Boats - 5

After my father retired to Hastings he joined the local fishermen's association, I suppose justifying his membership by saying he came from a distinguished Norfolk fishing family. Through him, I was occasionally invited to join the crew on this fishing boat, RX134, the Stacey Marie, more for my benefit as I was pretty useless at helping with the work. She was a trammel netter, leaving out overnight a long net, like a curtain, with floats along the top and weights along the bottom. They caught a wide variety of fish, of which dover sole seemed to be the most sought-after, but it was hard, wet, cold and, at times, dispiriting work. The Stacey Marie is now a museum piece.

When my parents came out in 1970 to visit us at Bernard Mizeki College in Rhodesia the one expedition we made was a day trip from Salisbury, the then capital, to the Victoria Falls, where we took this pleasure boat on a trip above the falls. 

Over the years I've travelled on various ferries including Dover to Calais several times, and Harwich to Hook of Holland, but the ferries which I most used were....

....those on the west coast of Scotland where ferries are essential in connecting the Highlands and Islands. Where we lived on Ardnamurchan we depended on two ferries - this boat, the Raasay, was one of several small ferries which, over the years, plied between Kilchoan and Tobermory on Mull, and the Corran ferry which connected Ardnamurchan to the A82 and Fort William.

We also enjoyed trips out on pleasure craft such as this boat, on which we spent a day at the Treshnish Islands off western Mull, the highlight, for me, being the puffins.

In my time in Kilchoan I spent thirteen years as a member of Her Majesty's Coastguard, and this resulted in some interesting trips. This is the Tobermory lifeboat in which we enjoyed a 'jolly' around the Sound of Mull. I shall never forget the sheer power of this boat's engines.

In those years HM Coastguard maintained an emergency tug based at Stornoway. Her task was to prevent ships being smashed to pieces on the vicious rocks along the coastline, with the resulting pollution. Shipwrecks were not uncommon: in our twenty-one years there we saw three cargo ships ashore, including one, the Lysblink Seaways, immediately in front of Kilchoan.

I had a trip on one of these tugs when the Kilchoan team was invited to a Coastguard open day at Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis. What impressed me, not favourably, was the variety of nationalities amongst the crew, some of whom appeared to speak precious little English.