A CARDIGAN lobster fisherman who plucked a young boy to safety from the mouth of the River Teifi has told how he watched a fast, incoming tide sweep the frightened youngster past him "like a train".

Aaron Walters leapt into a dinghy and pursued the helpless schoolboy for around 400 metres upstream before hauling him to safety close to the Webley Hotel on Wednesday evening.

Drama had unfolded in the Teifi estuary when the lad was one of two youngsters who got into difficulties.

The boys – aged between 10 and 11 - were caught by the tide as they tried to swim on bodyboards from Patch to Poppit.

The plight of the pair was spotted by Aaron and his crewman Wayne Jones as they headed for shore following a day’s fishing aboard Glas y Dorlan.

Although one boy managed to struggle into the shallows off Poppit, the other – who had fallen off his board - was swept upstream by the tidal surge.

“We were on our way in when we spotted these two young boys messing about on bodyboards near the spit off Patch,” Aaron, 24, told the Cambrian News.

“I remember saying that if they didn’t watch the tide they’d find themselves up in St Dogmaels before they knew it.

“Wayne and I had barely gone another 100 yards when we saw that the tide had got them as they tried to swim across to Poppit.

“One had managed to get to Poppit, but we saw the other going past us like a train so I jumped into the dinghy and went off after him.

“When I eventually caught up with him by the Webley I said: ‘Fancy a lift, mate?’ He grabbed hold of the boat and I pulled him aboard.

“Then I went over to get his friend who had luckily made it to a backwater off Poppit.

“I then took them both back to Patch where their parents were waiting. At least I assume they were their parents – whoever they were they gave those two a right rollicking.

“The boys clearly hadn’t been around here before and didn’t know anything about the tides.”