbike and meet her there when she came back in the evening. They married in 1929, the year Boothferry Bridge opened.

Until the M62 was built, the road over the bridge took all the traffic through to Hull, Beverley and the East Coast and back.

Living on the Howden side of the river, it was a regular Sunday afternoon or evening walk up the main road to Boothferry Bridge; partly to watch all the traffic, and also to have an ice cream at Kemp’s café there, which was a popular meeting place for local teenagers from both sides of the river. And then going over to Goole on the school bus, a cheer would go up if the bridge was closed to traffic and we had to join a tail-back of cars and lorries. It meant that we might be waiting for quite a while so we had a good reason for being late for school.

The bus driver would let us get out and stand at the side to watch the bridge swing open so that boats could go through and then hoot his horn to tell us to get back in once the bridge swung shut again. What would Health and Safety make of that now, I wonder!

I would certainly be rich if I had sixpence (2.5p) for every time I have crossed Boothferry Bridge walking, cycling, on a bus, or by car.

And on the rare occasions when I drive over it now and look across to the little group of houses at Booth where the ferry used to be, it is good to stop for a moment and realise how important the bridge was when it was built.

So – thank you for the photograph. I’m sure it will bring similar memories for other readers too.