When the association shared the news that Rajan Pillai had died, the letters started arriving within the hour. Most of them began the same way: with the time. Half past five. A quarter to six. The boathouse doors, the cold, and Mr Pillai already on the landing stage with a flask.
He taught physics at Riverside for thirty-four years and coached the college crews for all of them. He built half the original boat racks himself. He could name every boat he had ever sent down the river, and every rower in it.
With his family's blessing, the bench by the slipway now carries his name. The rowing club has asked that anyone who would like to remember him does so the way he would have wanted: by coming down to the river early one morning and watching the crews go out.
