Student Punt Chauffeur Interview

How do you balance work and punting?

Studying at Ruskin isn’t like Cambridge University. Fortunately, we have a lot of free time so I can pretty much work full time on the punts. I don’t have much to spend on my student lifestyle, so running punting tours has been essential to get me through.

Can you tell us some funny stories about punting?

Punting has a great social scene and the funniest stories generally occur after working hours, of course, they’re not strictly suitable for your blog post.

When you’re punting you see some strange sights. My favourite was someone who had converted a garden bench into a floating beer garden complete with a beer keg.

My first ever professional tour was a hen party. As I was leaving the station I accidentally left one foot on dry land. I did the splits and fell into the drink, much to the amusement of the passengers. Being my first ever tour, I felt compelled not to quit. That was the hardest £17.50 I ever earned.

One time I had a particularly raucous hen party. The bride’s mother who had deliberately sat in front of me was forcefully encouraging me to undress when she accidentally hit me in an unfortunate place. It was painful but funny. Despite my protests, the entire hen party bailed into the river and some of them couldn’t swim, I reluctantly assisted.

One of my favourite things is when folks get thrown off Magdalene Bridge. It’s a tradition that this should happen on your last day working, Of course, that doesn’t happen at Scholars Punting Cambridge because of health and safety.