Floating about Lyme Bay. Scavenger

became important figures in the infant colony in New England: Bradford Close (William Bradford, governor of the Plymouth colony from 1621); Allerton Close (Isaac Allerton, who became a successful merchant and fell out with the ‘Pilgrims’; John Alden (a cooper who was one of the Mayflower’s crew, but stayed on in New England to become one of the most important figures in the colony. The ‘Alden House’ is now a major heritage site).

Other streets in the suburb recall less successful or more dissolute passengers, however. Four of them died before the end of the first winter in America: John Rigsdale (Rigdale Close); John Langmore (Langmore Close); James Chilton (Chilton Close); John Crackstone (Crackston Close). William Latham (Latham Close) was merely 11 years old when he crossed the Atlantic, but starved to death in the Bahamas some 28 years later. Billington Close has the darkest association, however, in recalling John Billington. By all accounts a serial rogue and a trouble-maker, he had the dubious distinction of being the first English settler in New England to be executed; he was hanged for murder in 1830.

Perhaps a reader can shed light on how this motley set of Mayflower passengers were chosen for memorialisation in a Plymouth suburb?

Clive Charlton

Floating about Lyme Bay

A very busy March, catching up with all the things I agreed to do, confident that they would never happen. One was giving a talk to 72 members of the Arthur Ransome Society. It’s a nervousmaking business, talking to people who knew all twelve of the books by heart and lots more details about him than you do; and resent your analysis getting in the way of their memory of Mummy reading to them at bedtime.

But every cloud ... One of the top Ransome researchers, Ted Alexander, had the misfortune to sit next to me at the Gala supper (now, sadly, only a few in dinner jackets, but a lady was telling me how, some years ago, she had turned up in full ball gown! Infuriatingly, my wife had thoughtfully put my good jacket on the parcel shelf, but, since I only usually use it for marriages (rare) and funerals (sadly, more common), I had left it in a Park and Ride in south Oxford.)

Anyway, Ted had worked his way up to a Master Mariners’ ticket, mainly in the Far East trade shades of Conrad. His progress was slowed by the public school boys, who had a head start because they had learnt navigation at school; and then, when it came to selecting officers, of course, preferred each others’ company. And, like I had heard from Alston Kennerley, by the time he got his Master’s ticket, there was so little of the British merchant fleet left that it was ‘dead men’s shoes’ and it would need a lot of dead men …

After Oxford, I could have gone down to the New Researchers in Maritime History conference in Chatham to hear work in progress from PhD students. But a glance at the programme showed that the organisers had not understood what was needed after COVID, namely to re-unite interested persons and welcome them back after three years. I despair of the British ignorance about group processes. So, the key event should have been a banquet, like the one some years ago in the first class dining room of the SS Great Britain. The programme indicated that only a buffet supper was on offer, and that suggested it would be no better than the glass of cheap red wine offered at the last gathering at Liverpool. It was short-sighted, as the cost of getting to Chatham and a hotel room meant the cost of the conference was relatively secondary. And the

Instead, I headed for a long-term friend in Herne Bay. The pierhead sits out in the Thames, a long way from the stub of the pier. Two sections of the pier had been blown up during World War Two and covered by Bailey bridges, to prevent a German capture. This may have weakened the structure and the bulk of the pier was destroyed by a storm in 1978. In the morning, we walked out to Reculver Towers and Roman Fort. After much of the church was demolished around 1800, the towers were conspicuous objects and were maintained by Trinity House.

The Thames is very wide here and rolls past in a muddy brown stream. It’s so wide that the Kentish Flats wind farms are in the river, not on the shore. Across the river you can see Southend. Up river is the Isle of Sheppey with the Swale entering past Whitstable. And it’s historic in literature. In Great Expectations, Pip encounters Magwitch in the graveyard of St James, Cooling, in the marshes north of Rochester, on the Hoo Peninsula. Conrad in Heart of Darkness imagines the Romans coming ashore here; and Marlow tells the story to his fellow sailors in the Nellie, off Gravesend.

As I stare across the Thames, another memory stirs. On the 8th May, 1984, the Queen opened the new engineering marvel of the Thames Barrage. In order that she should see her loyal citizens cheering and throwing their hats in the air as she pressed the button, Newham Council hired the Woolwich ferry, only to find it could accommodate a great many people. I was instructed to round up as many ex-mental patients and as many educationally disadvantaged persons that we had rescued from the large asylums, who wanted to go. They had to have a suit, which was no problem as they had been issued with these garments in hospital. And off to Silvertown we went. But in order to bulk the numbers further, I’m afraid that we also had to take along a load of social workers. And the problem here was that many of them - the majority - were women, dressed, as per instructions, in fine dresses or skirts.

