Tenby Boatman

Local men would hire themselves to the gentry for the season
Punt their way across Tenby Bay on long blue summer days
Sugar money old and sweet from trade with the Caribbean
Trickles down to a fishing town gentle months of leisure

I love the boy in the water

He’s just a head bobbing about, a harbour kid out swimming
To the diving board at Goskar Rock around St Catherine’s Island
Pull your straw hats on we’ll take a ride by the little fortress of fishes
The long ‘un takes you where you want, he knows the currents

I love the boy in the water

At the end of a narrow moonlit street under the bright horizon
Leave your prayers in a lobster pot in the chapel of St Julian
Someone washed up on the beach by the arches of the harbour
Let’s take a peep, that’s where they keep the bodies of the drowned

I love the boy in the water

Father come and rescue me pull me from the deep
Chilled to the bone all alone drifting now to sleep
My sister she swam back to shore over the waves she brought you
A hot cup of tea milk and two lumps, remember the boy in the water

I love the boy in the water
I love the boy in the water