The Merciless Strid - Deadliest Body of Water in the World. 100% Fatal?!

Interesting Pod #1:  “Bloodthirsty River”: The Bolton Strid, The most dangerous body of water on earth - The Bolton Strid, River Wharfe, Bolton Abbey in Yorkshire. “

 

Thalassophobics beware - today we’re talking about one of the scariest bodies of water on Earth! From the book of Genesis until today, floods have been one of humanity's greatest enemies. On August 15, 1998, Barry and Lynn Collett were married at Long Sutton Church near Hampshire, UK, before spending their wedding night at a hotel in Maiden's Green, Berkshire, and travelling north on Sunday. 

 

By all accounts, the couple were sensible, fine people who loved each other greatly, but I can’t help but think their wedding day was marred by one of the worst United Kingdom terror incidents that happened in the twentieth century. You see, the day the Colletts were married was the same day the Real IRA a provisional splinter group of the I.R.A. (Irish Republican Army) set off a massive bomb in Omaugh (Owe-Muh), Northern Ireland, that killed 29 and injured 220. It was the deadliest Northern Ireland incident of the Troubles, and it happened because the Real IRA, who were not, in fact, the Real IRA, but just called themselves that, opposed the IRA's ceasefire and the Good Friday Agreement, signed earlier in the year. They were against peace.

So I imagine that the Collett’s had mixed feelings in August as they drove towards the Bolton Abbey area of North Yorkshire, wondering if the bomb might be an omen, or a harbinger of something worse to come. Barry was a computer guy and his new wife Lynn a student nurse…good people. They got married on a Saturday, and by Sunday night, they were near Bolton Abbey, staying in a holiday cottage in Appletreewick, a tiny village of 200 on the shores of the River Wharfe. That Sunday night, they likely huddled up in that cottage as a fierce rain storm beat down, swelling the River Wharfe to dangerous levels. Monday the 17th, the rain abated for a bit, and Barry and Lynn decided to go for a walk by the river, not overly familiar with the area, and apparently not aware of the dangers of the Strid, a stretch of river that many today call a “drowning machine.” 

 

U.K. Officers believed the couple went into the water slightly north of Bardon Bridge near stepping stones after setting off from their honeymoon cottage at Appletreewick on Monday. They just wanted to have a bit of a nature walk and stretch their legs after a long drive, and being cooped up in their cottage during the rain. Totally understandable. Unfortunately, they were never seen alive again. 

 

A local, Desmond Thomas, of Pembroke Dock was walking near the river that fateful Monday with his family and said: "The level, speed, and turbulence of the water looked like flood water. It rose a matter of feet in seconds.” He also apparently saw Mr. Collett, caught in the deadly current of the Strid, rush past him in a blur. "I went to the water's edge and just as I got there I saw a man's body, who I now know to be Barry, pop out of the water.

"The face popped up towards me and within a matter of seconds it disappeared." Terrifying and heart-wrenching. 

 

What happened? Many people over the years have tried to jump across the Strid. Certainly, it’s doable - only about 6.5 feet wide in some places, but on this particular Monday, that would have been even more ill-advised than normal. The River bailiff for that stretch of the Strid - if you’re American, think of a Game Warden - was Charles Hoyle. He found Mrs Collett's jacket in the water the Tuesday after she disappeared, and he said that on the Monday the couple was lost, he personally witnessed the river rise five feet in less than 60 seconds because of the rain from the night before. This was something he said he had only seen happen about six times before.

 

ELEVEN LABS Superintendent Parker of the local Constabulary said, "They were a sensible couple. We do not believe they tried to jump the Strid - the water was very high and we have no reason to think they would do anything like that," We don’t know exactly what happened. We don’t know precisely how the Strid claimed those two lovely honeymooners, but it did. Somehow, someway, Barry and Lynn just got too close to what may well be the most dangerous tiny stretch of water in the world. 

 

There were not the first victims of the Strid, and they may 

not have been the 100th or even the 1000th. 

 

In 1875, the Craven Herald and Pioneer reports that two grappling irons - for rescue - were suspended from trees near the Strid so that people who fell in might somehow, someway