And this created a problem. The Woolwich ferries had plenty of urinals, but very few ladies’ cubicles. This posed no problem for the flexibly-minded British seamen. They closed one set of urinals and posted a large ‘Ladies Only’ sign; and inside, above each urinal, they hung a rope, which the ladies could grasp. I leave the gymnastics involved to the reader’s imagination.

Easter Saturday: Salcombe to Teignmouth: lovely day, but then the mist came down. The only thing I could see passing Dartmouth was the Mewstone. Pleased to avoid Brixham-bound trawlers going across Torbay.

I know Teignmouth well. When I was doing my part-time M.A., the large amount of reading and essay writing did not go well with the needs of two daughters starting at big school. In a decision I now find a bit strange, I put the academic side first and took the boat up to Dittisham, but when I got back at night, there was not a light on in the village. The very rich second homers had sucked the life out of the place. So I moved up to Teignmouth and lived aboard for two or three days a week during term time. I could dinghy ashore, tie it up and walk to the station in twenty minutes and then stroll up from Exeter St David’s to the university; and work in the library as late as I liked.

I like Teignmouth. I like the fact that it is a working port, exporting ball clay from the Bovey Basin on the River Teign, cruder stuff than the china clay exported out of Fowey; and if you are lucky, you see the pilots manoeuvring the large ships around the ninety degree bend round the spit into

In the afternoon, in poor vis., to the Exe. I listen to the news of the Russian threats of using nuclear weapons. Memory of Cuban missile crisis, October 1962. I decided that, if it happened, I’d watch it from Parliament Hill on Hampstead Heath. The Starcross moorings are just beautiful at night. Once the jet skiers have gone home, peace descends, broken only by the sound of the trains, a few hundred yards away, serving the West Country, but that is a comforting sound, and gradually, as the light fades, across the wide expanse of the river, the long string of lights of Exmouth promenade light up.

Saturday: I peruse the June Practical Boat Owner while taking my morning coffee in the cockpit. The last Southampton Boat Show was deeply disappointing - no chandlery, no books, no clothes, but I could purchase six months of the Practical Boat Owner for £18. I was dubious but the salesperson chucked in a large bottle of gin, so it made no economic sense to refuse to sign up. It, like the Yachting Monthly, each issue of which used to be the size of a small telephone directory, has shrunk to a pathetic size. It must surely be living on on-line subscriptions? Anyway, under ‘Regional News’, I find that SWMHS stalwart of many a year, Julia Creeke, is quoted talking about the 21st running of the Eddystone Charity Sailing Pursuit, which she founded. The skipper has to name a chosen charity that you will give money to. One year, Julia decided that all the competitors would receive a copy of A New History of Yachting. Problem was the publishers wanted £15 a copy and Julia wasn’t prepared to go above £12. I had to write an e-mail advising that she was an influential figure in these parts and it was inadvisable to cross her … she got her way. Now that was a post-race gala dinner in style, in the shark area of the National Aquarium. I signed sixty copies. Bit nerve-wracking as the sharks kept swimming up to the glass to have a look.

Easter Monday: Exmouth to Salcombe. Came out shortly after high water, so the sandbanks were no problem. Off to starboard lies Teignmouth. When I was studying, I always felt that the spirit of Donald Crowhurst hung over the place. He sailed from there in his catamaran, Teignmouth Electron, in his ill-fated bid to win the Golden Globe in 1968-69. He prepared the boat at Morgan Giles’ boatyard, now a large block of flats. He picked up the new catamaran from an east coast yard far too late, got gale bound in Newhaven; and the last days before he had to leave to meet the October 1, 1968 deadline were total chaos, with simultaneous boat preparations and loading supplies. As a result, he made the decision to finish boat preparation at sea and that was fatal, as he found he had not taken the pumps for the hulls. That meant he correctly decided that he could never risk the Roaring Forties, hence the faking of the log. The workers in the yard thought he wouldn’t get past Dartmouth. Actually, although famous for faking his log, he sailed thousands of miles down to the east coast of South America, so in terms of catamaran development, it was a remarkable voyage. But he was in a race and he had mortgaged his house to take part. (For the best factual account, see The Strange Voyage of Donald Crowhurst, by Nicholas Tomalin and Ron Hall, 1970, a strange combination of authors: Ron Hall was an American poet. Nicholas Tomalin, a journalist, was killed on the Golan Heights, in October, 1973, covering the Arab-Israeli war.)

The story of Crowhurst can be accurately called mythic, as it has inspired films, operas, novels etc. Only the Flying Dutchman and (The Rime of the) Ancyent Marinere, as solitary seamen, have elicited more cultural attention. In one of the years of my studying for a PhD, in 2006, the Dartmoor Film Festival put on a regional first, showing Deep Water, which unlike the film The Mercy, was compiled from actual footage, mainly from Television South West (remember that?),