  Houseboats.
Now, be honest, what is your instant reaction to the word?
Delight? Distaste? My own subliminal response is certainly a rosy glow of
romance even though a lifetime’s knowledge of the reality should teach me
a more mixed lesson. Almost needless to say that positive response was
engrained in my subconscious at an early age and like so many other early
impressions it needs a lot of later negative experience to shift it. But I
did have a fairly powerful double dose as a youth, the books backed up by
some reality. The books were the usual adventure stories where interesting
villains and eccentric heroes lived on houseboats, followed up by the
serious literary delights of Peggotty’s beach boat in David Copperfield
(whence the title above) to the Thames houseboat of Gully Jimson in the
Horses Mouth (also a great film if you can ever get to see it again).
The
reality backing up the imaginative world was a few miles away in Shoreham
Harbour, a fleet of assorted houseboats that lined the southern bank of
the River Adur, some of them seeming impossibly large for the shallow
ditches and creeks that they inhabited on the mud flats. They were part of
a rather surreal landscape just after the war, staring seaward over a
blank beach that had been cleared of anything that might have helped an
invading enemy. But the development of Shoreham Beach as a desirable if
rather bohemian place to live was under way and by the time I was a
student in the late 1950s the Shoreham houseboats were certainly a haven
for a number of odd free spirits, and a very tempting place to be
associated with. In fact in one of my madder moments I considered buying
an old Thames barge to live on for £60. The fact that it was sunk, and had
been for some time didn’t seem to dampen my youthful optimism, and I think
it was simply the lack of such a huge amount of money that saved me from
disaster and early rheumatism. The barge was broken up shortly afterwards.
 Family
business has taken me back to Shoreham several times recently and a chance
to imbibe the magic again. Happily the houseboats are still there,
although reduced in number after some serious unpleasantness with the
local council, egged on by new incoming house owners in the 1980s. But the
situation has now stabilised and the existing houseboat owners have been
allowed to replace some of the older boats with new craft, or rather with
more old craft but new to Shoreham. This has gradually led to the creation
of an extraordinary collection of historic craft in one unexpected place.
Some of the very old ones from before the Second World War are still
there, a schooner, tugs and a steam yacht, and an old torpedo boat from
1922 that skimmed over the water at 36 knots! But many of the wooden Gun
Boats and M.T.B.s that formed the majority of the fleet in my youth are
going the way of all old ships and are being replaced with an eclectic mix
of craft, mainly steel, from all over the place. There are lighters and
barges from Southampton and the Thames, and a couple of Dutch boats. There
is a Yorkshire barge called the Tom Newbound that arrived after spending
many years on the Thames, but most extraordinary of all, from my point of
view, is the Guidance.
 In
1972 in company with Edward Paget-Tomlinson I went to Goole to look at the
Mayday, allegedly the last wooden sailing Yorkshire keel in existence,
with a view to bringing it in to the collection of what would become the
Boat Museum at Ellesmere Port. Sadly we decided it was far beyond our
resources and she too was broken up. Thirty years later I am amazed and
delighted to find the Guidance at Shoreham, afloat and really looking
quite well. She is a wooden Humber keel at least 100 years old and was
owned and sailed by Fred Schofield of Humber Keels and Keelmen fame in the
1930s.(pub. Terence Dalton 1988) True, she does now look something like a
kid’s picture book version of Noah’s Ark, but that roof has protected her
and I truly think she might be carrying a valuable cargo of knowledge into
the future. What an amazing survivor.
If you can find a reason to be near Shoreham do make an effort to find the
houseboats. Just ask for the footbridge in Old Shoreham and there they are
stretching away to the west. If you can choose a high spring tide and a
sunny day it’s even better. There is also a book about them recently
published by the World Ship Society, Small Craft Group. It is called
Retired On The River by Philip Simons & Nick Hall, and is available from
Philip Simons at 25 Greenways, Highlands Road, Portslade, Brighton, BN41
2BS. I think it is £10 but send him a postcard first. More on houseboats
next month. |
