Fifty years ago, seven-year-old Imogen Varley's life was saved by an unkown schoolboy... With her mother away for a weekend, and her father taking little interest in keeping an eye on the children, Imogen Varley, her older sister and friend, went to play on the bridge over a canal near Wolvercote in Oxfordshire. It was one of those bridges with weights to help raise and lower it. The girls, having removed the weights, tried to raise and lower the bridge using their own body weight. Imogen was far to light, and was suddenly jolted into the water some way below, "I was sure quite quickly that I was going to drown." Imogen couldn't swim but kept very calm, "I just waited to drown." She's no idea why she didn't thrash about, and admits she's as much of a panicker as the next person.
Imogen's sister and her friend were screaming on the bank when help arrived from an unexpected quarter. A schoolboy on a cross-country run saw what had happened, stripped off his track suit, and jumped in. "He dragged me to the side, but couldn't get out - the water was too low down. He took quite a risk."
Someone else had seen what had happened. An RAC motorcyclist had stopped by the road for a break and saw Imogen fall in. He made his way across the field in time to pull both the boy and Imogen out of the canal, "He wrapped me up in his big RAC Airforce Blue greatcoat, and took me to the nearest house to telephone for my father to pick me up."
Whilst all this was going on, the schoolboy disappeared. No-one knew who he was. The only clue they had were school colours on the boy's tracksuit. Imogen's parents rang the school, but the headmaster had no idea who it could be. "In assembly, the headmaster announced to the whole school that a brave boy had saved a child's life and would he come forward so the parents could thank him. And he did! It was very like a schoolgirl story," recalls Imogen.
The next weekend, the boy came to tea 'to be thanked'. "I remember the huge dining room table and all of us sitting round it. I was so embarrassed, I never said a word, I never looked at him and I certainly never said thank you!" says Imogen. "It's strange to have someone of great significance in my life, and not know him at all! As a child you don't realise how big a thing it is for someone to risk their life for yours. I have a photo of him, and his name, but I've never met him since then. I'd like to. I feel I've never said thank you."
