Did Lawrence of Arabia canoe through Oxford on an underground stream?

Historian Derek Honey, of Witney, has his doubts, but certainly other readers succeeded.

TE Lawrence claimed that while at Jesus College in 1908, he paddled a canoe along the underground Trill Mill Stream, from Castle Mill Stream in St Ebbe's, under St Aldate's, to emerge in Christ Church Meadow.

Mr Honey wrote (Oxford Mail, October 11): "In the 1930s, the Trill Mill Stream was dredged and a Victorian punt with three skeletons on board was discovered blocking the stream.

"Its occupants were probably killed by the fumes from the medieval sewer. So Lawrence could not have made the trip in 1908."

But Ray Godfrey, of Meadow Lane, Oxford, remembers making the underground journey twice as an 18-year-old.

The first time, in April 1946, he and four friends set sail on an old sea plane float, bought for £7 from Wally Cleaver's junk yard in Magdalen Road, East Oxford.

After a successful start, they got stuck. With no room in the narrow channel to use their paddles, they had to force the float along with their hands.

Mr Godfrey recalls: "It was quite panicky for a time."

On the second occasion, three months later, he and a friend negotiated the stream in a canoe without incident.

Among others who have made the journey were members of the Civil Defence Youth Club in St Clement's, Oxford, run by Ivy Perkins, known as Mrs P. One member, Alan Trinder, recalled (Memory Lane, March 17, 2003): "My lasting memory of that trip is the number and size of rats we encountered."