Potter Heigham is a small village in Norfolk, not far from
Hickling Broad. In the winter before the battle of Waterloo in 1815, a drummer
boy, home on leave, fell in love with a girl from the village.
Though she returned his love, her father refused to accept a
soldier as a son-in-law and the two were compelled to meet secretly at a place called
Swim Coots, close to the Broad. Every evening the drummer boy would skate
across the ice-covered Broad to meet her, but one night the ice gave way and he
fell into the Broad and drowned.
However, his ghost still skated across the ice to meet his
sweetheart. It is said that, at 7 o’clock on a misty February evening, the role
of a drum can be heard across the Broad as the phantom skater appears through
the gloom, beating a tattoo as he tries to summon his long lost love.
© John Welford
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