HICKLING BROAD Potter Higham, Norfolk In summer the picturesque waters of Hickling Broad are a congested tangle of every conceivable type of sailing vessel. But when the chill of winter has turned the rippling waters to ice, and a keen wind howls through the dark days and nights, the rhythmic tattoo of a distant drum is sometimes heard beating from the depths of the frozen Broad, as the phantom drummer sets out on his eternal search for his long-lost love. But one cold February night as the girl listened to the sound of the drum the marked his approach, the beat suddenly ceased. The ice had given way and sent him plunging to his death in the cold depths of the freezing waterIn the winter prior to the “Battle of Waterloo” a poor drummer boy met and fell in love with the daughter of a rich and influential man of the neighbourhood. She reciprocated his advances but her father frowned upon the relationship and forbade her to see the young man. Ignoring her father’s wishes the girl would sneak out each evening and make her way to a small hut on the edge of “Hickling Broad” where he soldier-love would skate across the frozen waters to join her, sounding his approach by playing a rhythmic tattoo upon his kettle drum And so it is that as darkness rolls across “Heckling Broad” on cold and misty February evenings the phantom drummer still beats his mournful tattoo, as his shivering spectre skates from the gloom to search for the girl whose heart was his, but whose spirit he lost long, long ago.
Posted on: Sun, 23 Jun 2013 21:28:19 +0000
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